GOP harasses family of congresswoman whose son was killed by gun violence

Republicans are going low in a House race in Georgia, harassing the elderly mother-in-law of Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath, whose gun control advocacy following the murder of her son vaulted her to Congress in a historically Republican district in 2018.

The National Republican Congressional Committee — which exists to help elect Republicans to the House — sent a package to McBath’s elderly mother-in-law’s house in Tennessee in an attempt to “troll” McBath over phony residency questions.

McBath says her mother-in-law signed for the unsolicited package.

The NRCC claimed it was McBath’s signature, apparently trying to prove McBath actually lives in Tennessee and is therefore not eligible to represent the 6th Congressional District in Georgia. And it got Fox News, a.k.a. Republican state television, to write up the story as a hit piece, which they can inevitably cite in future attack ads against McBath in 2020.

Of course, the signature (pictured below) is obviously not Rep. McBath’s. McBath says her mother-in-law signed for the unsolicited package. And you can see that it’s signed “M McBath” — “M” being the first initial of McBath’s mother-in-law, Margaret.

A photo of McBath’s signature, pictured below, looks nothing like the signature from the package.

McBath called the NRCC’s trolling the kind of political hijinks that made her want to run for Congress in the first place.

Sadly, the Republicans are pulling my family into false attacks. This is exactly why I ran for office in the first place, because I am tired of politics as usual – and my constituents deserve better. pic.twitter.com/Zpm30laT3G

— Lucy McBath (@lucymcbath) April 10, 2019

“Sadly, the Republicans are pulling my family into false attacks,” McBath said in a statement posted on Twitter. “This is exactly why I ran for office in the first place, because I am tired of politics as usual — and my constituents deserve better.”

McBath is one of the Democratic success stories of 2018.

She defeated GOP Rep. Karen Handel in a suburban Atlanta House seat that has been historically Republican for decades. Her success was in part thanks to her personal story of becoming a gun control activist, after her 17-year-old son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed by a white man who was angry at Davis and his friends for playing music at a Florida gas station.

Angry about her win, Republicans are targeting McBath in 2020 — which is likely to be a rematch with Handel, who announced she’s running again for the seat.

And in order to boost Republican chances in the race, the NRCC is playing a game of immature “gotcha” politics.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.