GOP Lawmaker Stripped Of Post After Race Remarks

Georgia state Rep. Tommy Benton (R) has been removed as chairman of the House Retirement Committee after a radio interview came to light where he praised Confederate leader Alexander Stephens and disparaged the late Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Public Radio reports.

Benton said the Ku Klux Klan “was not so much a racist thing, but a vigilante thing to keep law and order.”

Of John Lewis, he said: “His only claim to fame was he got conked on the head at the Edmund Pettus Bridge… and he has milked that for 50 years.”