When he campaigned for his leadership job, Rep. Steve Scalise embraced two things he loved, baseball and his home state of Louisiana, handing out commemorative baseball bats and serving up a Cajun dinner with oysters and gumbo.
As The Associated Press reports, the House’s third-ranking Republican is known as much for that sort of joie-de-vivre, a backslapping, hearty embrace of the lighter side, as he is for his rock-solid conservatism and allegiance to the GOP. He returns every year to the Louisiana Legislature where he once served with hugs and handshakes as he mingles with former colleagues of both parties.
Nationally, Scalise, the majority whip, is the party-line vote-getter for Republicans in Congress and a fierce proponent of the GOP health care law and efforts to overhaul the tax code.
Back home, he’s the kid from the Italian family who’s become one of the most powerful men in Congress while remaining an unabashed champion for the food, culture and festivities of Louisiana and the political deal-making he learned there.
“He comes from a middle-class family, salt of the earth, and Steve is exactly that. He’s old school. You shake his hand, his word is his bond,” says Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, a Republican who served in the state legislature with Scalise for years, lives in Scalise’s congressional district and knows his family.
Scalise, 51, was in critical condition following surgery, the hospital said, after being shot in the hip Wednesday during a GOP baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, a shooting that stunned his home state and rocked the halls of Congress. As CNN reports, he is the ninth member of Congress to be shot while in office.
