Ernest Istook
From dKosopedia
Category: Oklahoma Republicans
Ernest James Istook Jr. is the former Republican Representative for the 5th Congressional District of Oklahoma. In 2006 Istook stepped down to run for governor of Oklahoma, but he lost to the incumbent, see Oklahoma gubernatorial election, 2006.
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Background
Istook was born on February 11, 1950 in Ft. Worth, Texas. He was married in 1973 and has 5 children. His education includes a B.A. in Journalism from conservative Southern Baptist Baylor University in 1971 and a J.D. from Oklahoma City University in 1976. (Since it takes only 3 years to get a J.D. what was he doing for the other 3 years after getting his bachelor's degree?) A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon), Istook is a dyed in the wool Christian Rightist. Some photographs show him wearing glasses and others not.
Political career
Istook was a city council member in Warr Acres, Oklahoma from 1982 to 1986 and was a Metropolitan Library Commissioner from 1982 to 1986. He was in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives from 1987 to 1993 and was then elected to Congress in 1993.
He is or was a member of both the Emergency Committee to Defeat Al Gore and the Emergency Committee to Stop Hillary Rodham Clinton. (If conservative Republicans were more familiar with life's real emergencies, like the one's encountered by EMTs or Emergency Room doctors, then they'd be ashamed to give their campaign organizations such hysterical sounding names.)
Big Brother
In Fall 2004 Representative Istook was offended by print advertisements in Washington's Metro system advocating that the governemnt "Legalize and Tax Marijuana." So he had legislation drafted to ban such speech not only from Washignton Metro buses, trains, and stations but from every mass transit system in the United States that receives federal funds. Istook's Orwellian law became Section 177 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004. Four days after the law took effect the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) turned down an advertisement from the Drug Policy Alliance, Change the Climate, the Marijuana Policy Project and the American Civil Liberties Union stating that "Marijuana Laws Waste Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to Lock Up Non-Violent Americans."
External Links
- Official House website
- Istook on Drugs
- Jacob Sullum. Ernest Money: A Drug Warrior Uses Congress' Purse Strings to Strangle Dissent. Reason Online. Feb. 20, 2004.
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