garbage man

After screaming antigay slurs at cops during his DUI arrest, this guilty lawmaker still refuses to resign

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Meet Nico Rios.

The 35-year-old MAGA Republican lawmaker from North Dakota made headlines last month when he was pulled over for drunk driving on his way home from a holiday party and launched into a homophobic attack against police officers, shouting antigay slurs and saying they would “regret picking on me because you don’t know who the f*** I am!”

“You’re a f****** f*****!” he called one of the officers. Later, he called him a “d*ck” and a “little b****” before making xenophobic comments about the man’s country.

It was truly vile behavior for anyone, made even worse by the fact that Rios is an elected official whose salary and benefits are funded by taxpayers.

Rios was charged with misdemeanor counts of drunk driving and refusing to provide a chemical test.

After pleading guilty to the drunk driving charge earlier this month, he was just handed down his punishment by a judge: nearly one year of unsupervised probation plus a $1,000 fine. He also received a 10-day suspended jail sentence and a $50 fine for having an open container and had his driving privileges are revoked for 91 days.

The misdemeanor charge of refusing to provide a chemical test was dismissed. 

While that may seem like a slap on the wrist, criminal defense attorney Mark Friese told the AP the sentence is more of less consistent with what others receive for similar offenses.

“It does not appear that he was treated more harshly than other people in similar situations,” he said. “My guess is that the judge recognizes … there are multiple entities here that are going to hold Mr. Rios to account.”

Among those entities are his colleagues in the North Dakota House of Representatives, who, along with several other state and local Republican Party officials, have made it clear they want Rios outta there.

In a Facebook post at the end of last month, the North Dakota District 23 GOP Executive Committee said it had “lost confidence” in Rios’ ability to represent voters’ best interests and called on him to step down.

“The language and slurs that Rep. Rios chose to use disrespected and belittled officers during his violation and are not consistent with our beliefs and party platform,” the committee said.

Republican House Majority Leader Mike Lefor also called on him to resign and, just last week, removed him from the Legislature’s interim Judiciary Committee.

The committee oversees topics involving law enforcement, and Lefor said given Rios’ run-in with police, he didn’t think it would be right for law enforcement officials to testify in front of a panel on which the disgraced lawmaker sits.

So far, Rios, who ran unopposed in 2022 and was elected to a four-year term in the state House of Representatives, has refused to heed their calls.

Instead, in a social media post late last month, he said he’s “seriously mulling all aspects” of his life, and plans to seek help for alcoholism over the next few months rather than leave the state legislature.

He added that he’s “100% committed to making repairs for my actions and straightening out my life.”

When he’s not posting hollow mea culpas on his Twitter X page, Rios tends to fan the flames of culture wars by sharing his poorly-written homophobic hot takes and transphobic slurs with his 331 followers…

We’re with his Republican colleagues on this one. It’s pretty clear this guy’s gotta go!

Rios is reportedly due back in court on February 5.

Related:

Anti-LGBTQ lawmaker/former ‘Survivor’ contestant embarks on single-man crusade to decriminalize incest in Kentucky

State Rep. Nick Wilson of Kentucky has come a long way from his days on ‘Survivor.’

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