Duped Georgia legislator will resign post
Lawmaker fooled on comic Cohen’s Showtime series
Jason Spencer, the Georgia Republican lawmaker who was fooled into repeatedly yelling a racial epithet on the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s television series, intends to resign effective Tuesday. The decision was announced early Wednesday in an email from the office of David Ralston, the Georgia House speaker.
It was the first real-world consequence of Cohen’s Showtime series, “Who Is America?” The show has pranked a long list of sitting and former lawmakers, including former Vice President Dick Cheney; Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.; and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
The episode featuring Spencer aired Sunday, and he initially resisted calls to resign, even from within his own party. Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, said in a post on Twitter on Monday that “the actions and language used by Jason Spencer are appalling and offensive.” Spencer lost his primary in the spring in his bid for a fifth term and initially said he would serve out his final five months, but the drum beat became too loud.
By the time the speaker’s office announced the resignation, a fierce bipartisan effort to cast Spencer out of office had taken shape. It was clear that he would face sustained public and private pressure, and black lawmakers had planned a state Capitol news conference for Wednesday morning to demand that Spencer step aside.
Ralston said that Spencer had “disgraced himself,” and his office let it be known that Democratic and Republican leaders were in talks about jointly filing an ethics complaint against him.
The campaign of Brian Kemp, a Republican candidate for governor who had drawn Spencer’s endorsement, said it had erased the lawmaker’s name from its roster of endorsements.
Spencer’s resignation was announced just hours after it became apparent that Kemp had won the Republican nomination for governor.
Before the episode aired, Spencer released a statement saying that Cohen had tricked him into participating in a “bogus self-defense and antiterrorism training” video, in response to death threats Spencer had received. Spencer threatened legal action.
But then Cohen’s show hit the airwaves, and Spencer was seen on camera dropping his pants, taking a photo underneath a burqa while mocking a stereotypical Asian accent and seemingly not requiring much coaxing to yell the racial epithet. He also used a slur to refer to people from the Middle East.