Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Billy Long: I didn't care if I was elected; all I cared about was Donald Trump

Billy Long told KOLR Tuesday night that the last thing he was worried about was being re-elected.

"I wasn't concerned about my race at all," Long said. "In fact, I didn't care if I went back. I was concerned about the president of the United States. He puts people on the Supreme Court. No Congressman does that.

"And I said that very vocally in a conference call with Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy and House leadership a few weeks ago. I don't speak up a lot on conference calls, but when I do, I've got something to say."

Long said he was thankful to return to Congress, but "my seat in Congress isn't that important." Taking a swipe at House Republicans who abandoned Trump or did not get behind him, Long added, "My colleagues were all worried about saving their own hides."

10 comments:

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Excellent!! Billy; you are a true Pattiot, and have the interests of the people over your own!

You unselfish attitude will be rewarded someday;
God Bless you
Harvey

Anonymous said...

Billy, you lied to me. You told me with a straight face that you were only going to serve in Congress long enough to qualify for their pension. Well you have qualified, now get the hell out of there.

Anonymous said...

8:43 AM, that's a real "Have you stopped beating your wife?" claim there, do you have any documentation Long ever seriously said anything like that? I wasn't able to find anything using Google for a few minutes.

Anonymous said...

One Missouri member who has promised to term-limit himself: Springfield Rep. Billy Long, who said during his 2010 campaign that he would serve no longer than six terms or 12 years. Watch the video HERE.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/david-catanese/2011/08/martin-wagner-wont-unilaterally-term-limit-038403

I don't know if that is the only statement on term limits that he has made.

Steve Holmes said...

Harvey, you assume Billy is telling the truth. If he didn't care about his job, why did he run again? That should be a little insulting to the people who worked for and voted for him. He is welcome to resign.

Anonymous said...

12:26 PM: You're taking this one set of comments by him a little too literally. He obviously means he didn't care in comparison to the Presidential race and implicitly the Senate as well. Would that more of our Congressmen and Senators have a fraction of his humility, an understanding of their rather small role in the scheme of things.

Anonymous said...

What are you talking about? Minor role you say when they are the very people that can legally send our children to war. In the final analysis, the power to declare war is the greatest control point a government has over it's people.

Harvey Hutchinson said...

Well said,

Trump at point suggested term limits;?ehich I think should happen via a Constitutional Amendment

Anonymous said...

What are you talking about? Minor role you say when they are the very people that can legally send our children to war. In the final analysis, the power to declare war is the greatest control point a government has over it's people.

I suppose I could have been more clear in making the point that any one Congressman has a "rather small role" in things like this, there are after all 435 of them. This was in the context of Long not caring very much about the fate of his own seat in it.

Your point about declaring war suffers a bit since we haven't done so since WWII, and this was explicitly denied to Bush in 2011 because the Congress didn't want to give him that much power. But, yes, in aggregate their role is in theory important, although as of late they've been rubber stamping almost everything Obama has asked for.

Funny how that policy is certain to change now that an Official Republican will replace him....

Anonymous said...

The good news is, the people of Southwest Missouri will not see Billy Long for another two years.