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WASHINGTON, D.C., November 16, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Rep. Steve Scalise, R-IA, a survivor of a 2017 murder attempt by a left-wing activist, has been re-elected to his role as GOP whip in the House of Representatives.
Scalise was approved Wednesday alongside Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California for House Minority Leader, the Associated Press reports. The party whip is responsible for marshaling support for a party’s legislative priorities.
Scalise, a pro-life lawmaker who pledged to “completely gut Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood” in the wake of President Donald Trump’s 2016 election, was critically injured in June 2017 when 66-year-old James Hodgkinson opened fire on a practice session for a congressional baseball game. Hodgkinson, a supporter of socialist Bernie Sanders with a history of anti-GOP social media postings, was killed in a shootout with police.
Four people were injured, but nobody other than Hodgkinson died. Scalise required intensive treatment for his injuries, and did not return to Congress until October 2017.
“My legs stop working. It’s not pain exactly, and I don’t know that the reason I’m falling is because my whole foundation has imploded. I feel instead like the wiring that connects my brain to my legs has been unplugged. I fall,” Scalise wrote Wednesday in a piece detailing his experience. “Now I’m on my hands in the dirt, facing the outfield. I don’t know why I’m facing the outfield, when I was just facing the other way. I don’t know that the force with which the bullet hit me has spun me almost all the way around.”
“With my face in the dirt, grass and dew filling my nostrils, I begin to pray,” he continued, describing thoughts of his daughter’s wedding day in the future. “I feel a twist in my gut, and now I know what I need to pray for. Please God, I pray, don’t let Madison walk down the aisle alone. Please, she’s daddy’s little girl. Let me be there. Please, just let me be there with her. Please God, let me see my family again; let me see Jen and the kids again.”
It remains to be seen how Scalise and McCarthy will fare advancing the pro-life agenda as a minority party next year. During Trump’s first two years, they and outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan passed legislation to repeal Obamacare, ban late-term abortions, and defund Planned Parenthood, but also passed multiple budgets that continued to finance Planned Parenthood and did not confront Senate GOP leaders for allowing pro-life legislation to die.
Republicans “need to do a better job of letting people know what we stand for,” Scalise said this week. He also claimed McCarthy “knows what he needs to do” going into the next session.