Scalise skipped Selma for conservative event

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) skipped ceremonies this month honoring the March on Selma to attend a conservative event in Georgia, despite calls for him to travel to Alabama to make amends with the black community.

{mosads}Legistorm first reported Thursday that Scalise filed disclosures showing he spent March 5-8 at the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) World Forum at a posh hotel in Sea Island, Ga.

Those reports, available online through the House Clerk’s office, show that the AEI paid $2,955 for flights, meals and a hotel room for both Scalise and his wife to spend the weekend at the “off the record” event, which occurred simultaneous to the 50th anniversary march in Selma.

The Scalises stayed at The Cloister at Sea Island hotel in a room that costs $457.26 a night. The hotel’s website says that each room is “uniquely designed, featuring lustrous wood furnishings, exposed beam ceilings, overstuffed chairs, hardwood floors, and handmade Turkish rugs.” The smallest room in the hotel is 700 square feet.

“Due to a prior commitment Scalise was unable to attend this year,” T.J. Tatum, a Scalise spokesman, told The Hill. “He has accepted his invitation and looks forward to joining civil rights leaders and his colleagues in Selma next year.”

Scalise has received significant criticism after media reports uncovered that he spoke to a white supremacist group while serving as a Louisiana state lawmaker in 2002, and that he voted against a state measure to apologize for slavery. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have called for Scalise to make efforts to reach out to African-Americans, including attending the Selma event.

The AEI forum’s speaker list included dozens of top names in Republican politics, including former Vice President Cheney, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Mike Lee (Utah), former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas).

Democratic Sen. Corey Booker (N.J.) was also listed as a speaker, along with White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman, President Obama’s former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag, and Gene Sperling, a former White House economic adviser under both Obama and President Clinton.  

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was listed as a speaker, but he decided just days before to attend the ceremony in Selma instead.

—Updated at 2:43 p.m.