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EspañolSTEVE KING
''For the football player of the same name see Steve King (football player).''
'Steven Arnold "Steve" King' (born May 28 1949), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003. He represents the 5th District of Iowa (map).
King was born to Emmett A. King (1921-1991)[1] and Mildred Lila King (born ca. 1920) in Storm Lake, the seat of Buena Vista County in northwestern Iowa. He attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970. In 1975 he founded King Construction Company. His Iowa residence is in the Kiron community in Crawford County. He was elected to the Iowa State Senate in 1997.
In 2002, after redistricting took 5th District incumbent and fellow Republican Tom Latham out of the district, King ran in a four-way Republican primary for the seat. Since the 5th is the most Republican district in Iowa and one of the most Republican in the nation, it was generally thought that the winner of the primary would have a fairly easy time winning the general election in November.
King won 30 percent of the vote, five points short of the 35 percent required by Iowa law to be named the outright winner, so under Iowa law, a nominating convention was required. King won on the fourth ballot. He won handily in the fall, and won re-election just as easily in 2004.
In 2006, King was endorsed by the ''Omaha World Herald'', which covers a large part of his congressional district. But the ''Des Moines Register'' , which had endorsed King for re-election in 2004, endorsed his Democratic opponent, Joyce Schulte, saying that "King has been an embarrassment to Iowa" and "This space won't allow listing all his outrageous remarks and positions." [2] King won re-election in the 2006 general election against Schulte, with 58 percent of the vote. [3]
King has one of the most conservative voting records in Congress. He was the only Representative from Iowa to score 100 percent on the joint Family Research Council Action / Focus on the Family Action Congressional Scorecard in the second session of the 109th Congress. In the 109th United States Congress, and again in the 110th United States Congress, King chairs the Conservative Opportunity Society, an organization founded by Newt Gingrich and others that laid the groundwork for the Republicans' 1994 takeover of the House.
In September 2005, King rallied support to reject a motion in the House of Representatives to name a post office in Berkeley, California after the city's long-serving Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek. After winning the vote 190 for to 215 against, King cited Shirek's affiliation with the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Berkeley as his reason to block the motion, claiming, albeit in a different interview, that her past "sets her apart from... the most consistent of American values."[4]
In April 2006, conservative members of Congress proposed strengthening law enforcement against illegal immigration to the United States. When asked if "the US economy simply couldn't function without" the presence of illegal immigrants, King said that he rejected that position "categorically". He said "they", referring to the 77.5 million people between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five in the United States who are not part of the workforce, "could be put to work and we could invent machines to replace the rest."[5]
King acknowledged that it was probably politically impractical to deport the estimated 11–12 million illegal immigrants if the new immigration legislation was passed. King said that "members of Congress that vote for a guest-worker plan ... will be supporting an amnesty plan and they should be branded with the scarlet letter 'A' and pay for that amnesty in the ballot box in November (when Congressional elections take place)".
On April 27, 2006, the ''Des Moines Register'' published an op-ed piece by King regarding the planned May 1 "Day Without an Immigrant" rallies.[6] The op-ed said that there were large numbers of rapes, murders, DUIs, and other assorted crimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants in the United States on a daily basis. The editorial received strong reactions (both for and against) in Iowa and across the country.[7]
King has cited an April 2005 GAO report [8] as the source of the statistics in his editorial, but close examination of the numbers in that report do not support King's statements. King said that 28% of all inmates at each level of the US prison system (federal, state, and local) were illegal aliens. In fact, the GAO report said only that 27% of ''federal'' prisoners were "criminal aliens," a category including both legal and illegal aliens. The GAO report has no illegal alien percentage figures for state prisons and local jails, which together have 92 percent of US prisoners. It does, however, discuss State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) inmate compensation numbers, which (when compared with total prisoner censuses in other government reports) show that only about four percent of state prisoners and 3.5 percent of local prisoners were illegal aliens.
A September 2006 ''Wall Street Journal'' article reported that King was regularly claiming that illegal immigrants are perpetrating sex crimes against "eight little girls" each day as part of a "slow-motion terrorist attack."[9]
In May 2004, King said the events of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse "amounts to hazing."[10] King continues to receive questions about his hazing comment, and has stuck by his original statement.
In June 2006, King stated, "My wife lives here with me, and I can tell you… she’s at far greater risk being a civilian in Washington, D.C., than an average civilian in Iraq." King said that there were 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C., in 2003 while he calculated that there were 27.51 per 100,000 in Iraq as a whole. [11]
It is unclear why King used the 2003 figure for Washington D.C., when the 2004 figure (36 deaths per 100,000) was available, and more current.[12] (The 2005 figure, 35 per 100,000, was not available until September 2006.)[13] It is also unclear where the 27.51 figure for Iraq came from. For a population of roughly 27 million people, that would be roughly 7,500 violent deaths per year. For the year 2006, there were 24,500 civilian deaths reported in English-language media alone, and the United Nations reported more than 34,000 deaths from violence in that year based on data from morgues, hospitals, and municipal authorities. In November 2006 the Iraq Minister of Health estimated the annual death toll from violence at 100,000 to 150,000. (For details, see Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003.)
In June 2006, following the death of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, King made a satirical reference to the famous myth that claims Islam teaches that virgins in heaven await all martyrs. King joked, "There probably are not seventy-two virgins in the hell he's at, and if there are, they probably all look like [liberal journalist] Helen Thomas." The comment was made at the 2006 Iowa Republican State Convention, and was received with raucous laughter on the part of the several hundred delegates in attendance.
Because the comment received so much attention and comment, King was reported to have called the 85-year-old veteran White House reporter to apologize. He said any implication that Ms. Thomas was still a virgin was in error and he regretted it.
On June 21, 2007, King introduced an amendment to the $34 billion State and Foreign Operations bill to prohibit funds from being used to travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.[14] According to a King spokesman, "The measure only applies to one position — the Speaker of the House," and the amendment was introduced specifically to restrict Speaker Nancy Pelosi's travels. When asked why the measure did not apply to Republican House members who had also made trips to the countries in question, such as Eric Cantor, David Hobson, Darrell Issa, and Frank Wolf, King's spokesman replied that he was unsure whether that had been considered, or why it might not have been.[15]
From 2003 through 2005, $14.7 billion in crop subsidies went to the congressional districts of members on the House Committee on Agriculture, an analysis by the non-partisan Environmental Working Group found. That was 42.4% of the total subsidies. King is reported to have brought $1.15 billion to his District. [16]
1. "King's fathers years of birth and death"
2. ''Des Moines Register'' election endorsements, October 2006
3. "Iowa Statewide Election Summary" (pdf), November 9, 2006, retrieved November 15, 2006
4. Jane Norman, "McCarthy Comment by Steve King Stirs Debate", ''Des Moines Register,'' September 29, 2005, retrieved January 19, 2006
5. Robin Lustig, interviewing King on the BBC's programme 'The World Tonight' on BBC Radio 4
6. "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", op-ed by Representative Steve King, ''Des Moines Register'', April 27, 2006
7. Jane Norman, "King rips on 'illegal invader' event: The National Day Without Immigrants is a farce and an insult, says the Iowa congressman", ''Des Moines Register'', April 27, 2006
8. "Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails" (pdf), April 7, 2005
9. June Kronholz, "Immigration Stalemate: Congress's Failure to Resolve Issue Feeds Ire of Activists on Both Sides" ''Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2006
10. "Abu Ghraib, Heidi Fleiss, and Political Cannibals", statement by Steve King on prisoner abuse, May 13,2004
11. Jane Norman, "Civilians are safer in Iraq than in D.C., King says", ''Des Moines Register,'' July 3, 2006, retrieved Jul 14 2006
12. Crime in the United States 2004, Section II, Offenses Reported (pdf), Federal Bureau of Investigation
13. Crime in the United States 2005, table 5, Federal Bureau of Investigation
14. Jackie Kucinich, "House Republican wants to restrict Pelosi’s travel", ''The Hill'', June 21, 2007
15. Greg Sargent, "GOP Congressman Introduces Legislation To Restrict Pelosi Trips To Enemy Countries", ''TPM Cafe'', June 21, 2007
16. Dilanian, Ken, Billions go to House panel members' districts", USA Today. July 26, 2007.
★ U.S. Congressman Steve King 'official House site'
★
★ Federal Election Commission — Steven A Kingham campaign finance reports and data
★ On the Issues — Steve King issue positions and quotes
★ OpenSecrets.org — Steven A. King campaign contributions
★ Project Vote Smart — Representative Steve A. King (IA) profile
★ SourceWatch Congresspedia — Steve King profile
★ Washington Post — Congress Votes Database: Steve King voting record
★ KingWatch — Keeping an Eye on Steve King Independent Watchdog
★ King for Congress 'official campaign site'
'Steven Arnold "Steve" King' (born May 28 1949), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003. He represents the 5th District of Iowa (map).
Early life and career
King was born to Emmett A. King (1921-1991)[1] and Mildred Lila King (born ca. 1920) in Storm Lake, the seat of Buena Vista County in northwestern Iowa. He attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970. In 1975 he founded King Construction Company. His Iowa residence is in the Kiron community in Crawford County. He was elected to the Iowa State Senate in 1997.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
In 2002, after redistricting took 5th District incumbent and fellow Republican Tom Latham out of the district, King ran in a four-way Republican primary for the seat. Since the 5th is the most Republican district in Iowa and one of the most Republican in the nation, it was generally thought that the winner of the primary would have a fairly easy time winning the general election in November.
King won 30 percent of the vote, five points short of the 35 percent required by Iowa law to be named the outright winner, so under Iowa law, a nominating convention was required. King won on the fourth ballot. He won handily in the fall, and won re-election just as easily in 2004.
In 2006, King was endorsed by the ''Omaha World Herald'', which covers a large part of his congressional district. But the ''Des Moines Register'' , which had endorsed King for re-election in 2004, endorsed his Democratic opponent, Joyce Schulte, saying that "King has been an embarrassment to Iowa" and "This space won't allow listing all his outrageous remarks and positions." [2] King won re-election in the 2006 general election against Schulte, with 58 percent of the vote. [3]
Political positions and actions
King has one of the most conservative voting records in Congress. He was the only Representative from Iowa to score 100 percent on the joint Family Research Council Action / Focus on the Family Action Congressional Scorecard in the second session of the 109th Congress. In the 109th United States Congress, and again in the 110th United States Congress, King chairs the Conservative Opportunity Society, an organization founded by Newt Gingrich and others that laid the groundwork for the Republicans' 1994 takeover of the House.
Post office naming debate
In September 2005, King rallied support to reject a motion in the House of Representatives to name a post office in Berkeley, California after the city's long-serving Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek. After winning the vote 190 for to 215 against, King cited Shirek's affiliation with the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library in Berkeley as his reason to block the motion, claiming, albeit in a different interview, that her past "sets her apart from... the most consistent of American values."[4]
Immigration
In April 2006, conservative members of Congress proposed strengthening law enforcement against illegal immigration to the United States. When asked if "the US economy simply couldn't function without" the presence of illegal immigrants, King said that he rejected that position "categorically". He said "they", referring to the 77.5 million people between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five in the United States who are not part of the workforce, "could be put to work and we could invent machines to replace the rest."[5]
King acknowledged that it was probably politically impractical to deport the estimated 11–12 million illegal immigrants if the new immigration legislation was passed. King said that "members of Congress that vote for a guest-worker plan ... will be supporting an amnesty plan and they should be branded with the scarlet letter 'A' and pay for that amnesty in the ballot box in November (when Congressional elections take place)".
On April 27, 2006, the ''Des Moines Register'' published an op-ed piece by King regarding the planned May 1 "Day Without an Immigrant" rallies.[6] The op-ed said that there were large numbers of rapes, murders, DUIs, and other assorted crimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants in the United States on a daily basis. The editorial received strong reactions (both for and against) in Iowa and across the country.[7]
King has cited an April 2005 GAO report [8] as the source of the statistics in his editorial, but close examination of the numbers in that report do not support King's statements. King said that 28% of all inmates at each level of the US prison system (federal, state, and local) were illegal aliens. In fact, the GAO report said only that 27% of ''federal'' prisoners were "criminal aliens," a category including both legal and illegal aliens. The GAO report has no illegal alien percentage figures for state prisons and local jails, which together have 92 percent of US prisoners. It does, however, discuss State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) inmate compensation numbers, which (when compared with total prisoner censuses in other government reports) show that only about four percent of state prisoners and 3.5 percent of local prisoners were illegal aliens.
A September 2006 ''Wall Street Journal'' article reported that King was regularly claiming that illegal immigrants are perpetrating sex crimes against "eight little girls" each day as part of a "slow-motion terrorist attack."[9]
Abu Ghraib
In May 2004, King said the events of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse "amounts to hazing."[10] King continues to receive questions about his hazing comment, and has stuck by his original statement.
War in Iraq
In June 2006, King stated, "My wife lives here with me, and I can tell you… she’s at far greater risk being a civilian in Washington, D.C., than an average civilian in Iraq." King said that there were 45 violent deaths per 100,000 in Washington, D.C., in 2003 while he calculated that there were 27.51 per 100,000 in Iraq as a whole. [11]
It is unclear why King used the 2003 figure for Washington D.C., when the 2004 figure (36 deaths per 100,000) was available, and more current.[12] (The 2005 figure, 35 per 100,000, was not available until September 2006.)[13] It is also unclear where the 27.51 figure for Iraq came from. For a population of roughly 27 million people, that would be roughly 7,500 violent deaths per year. For the year 2006, there were 24,500 civilian deaths reported in English-language media alone, and the United Nations reported more than 34,000 deaths from violence in that year based on data from morgues, hospitals, and municipal authorities. In November 2006 the Iraq Minister of Health estimated the annual death toll from violence at 100,000 to 150,000. (For details, see Casualties of the conflict in Iraq since 2003.)
Jokes about terrorist and White House reporter
In June 2006, following the death of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, King made a satirical reference to the famous myth that claims Islam teaches that virgins in heaven await all martyrs. King joked, "There probably are not seventy-two virgins in the hell he's at, and if there are, they probably all look like [liberal journalist] Helen Thomas." The comment was made at the 2006 Iowa Republican State Convention, and was received with raucous laughter on the part of the several hundred delegates in attendance.
Because the comment received so much attention and comment, King was reported to have called the 85-year-old veteran White House reporter to apologize. He said any implication that Ms. Thomas was still a virgin was in error and he regretted it.
Restricting the travel of Speaker Nancy Pelosi
On June 21, 2007, King introduced an amendment to the $34 billion State and Foreign Operations bill to prohibit funds from being used to travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria.[14] According to a King spokesman, "The measure only applies to one position — the Speaker of the House," and the amendment was introduced specifically to restrict Speaker Nancy Pelosi's travels. When asked why the measure did not apply to Republican House members who had also made trips to the countries in question, such as Eric Cantor, David Hobson, Darrell Issa, and Frank Wolf, King's spokesman replied that he was unsure whether that had been considered, or why it might not have been.[15]
Agriculture Committee
From 2003 through 2005, $14.7 billion in crop subsidies went to the congressional districts of members on the House Committee on Agriculture, an analysis by the non-partisan Environmental Working Group found. That was 42.4% of the total subsidies. King is reported to have brought $1.15 billion to his District. [16]
References
1. "King's fathers years of birth and death"
2. ''Des Moines Register'' election endorsements, October 2006
3. "Iowa Statewide Election Summary" (pdf), November 9, 2006, retrieved November 15, 2006
4. Jane Norman, "McCarthy Comment by Steve King Stirs Debate", ''Des Moines Register,'' September 29, 2005, retrieved January 19, 2006
5. Robin Lustig, interviewing King on the BBC's programme 'The World Tonight' on BBC Radio 4
6. "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", op-ed by Representative Steve King, ''Des Moines Register'', April 27, 2006
7. Jane Norman, "King rips on 'illegal invader' event: The National Day Without Immigrants is a farce and an insult, says the Iowa congressman", ''Des Moines Register'', April 27, 2006
8. "Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails" (pdf), April 7, 2005
9. June Kronholz, "Immigration Stalemate: Congress's Failure to Resolve Issue Feeds Ire of Activists on Both Sides" ''Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2006
10. "Abu Ghraib, Heidi Fleiss, and Political Cannibals", statement by Steve King on prisoner abuse, May 13,2004
11. Jane Norman, "Civilians are safer in Iraq than in D.C., King says", ''Des Moines Register,'' July 3, 2006, retrieved Jul 14 2006
12. Crime in the United States 2004, Section II, Offenses Reported (pdf), Federal Bureau of Investigation
13. Crime in the United States 2005, table 5, Federal Bureau of Investigation
14. Jackie Kucinich, "House Republican wants to restrict Pelosi’s travel", ''The Hill'', June 21, 2007
15. Greg Sargent, "GOP Congressman Introduces Legislation To Restrict Pelosi Trips To Enemy Countries", ''TPM Cafe'', June 21, 2007
16. Dilanian, Ken, Billions go to House panel members' districts", USA Today. July 26, 2007.
External links
★ U.S. Congressman Steve King 'official House site'
★
★ Federal Election Commission — Steven A Kingham campaign finance reports and data
★ On the Issues — Steve King issue positions and quotes
★ OpenSecrets.org — Steven A. King campaign contributions
★ Project Vote Smart — Representative Steve A. King (IA) profile
★ SourceWatch Congresspedia — Steve King profile
★ Washington Post — Congress Votes Database: Steve King voting record
★ KingWatch — Keeping an Eye on Steve King Independent Watchdog
★ King for Congress 'official campaign site'
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