Steve King

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Steve King

Steven Arnold King (* 28. May 1949 in Storm Lake , Buena Vista County , Iowa ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . He has represented western Iowa in the United States House of Representatives since 2003 and is known for his radical statements about race and immigration. In 2020 he lost his party's nomination for the next House of Representatives election and will therefore leave parliament in January 2021.

Family, education and work

Steve King was born in Storm Lake in 1949 to a police officer. He attended Denison Community High School , where he met his future wife. From 1967 to 1970 he studied mathematics at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville .

In 1975 he founded his own construction company, King Construction , which he ran for 28 years until he was elected to the US House of Representatives. After the election, he handed over management to his eldest son. He has been married to his wife Marilyn since 1972 and has three sons. You live with Kiron .

Political career

Steve King's portrait as a State Senator

King was elected to the Iowa Senate in 1996 and re-elected in 2000. After the United States Census 2000 , the boundaries of the congressional electoral districts of Iowa were redistricting, so that the previous mandate holder of the 5th congressional electoral district, Tom Latham , no longer lived in this but in the 4th district. King applied for the vacant seat in the US House of Representatives in 2002. After winning the area code , he was elected MP by a large majority in the district, which is structurally predominantly Republican. After seven re-elections, most recently in 2016, his current mandate runs until January 3, 2019. Until 2013, King represented the 5th Congressional constituency, which consists of the western part of the state along the border with Nebraska and South Dakota with the cities of Sioux City and Council Bluffs existed, after another redesign as a result of the United States Census 2010 , King has since represented the 4th congressional electoral district, which includes the north-western quarter of the state. This district is the most reliable republican in the state, which is why King usually spends little money in his election campaigns.

King is or has been a member of the Agriculture , Justice and Small Business Committees and several subcommittees. Before the 2016 presidential election , King initially supported the Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz in the Republican primary , but then spoke out in favor of Donald Trump with conviction and maintained this after Trump's video recordings of sexist statements became known in October 2016 .

King (r.) With the conservative activist Ben Shapiro (2018)

In the 2018 election , several polls see the democratic rival candidate JD Scholten almost on a par with King. End of October 2018 was the agricultural cooperative Land O'Lakes known to grant King no funding more after a result of the attack in a Pittsburgh synagogue incendiary Kings statements received attention that many observers as "White Nationalism" ( nationalism for White designate) . The companies Intel and Purina deprived King further donations, the National Republican Congressional Committee , the Kampagnenarm the Republicans in the US House of Representatives refused because of King's "words and deeds" to support him. While his challenger Scholten had raised $ 1.7 million by the end of October 2018, King received just under $ 740,000. King was re-elected with 50.3 to Scholten's 47 percent.

In light of the ongoing controversy surrounding King's racism and following another positive statement by King about white racism in the New York Times, leading Republicans and Iowa's senators disapproved of King's racism and announced his expulsion from the House of Representatives committees on January 14, 2019 To forestall the announced debate and disapproval from Democrats in the House of Representatives. In the Republican candidate selection in the fourth congressional electoral district in Iowa on June 3, 2020, King was defeated by his opponent Randy Feenstra . The primary was shaped by protests following the death of George Floyd .

Positions and controversies

Steve King (l.) And Dennis Kucinich at the Conservative Political Action Conference (2015)

Steve King takes conservative positions. He is an opponent of abortion and advocates gun ownership by citizens outside of militias. The National Rifle Association supports King with election recommendations. He rejects the introduction of quotas for women and minorities. After Hurricane Katrina , King voted against a $ 52 billion aid package for the victims.

In April 2008, shortly before Barack Obama's election as President of the United States, King said that if Obama's election were to occur, " Al-Qaeda terrorists and other radical Islamists will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than after September 11, 2001" , and took the president's middle name as an indication. This has been interpreted as a strategy of scaring and demonizing Obama. After the Obamacare health care reform was passed in March 2010, King immediately began work on a bill that would reverse it. He sees Obamacare as a way into nationalized health policy and thus into socialism. After the Republican victory in the 2016 elections , King was one of the supporters of a complete abolition of Obamacare and criticized the compromise proposals of the party leadership, which would have received protection for people with chronic diseases (pre-existing conditions). According to King, it is the sole responsibility of the states to provide such protection.

King advocates the abolition of the American tax authority Internal Revenue Service and expressed understanding for the perpetrator on the occasion of an attack on an IRS building in 2010. When the Republican Todd Akin in the Senate election in 2012 in Missouri claiming the body of a woman raped by itself prevents a pregnancy, which is why abortion is unnecessary, he was criticized by most Republicans. King, however, sided with Akin and described him as a "strong Christian man".

After the Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which enacted the opening of marriage to gays , said King said some states could oppose the decision and called for a House vote to disapprove of the court ruling. King has also spoken out in favor of the abolition of civil marriage.

King (r.) With right-wing conservative commentator Michelle Malkin (2004)

King has also spoken out against illegal immigrants and supported the policy of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the refugee crisis in Europe from 2015 . Before the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in 2017 , he declared his support for the right-wing populist Geert Wilders , who understood that culture and demography were “our fate”; “Our civilization” cannot be saved with “children of strangers”. King received criticism for these remarks from, among others, the Republican Speaker of the House , Paul Ryan , but support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and other White Supremacists such as the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer . The end of October 2018, called Anti-Defamation League to the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to take measures against King because of his rhetoric.

Web links

Commons : Steve King  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steve King's Biography. In: Vote Smart ; Brendan Morrow: Marilyn King, Steve's Wife: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. In: Heavy.com , March 13, 2017; Chuck Offenburger: Our 2002 column on how Iowa's Steve King, the controversial congressman, got his political start. In: Offenburger.com , March 22, 2017
  2. ↑ See maps of Iowa's congressional electoral districts 2003–2013 and since 2013 .
  3. ^ Jason Noble: Steve King employs family as year-round campaign staff, an unusual approach in Congress. In: Des Moines Register , October 3, 2017.
  4. ↑ Tom Kludt: GOP Rep. Steve King on Trump: 'I'm sticking with him'. In: CNN.com , October 11, 2016.
  5. ↑ 2018 Midterm Election Forecast: Iowa 4th. In: FiveThirtyEight ; William Petroski: is Steve King in trouble? Democrat JD Scholten bets hustle and grit are keys to upset. In: Des Moines Register , October 16, 2018; Can JD Scholten dethrone Rep. Steve King from his District 4 seat? In: The Daily Iowan , October 24, 2018.
  6. ^ Deena Shanker, Lydia Mulvany: Land O'Lakes Pulls Support for Iowa Congressman Steve King Over Racial Remarks. In: Bloomberg.com , October 30, 2018.
  7. ^ Dan Mangan: GOP House fund won't help Rep. Steve King in tight Iowa race due to his support for white supremacists. In: CNBC.com , October 31, 2018.
  8. ↑ Rogers, Alex: Steve King re-elected in Iowa House race despite latest controversy. In: CNN. CNN, November 7, 2018, accessed December 6, 2018 .
  9. ^ Trip Gabriel: Steve King's Racist Remarks and Divisive Actions: A Timeline . In: The New York Times . January 15, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed January 15, 2019]).
  10. ^ Trip Gabriel: Before Trump, Steve King Set the Agenda for the Wall and Anti-Immigrant Politics . In: The New York Times . January 10, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed January 15, 2019]).
  11. ↑ Trip Gabriel, Jonathan Martin, Nicholas Fandos: Steve King Removed From Committee Assignments Over White Supremacy Remark . In: The New York Times . January 14, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed January 15, 2019]).
  12. ↑ Trip Gabriel: Steve King's White Supremacy Remark Is Rebuked by Iowa's Republican Senators . In: The New York Times . January 11, 2019, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed January 15, 2019]).
  13. ↑ Steve King: Controversial Iowa Republican loses re-election bid. BBC News, accessed June 3, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Martin A. Parlett: demonizing a President: The "foreignization" of Barack Obama. Praeger, Santa Barbara, CA, Denver, Oxford 2014, p. 150 .
  15. ^ Obamacare Is Socialism: Reps. Louie Gohmert, Steve King Attack. In: Huffington Post , March 20, 2014.
  16. ↑ Eugene Scott: Rep. King unsure if he will support 'diluted' GOP health care bill. In: CNN.com , May 3, 2017.
  17. ↑ Marin Cogan: Dems blast King on IRS remarks. In: Politico , February 23, 2010.
  18. ↑ Cameron Joseph: Rep. Steve King defends Akin as a 'strong Christian man'. In: The Hill , August 21, 2012.
  19. ↑ O. Kay Henderson: King seeks House vote on same-sex marriage ruling. In: Radio Iowa , July 11, 2015; Ed O'Keefe: Steve King wants resolution denouncing Supreme Court same-sex marriage ruling. In: The Washington Post , July 6, 2015.
  20. ↑ Elisha FieldStadt: Supreme Court's Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage Met With Resistance in Some States. In: NBC News , June 26, 2015; King Calls for End to Civil Marriage in Wake of Supreme Court Ruling. ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: KIOW.com , June 30, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kiow.com
  21. ^ Deena Shanker, Lydia Mulvany: Land O'Lakes Pulls Support for Iowa Congressman Steve King Over Racial Remarks. In: Bloomberg.com , October 30, 2018.
  22. ↑ Steve King tweet backing Geert Wilders sparks social media backlash. In: BBC News , March 13, 2017; Jennifer Steinhauer: Steve King, Hurling Insults at Immigrants, Is Rebuked by His Own Party. In: The New York Times , March 13, 2017; Corky Siemaszko: Steve King Stirs Controversy in DC, but Still Popular in Iowa. In: NBC News , March 16, 2017.
  23. ^ Justin Wise: Anti-Defamation League calls on Paul Ryan to take action against Steve King. In: The Hill , October 31, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME King, Steve
ALTERNATIVE NAMES King, Steven Arnold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Storm Lake , Iowa