George Kenneth (G.K.) Butterfield

George Kenneth (G.K.) Butterfield

: Photo from Wikimedia Commons / Author of Photo: Unknown

Overview

* Democratic U.S. congressman from North Carolina
* Member of the Congressional Black Caucus
* Views America as a nation awash in racism


George Kenneth (“G.K.”) Butterfield was born on April 27, 1947 in Wilson, North Carolina. He earned a BA in sociology and political science at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in 1971, and a JD at the NCCU School of Law in 1974. He was strongly influenced by one of his law professors, Harold Washington Jr., who later became the mayor of Chicago.

After completing his education, Butterfield worked as an attorney with the law firm of Fitch, Butterfield and Wynn from 1975-88. He then served as a judge in North Carolina Superior Court from 1988-2004. In a July 2004 special election, he won a seat representing North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives—replacing Rep. Frank Ballance, who had resigned in June. Butterfield was again victorious in the regularly scheduled general election of November 2004 and has been reelected every two years since then. He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).

When the House of Representatives voted by a 345-75 margin to defund the notoriously corrupt community organization ACORN in September 2009, Butterfield was one of the 75—all Democrats—who voted to continue funding the group.

In December 2012, Butterfield objected to a Republican proposal to slightly cut congressional funding for the bloated, fraud-ridden Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. By Butterfield’s reckoning, such an “immoral” and “irresponsible” course of action would “hurt real people and literally take food off [the] table” of “deserving American citizens.” Existing budget shortfalls, he added, were not the result of runaway spending on social-welfare programs like SNAP, but rather, of “reckless policies that have benefited the rich.”

In November 2014, Butterfield said that a crime “probably was committed” three months earlier by the white police officer who had shot and killed a violent black criminal named Michael Brown in a Ferguson, Missouri altercation that subsequently set off weeks of protests and rioting. Moreover, the congressman warned that if the grand jurors who were examining the evidence pertaining to that case were to “turn their backs on justice” by not indicting the officer, “there will be pushback from those who are concerned about it—and I’m one of those who’s concerned about it.” “And I would hope,” he added, “that law enforcement would not inflame citizens who want to express their First Amendment rights” by protesting.

The following month, Butterfield and Rep. John Lewis led a number of fellow CBC members in urging President Barack Obama to invite the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner—another black man who had died in highly publicized confrontation with a white police officer in the summer of 2014—to his upcoming State of the Union address in January 2015.

In January 2015, Butterfield and several fellow CBC members marked the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by visiting Ferguson, Missouri and vowing to make criminal-justice reform the “centerpiece” of their congressional agenda. Lamenting that black America “continues to be [the] victim of decades of discrimination and neglect by those in power,” Butterfield stated that it was time for society to “demand change in the way African Americans are treated in this country.” Moreover, he vowed that he and his fellow congressmen would “use our positions to expose racism when and where it is found,” and “to introduce legislation to address the need for systemic change in the criminal-justice system—changes not only regarding the means by which law enforcement officers carry out their duties, but the misconduct of prosecutors and grand juries.”

In January 2015 as well, Butterfield objected strenuously when Republican House Speaker John Boehner—without first asking President Obama for his approval—invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress on March 3rd about the gravity of the growing Iranian nuclear threat and his “profound disagreement” with the deal that the Obama Administration was pursuing with Iran. Butterfield was one of numerous CBC members who announced that because of Netanyahu’s act of “disrespect” against Obama, they would be boycotting the speech.

In February 2015, Butterfield—lamenting that “black America is in a state of [financial] emergency right now”—said that Democrats should focus less on “middle class” issues, and more on “lift[ing]” blacks out of “persistent poverty” by means of a more expansive “safety net.”

That same month, Butterfield praised Loretta Lynch—whom President Obama had recently nominated for the post of Attorney General—as someone who could be depended upon to “not only … enforc[e] the laws of the land, but also to [address] issues that are unique to the African-American community, such as police misconduct and the need to reform the criminal-justice system.” Meanwhile, the congressman expressed outrage over the fact that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had been postponing a confirmation vote on Lynch because of disagreements with Democrats over a human-trafficking bill that the Democrats were blocking. By Butterfield’s telling, “race certainly can be considered a major factor in the delay.” As evidence, he cited the fact that Ash Carter, a white man whom Obama had nominated for secretary of defense, “was confirmed in literally just a matter of hours.” In a similar vein, Butterfield rejected Republican Senator Rand Paul’s contention that he (Paul) opposed Lynch’s confirmation because of her support for civil asset forfeiture, a legal process by which law-enforcement officers take assets from suspected criminals. That was “nothing but an excuse to keep an African-American legal scholar from holding this high position,” said Butterfield.[1]

Viewing the United States as a nation awash in racism, Butterfield contends that “suppressive and discriminatory” Voter ID laws are designed not to ensure the integrity of elections, but rather to “disenfranchise” many “African American voters” by saddling them with “unnecessary burdens … under the guise of combatting voter fraud.”

At a CBC press conference in September 2016, Butterfield reacted angrily to presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent assertion that, contrary to questions he had raised several years earlier about then-President Barack Obama‘s place of birth, he now believed that Obama was born in the United States. Characterizing Trump’s latest position as a consequence of “his advisers … telling him [that] unless he reaches out to African-American voters he will lose this election,” Butterfield said: “By any definition, Donald Trump is a disgusting fraud…. He is an insult to the intellect of the American people. We must defeat him in November.”

In November 2016, a Daily Caller reporter asked Butterfield, as the latter was walking to his car, to comment on Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison‘s past calls for the creation of a separate black nation in the Southeastern United States. Butterfield responded, “I have to find out if he said it. It doesn’t sound like Keith Ellison to me.” When the reporter informed Butterfield that Ellison had indeed once written an article advocating precisely that position, Butterfield said that he had to go and climbed into his car.

When the Daily Caller in February 2018 contacted Butterfield and a number of his fellow Congressional Black Caucus members to ask if they would be willing to publicly denounce the notorious Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan because of his racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, Butterfield was one of 20 who declined not only to denounce him, but also to issue any comment at all regarding his infamous anti-Semitic, anti-white rhetoric.

For an overview of Butterfield’s voting record on a range of issues during his years in Congress, click here.

For additional information on Butterfield, click here.

Footnotes:


  1. Police, Race Key Issues for Loretta Lynch as AG” (Newsmax, 2-9-2015); “Black Caucus Chair Says Race Maybe a Factor in Loretta Lynch Vote Delay” (Newsmax, 3-17-2015); “CBC Targets McConnell with Racism Charge” (National Review, 3-18-2015); “Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Says Rand Paul’s Opposition to AG Nominee Is Racist” (National Review, 2-6-2015).

Additional Resources:


George Kenneth Butterfield Voting Record

Further Reading: “G.K. Butterfield” (Votesmart.org, Keywiki.org); “Food Should Be Out of the Conversation” (by G.K. Butterfield, 7-12-2012); “Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Hopes Ferguson Grand Jury Finds Evidence of a Crime” (PJ Media, 11-21-2014); “Black Lawmakers Want Brown, Garner Families Invited to State of the Union” (Politico.com, 12-5-2014); “CBC Members Mark MLK Day in Ferguson with Vow to ‘Use Our Positions to Expose Racism’” (PJ Media, 1-19-2015); “The Politics of Democrats Skipping Netanyahu’s Congressional Address” (National Review, 2-9-2015); “Cong. Black Caucus Chair Wants Dems to Focus More on Poverty, but Doesn’t Oppose Amnesty” (Breitbart.com, 2-24-2015); “Congressional Black Caucus Chair: ‘Donald Trump Is a Disgusting Fraud’” (by Pam Key, 9-16-2016); “Black Congressmen Refuse to Condemn Ellison’s Past Proposal for a ‘Black State’” (Daily Caller, 11-30-2016).

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