Luis Carlos Heinze (born 14 September 1950) is a federal senator of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

representing his home state of Rio Grande do Sul. He was previously served in the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...

from 1999 to 2019 and was mayor of

São Borja São Borja is a city in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. São Borja is the oldest municipality in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and was founded in 1682 by the Jesuits as the first of the Seven Points of the Missions, and named ...

from 1993 to 1996.

Personal life

Heinze was born to Darcy Volnier Heinze and Cecy Therezinha Seckler. Of

German descent , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

, he is married to Sandra Maria Batista Heinze. He is a member of the

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brazil (, IELB) is a Lutheran church, which was founded in 1904 in Rio Grande do Sul, a southern state in Brazil. The IELB is a conservative, confessional Lutheran synod that holds to the Book of Concord. It sta ...

Political career

Heinze voted in favor of the impeachment motion of then-president

Dilma Rousseff Dilma Vana Rousseff (; born 14 December 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil, holding the position from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the first w ...

. Heinze voted for a similar corruption investigation into Rousseff's successor

Michel Temer Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia (; born 23 September 1940) is a Brazilian politician, lawyer and writer who served as the 37th president of Brazil from 31 August 2016 to 31 December 2018. He took office after the impeachment and removal from off ...

. He voted in favor of the 2017 Brazilian labor reforms. Along with

Paulo Paim Paulo Renato Paim (born March 15, 1950) is a Brazilian steelworker turned politician. He served as a federal deputy from Rio Grande do Sul for the Workers' Party (''Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT'') from 1987 to 2002. On 2002, he was elec ...

, Heinze was elected to the federal senate from the state of

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

in the

2018 Brazilian general election General elections were held in Brazil on 7 October 2018 to elect the president, National Congress and state governors. As no candidate in the presidential election received more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a runoff round was held ...

Views

Heinze is known in Brazil for his strong advocacy of the

right to bear arms The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, including securi ...

, which has been a central theme in his election campaigns. In a public hearing held in the municipality of Vicente Dutra in November 2013, Heinze said that "

quilombola A ''quilombola'' () is an Afro-Brazilian resident of ''quilombo'' settlements first established by escaped slaves in Brazil. They are the descendants of Slavery in Brazil, Afro-Brazilian slaves who escaped from slave plantations that existed in ...

s, Indians, gays, lesbians" are "everything that is not good." In February 2014 these comments were published in the national newspapers, although Heinze stood by his words and said that he meant what he said. He also said that he supported forming a private militia. On 7 December 2013 Heinze was the speaker at an event in

Campo Grande Campo Grande (, ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul in the Center-West region of the country. The city is nicknamed ''Cidade Morena'' ("Swarthy City" in Portuguese) because of the reddish-brown colour ...

about passing legislation making it legal to organize militia to protect settlements from

native peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

. In his speech Heinze criticized Gilberto Carvalho, saying that his office was a "nest of Indians, blacks, landless people, gays, and lesbians". Heinze later claimed his comments were made in the heat of the moment. As a result of these comments the international indigenous rights NGO

Survival International Survival International is a human rights organisation formed in 1969, a London based charity that campaigns for the rights of indigenous and/or tribal peoples and uncontacted peoples. The organisation's campaigns generally focus on tribal peopl ...

dubbed Heinze the "racist of the year."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heinze, Luis Carlos 1950 births Living people People from Rio Grande do Sul Brazilian people of German descent Brazilian Lutherans Brazilian engineers Progressistas politicians Members of the Federal Senate (Brazil) Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Brazil) from Rio Grande do Sul Mayors of places in Brazil Gun rights advocates COVID-19 conspiracy theorists