Lawmaker who said he would vote for slavery retracts statement
A Nevada lawmaker who said that he would vote to reinstate slavery if the public wanted it has retracted his statement.
Republican Jim Wheeler was speaking to a crowd in August when he said “If that’s what they wanted, I’d have to hold my nose, I’d have to bite my tongue and they’d probably have to hold a gun to my head, but yeah, if that’s what the citizens of the, if that’s what the constituency wants that elected me, that’s what they elected me for,” he said.
Reached by phone this afternoon, Wheeler now says he would not in actuality vote for anything that would legalize human slavery. Rather, he claimed, he was exaggerating in order to make a point that representing the will of his constituents is important to him. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard if anyone could even fathom believing it,” he said. “I don’t care if every constituent in (Assembly) District 39 wanted slavery, I wouldn’t vote for it. That’s ridiculous.”
Read more at The Las Vegas Sun
The video clip surfaced when an employee at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada tweeted about the remarks. Democratic senators in the state soon noticed and called attention to the instance.
Wheeler says that no one should take his words too literally.
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