https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republican-state-lawmakers-white-nationalists-rslc-silent_us_5bcd82e4e4b0a8f17eee0a1d?fbclid=IwAR04KCLpunsyrfTK40mkejl2AIphEngehQPCicJHk0xAaTFxmSW7UQWDtXk
"Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King drew national attention last week for elaborating at length on his white nationalist views in a far-right Austrian propaganda outlet. But in state legislatures across the country, GOP lawmakers’ embrace of openly racist or extremist figures, organizations and views often goes unnoticed. And even when it has been exposed in recent years, a Washington-based group that helps elect Republicans to state legislatures says nothing. The Republican State Leadership Committee has provided funding to groups backing lawmakers and candidates with extremist and racist ties. It has not, however, publicly denounced any individual lawmakers or candidates, even though several state lawmakers’ extremist ties have been exposed in recent years. In Florida, it emerged in August that Peter Gemma, a white nationalist and supporter of Holocaust denial who once worked for the openly racist Council of Conservative Citizens, hosted a campaign event for Tommy Gregory, an attorney who was elected to the state House of Representatives in a special election. Gregory, apparently not shy about associating with Gemma, touted the “meet and greet” in a Facebook post. He tagged Gemma and Gemma’s wife Catherine. In Tennessee, home to active white nationalist groups, a GOP-controlled panel of state House lawmakers killed a resolution in March urging that law enforcement prosecute “white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups” with the same ardor as other forms of terrorism. It never received a vote on the House floor. In Arizona, state Rep. Bob Thorpe introduced an aggressive new immigration bill in February 2017 that would empower local law enforcement to question undocumented immigrants about their immigration status. The organization behind the bill is the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks far-right organizations, designates FAIR an anti-immigrant hate group in light of the views of founder John Tanton and other leaders."
