House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is calling it “deeply troubling” that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) spoke to a white supremacist group in 2002.
{mosads}“Whip Scalise’s involvement with a group classified by the Anti-Defamation League as anti-Semitic and the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group is deeply troubling for a top Republican leader in the House,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said in a statement on Tuesday.
Hammill did not call on Scalise to resign from his leadership post, but sought to link the issue to Republican policy positions.
“Just this year, House Republicans have refused to restore the Voting Rights Act or pass comprehensive immigration reform, and leading Republican members are now actively supporting in the federal courts efforts by another known extremist group, the American Center for Law and Justice, which is seeking to overturn the President’s immigration executive actions,” the statement said.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has not yet spoken on the matter since it came to light on Monday.
“Speaker Boehner’s silence on this matter is yet another example of his consistent failure to stand up to the most extreme elements of his party,” Hammill said.
Scalise says he did not know about the group’s views at the time of the appearance, when Scalise was serving as a state legislator.