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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/30/us/politics/louisiana-congressman-steve-scalise-acknowledges-addressing-racist-group-in-2002.html?_r=0
WASHINGTON — "Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House, addressed a group of white supremacists and neo-Nazis in 2002, a Scalise spokeswoman confirmed Monday as his party prepared to take control of both chambers of Congress.
Mr. Scalise made his remarks to the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, which was founded two years earlier by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana politician. Mr. Scalise was a Louisiana state legislator at the time.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has described the organization — which uses EURO as an acronym — as a hate group, while noting that in recent years it has “accomplished little” and serves “primarily as a vehicle to publicize Duke’s writing and sell his books.”
Moira Bagley Smith, a Scalise spokeswoman, said the congressman “has never been affiliated with the abhorrent group in question.”
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“The hate-fueled ignorance and intolerance that group projects is in stark contradiction to what Mr. Scalise believes and practices as a father, a husband and a devoted Catholic,” she said.
Congressional Republicans were hoping to begin the next Congress free of distraction and to focus on what many party members consider an electoral mandate — the Republicans’ largest congressional majority in decades. The party is also working to improve its appeal among racial minorities, who have been essential to President Obama’s electoral victories.
It was unclear what the revelation means for Mr. Scalise’s future in the House leadership. Speaker John A. Boehner declined to comment on the reports..."