Angels (The 69 Eyes album)

For other people named Steve King, see Stephen King (disambiguation).

Steve King
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 5th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Tom Latham
Personal details
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Marilyn King
Residence	Kiron, Iowa
Alma mater	HS diploma
Occupation	construction contractor

Steven Arnold "Steve" King (born May 28, 1949) is an American politician who is a member of the Republican Party representing the 5th District of Iowa in the United States House of Representatives since 2003.

Early life and career

King is a lifelong resident of northwestern Iowa. He was born on May 28, 1949 in Storm Lake, but currently calls Kiron home. He attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1968. In 1975 he founded King Construction Company. He ran for an open seat in the Iowa State Senate in 1996 and won. He was reelected in 2000.

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. His most prominent opponents were fellow state senator John Redwine and State House Speaker Brent Siegrest. 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% 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." King won re-election in the 2006 general election against Democrat Schulte and Independent candidates Roy Nielsen and Cheryl Broderson with 59 percent of the vote.

In 2008, King had been seen as a possible challenger for Tom Harkin's Senate seat, but on March 7, he announced that he would run for a fourth House term. King is opposed by Democrat Ron Hubler.

Committee Assignments

• Committee on Agriculture
  • 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.
  • Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research
  • Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry
  • Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry
• Committee on Small Business
  • Subcommittee on Finance and Tax
  • Subcommittee on Regulations, Healthcare and Trade
• Committee on the Judiciary
  • Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties

Political positions and actions

During the 110th Congress, King voted with the majority of the Republican Party 90.9% of the time. King has continuously voted for Iraq War legislation, including funding without stipulations regarding troop withdrawals. In January 2007 he voted with a majority of House Republican against repealing tax cuts to oil companies. In May 2006 he voted to extend the Bush tax cuts. King voted against imposing a ban on cruel punishment of detainees held by the U.S. military. In May 2005, he voted to establish a free trade zone between the U.S. and Central America.

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 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.

Controversies

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." When the proponent of the Post Office's name change, Barbara Lee, claimed that King's "campaign of innuendo and unsubstantiated 'concern' is better suited to the era of Joseph McCarthy than today's House of Representatives," King claimed that history showed McCarthy to be "a hero for America". .

Statements about illegal 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."

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 [elections]".

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. The op-ed read in part:

"What would that May 1st look like without illegal immigration? There would be no one to smuggle across our southern border the heroin, marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines that plague the United States, reducing the U.S. supply of meth that day by 80%. The lives of 12 U.S. citizens would be saved who otherwise die a violent death at the hands of murderous illegal aliens each day. Another 13 Americans would survive who are otherwise killed each day by uninsured drunk driving illegals. Our hospital emergency rooms would not be flooded with everything from gunshot wounds, to anchor babies, to imported diseases to hangnails, giving American citizens the day off from standing in line behind illegals. Eight American children would not suffer the horror as a victim of a sex crime."

The editorial received strong reactions, both for and against, in Iowa and across the country.

King's numbers are based on the premise that 28% of all prisoners in all American jails and prisons are illegal aliens. King has cited an April 2005 GAO report as the source of that statistic, but that report says only that 27% of federal prisoners were "criminal aliens," a category including both legal and illegal aliens. The GAO report includes no illegal alien percentage figures for state prisons and local jails, which together hold the overwhelming majority (92%) of US prisoners. However, the actual percentage of illegal aliens held at the time in state prisons and local jails can be determined by comparing figures for SCAAP federal compensation to states and localities with federal Bureau of Justice Statistics prisoner censuses. Such a comparison reveals that the accurate illegal alien percentage being held was less than 4%, far from the 28% claimed by King.

Statements about Washington, D.C.

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.

State Department appropriations

On June 21, 2007, King introduced an amendment to the $34 billion State and Foreign Operations bill to prohibit funds from being used by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan or Syria. When asked why the measure did not apply to Republican House members who had also made trips to the countries in question, King's spokesman replied that he was unsure whether that had been considered, or why it might not have been.

Remarks about Barack Obama

On March 7, 2008, during his press engagements to announce his reelection campaign, King made disparaging remarks about Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his middle name, saying: "I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror."

King also argued that Obama's middle name should be considered relevant in the presidential election: "Additionally, his middle name (Hussein) does matter," King said. "It matters because they read a meaning into that in the rest of the world. That has a special meaning to them. They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name. They will be dancing in the streets because of who his father was...."

Then on March 10, King defended his comments to The Associated Press, saying "(Obama will) certainly be viewed as a savior for them.... That's why you will see them supporting him, encouraging him."

That day, Obama himself addressed the comments while campaigning in Mississippi:

"I think that Mr. King has it backwards. The fact that the continuation of a presence in Iraq as Senator McCain has suggested is exactly what, I think, will fan the flames of anti-American sentiment and make it more difficult for us to create a long-term and sustainable peace in the world. But I have to say that Mr. King and individuals like him thrive on offensive or controversial statements as a way to get in the papers, so I don't take it too seriously. I would hope Senator McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks."

The McCain campaign disavowed King's comments, saying "John McCain rejects the type of politics that degrades our civics…and obviously that extends to Congressman King's statement."

External links

• U.S. Congressman Steve King official House site
• King for Congress official campaign site
• United States Congress. "Steve King (id: k000362)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• 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
• Washington Post — Congress Votes Database: Steve King voting record
• [1]Politico