75 Facts About Steve King

1.

Steven Arnold King was born on May 28,1949 and is an American far-right politician and businessman who served as a US representative from Iowa from 2003 to 2021.

2.

Steve King founded a construction company in 1975 and worked in business and environmental study before seeking the Republican nomination for a seat in the Iowa Senate in 1996.

3.

Steve King won the primary and the general election, and was reelected in 2000.

4.

In 2002 Steve King was elected to the US House of Representatives from Iowa's 5th congressional district after the incumbent, Tom Latham, was reassigned to the 4th district after redistricting.

5.

Steve King was reelected four times before the 2010 United States Census removed the 5th district and placed King in the 4th, which he represented from 2013.

6.

Steve King is an opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has a long history of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric and white-nationalist affiliations.

7.

Shortly before the 2018 election, the National Republican Congressional Committee withdrew funding for King's reelection campaign and its chairman, Steve Stivers, condemned King's conduct, although Iowa's Republican senators and governor continued to endorse him.

8.

Steve King was narrowly reelected, but after a January 2019 interview in which he questioned the negative connotations of the terms "white nationalist" and "white supremacy", he was widely condemned by both parties, the media, and public figures, and the Republican Steering Committee removed him from all House committee assignments.

9.

Steve King ran for reelection but, campaign funding and support having declined, lost the June 2020 Republican primary to Randy Feenstra by 10 points.

10.

Steve King's father has Irish and German ancestry, and his mother has Welsh roots, as well as American ancestry going back to the colonial era.

11.

Steve King attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970, where he was a member of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity and majored in math and biology, but did not graduate.

12.

In 2002, after redistricting, Steve King ran for the open seat in Iowa's 5th congressional district.

13.

Steve King won all the counties in the predominantly Republican district except Pottawattamie.

14.

Steve King won all the counties in the district except Clarke.

15.

Steve King won all the counties in the district except Clarke and Union.

16.

Steve King's district was renumbered the 4th, and pushed well to the east, absorbing Mason City and Ames.

17.

Steve King won all but seven counties, none of which he had previously represented: Webster, Boone, Story, Chickasaw, Floyd, Cerro Gordo, and Winnebago.

18.

On May 3,2013, Steve King announced that he would not run for the US Senate in 2014.

19.

Steve King likely prevailed due to Governor Kim Reynolds carrying the district with almost 61 percent of the vote in her bid for a full term.

20.

Ultimately, Steve King lost to Feenstra, taking 36.7 percent of the vote to Feenstra's 45.7 percent.

21.

Steve King has continuously voted for Iraq War legislation, supported surge efforts and opposed a time table for troop withdrawals.

22.

On December 18,2019, Steve King voted against both articles of impeachment against Trump, as did all 195 Republicans who voted.

23.

Steve King served on the Judiciary, Agriculture, and Small Business Committees until January 14,2019, when he was removed from all committee assignments after bipartisan condemnation of his remarks on white supremacy.

24.

Steve King has voted against allowing human embryonic stem cell research.

25.

Steve King said that Akin's voting record should be more important than his words.

26.

Steve King sponsored legislation to ban abortion of a fetus that has a detectable heartbeat, which can in some cases occur as early as 6 weeks.

27.

In February 2010, Steve King tweeted about chasing and shooting a raccoon that had tried to enter his house during a blizzard, prompting criticism from animal rights groups.

28.

Steve King defended his actions, saying the animal might have been rabid.

29.

In July 2012, Steve King opposed the McGovern Amendment to establish misdemeanor penalties for knowingly attending an organized animal fight and felony penalties for bringing a minor to such a fight.

30.

Steve King was one of 39 House members to vote against an upgrade of penalties for transporting fighting animals across state lines in 2007.

31.

Steve King received a score of zero on the 2012 Humane Society Legislative Fund's Humane Scorecard.

32.

Steve King said he wanted to eliminate them, replacing them with "everyday American workers".

33.

In July 2012, Steve King introduced an amendment to the House Farm Bill that would legalize previously banned animal agriculture practices such as tail-docking, using banned arsenic-based drugs in chicken feed, and keeping impregnated pigs in small crates.

34.

Steve King has dismissed concern over global warming, calling it a "religion" and claiming efforts to address climate change are useless.

35.

Steve King endorsed Ted Cruz in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, saying Cruz was the "answer to my prayers".

36.

Steve King endorsed and strongly supported Donald Trump after Trump won the nomination.

37.

In December 2020, King was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden prevailed over incumbent Donald Trump.

38.

In 2018, Steve King criticized 18-year-old Parkland shooting survivor X Gonzalez, attempting to tie Gonzalez to Communist Cuba.

39.

Steve King is a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act and has led attempts to repeal it.

40.

Steve King fought against Medicare and Medicaid covering a number of medications such as Viagra, which he called "recreational drugs".

41.

Steve King bought $80,000 of radio advertising across the state calling for Iowans to vote against their retention.

42.

On October 7,2014, Steve King was one of 19 members of Congress inducted into the LGBT civil rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign's "Hall of Shame" for his opposition to LGBT equality.

43.

Steve King has called for the abolition of civil marriage.

44.

On May 17,2019, Steve King was one of 173 representatives to vote against the Equality Act.

45.

Steve King voted against the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020 which authorizes DHS to nearly double the available H-2B visas for the remainder of FY 2020.

46.

Steve King is a proponent of the Great Replacement theory, the theory states that the white population is being replaced by mass non-white immigrants.

47.

David Leonhardt in an opinion piece for The New York Times has explicitly identified Steve King as being a "white nationalist".

48.

Steve King has stirred controversy and come to prominence by making statements that have been described as racist or racially charged.

49.

Steve King is a staunch opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has supported far-right European politicians.

50.

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro called for Steve King to be censured and for a primary challenge against Steve King.

51.

In 2016, a journalist for the Iowa Starting Line reported that Steve King displayed the Confederate flag on his office desk, although Iowa was part of the Union during the American Civil War.

52.

Steve King removed it after a Confederate flag-waver later fatally shot two Iowa police officers.

53.

Steve King attempted to block a bill that would remove Andrew Jackson and replace him with Harriet Tubman on the twenty-dollar bill.

54.

On November 5,2018, Steve King referred to Mexican immigrants as "dirt" while at a campaign stop.

55.

The Weekly Standard reported the comment; Steve King denied saying it and called on The Weekly Standard to release audio of the remarks.

56.

The Weekly Standard then released a recording of the exchange, confirming that Steve King had made the remarks.

57.

In May 2019, Steve King warned against "presuming that every culture is equal".

58.

On September 4,2019, Steve King posted a video of himself drinking water from water fountains over toilets at migrant facilities.

59.

On March 7,2008, during his press engagements to announce his reelection campaign, Steve King made remarks about then US senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his middle name "Hussein", saying:.

60.

In mid-January 2009, Steve King acknowledged that terrorists were not dancing in the streets, and had made statements opposing Obama.

61.

In 2010, Steve King speculated that Obama's immigration policies were influenced by racial favoritism toward black people.

62.

In February 2020 on Twitter, Steve King insinuated former DHS official Philip Haney had been murdered as a reprisal for "archiving data that incriminated the highest levels of the Obama administration".

63.

On July 18,2016, Steve King participated in a panel discussion on MSNBC, during which a panelist from Esquire magazine suggested that the 2016 convention could be the last in which "old white people would command the Republican Party's attention".

64.

That evening, Steve King was asked about his comments during an interview with ABC News.

65.

In September 2014, Steve King called for the Obama administration to begin surveilling mosques to monitor recruitment to ISIS.

66.

Steve King supported French right-wing populist politician, leader of the Front National Marine Le Pen in the French 2017 presidential election.

67.

Steve King sent her a message stating: "Our shared civilization must be saved".

68.

Steve King supported Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a right-wing populist and strong opponent of admitting migrants during the European migrant crisis.

69.

Steve King agreed with the interviewer that American financier George Soros is involved with the "Great Replacement", a far-right conspiracy theory that claims to have identified a plot to replace white Europeans with minorities and immigrants.

70.

Steve King endorsed right-wing Canadian political commentator Faith Goldy in the 2018 Toronto mayoral election.

71.

Steve King subscribes to the white genocide conspiracy theory, and has stated this view while in Congress.

72.

In late October 2018, after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the Anti-Defamation League sent the House speaker, Paul Ryan, an open letter calling on him to censure Steve King, citing Steve King's relationship with far-right Freedom Party of Austria and other far-right groups in Europe.

73.

The letter accused Steve King of engaging in antisemitic smearing of the Jewish investor and philanthropist George Soros.

74.

Steve King says he was motivated to write lest "the media and the elitists in the Republican Party write a political epitaph" for him.

75.

Steve King told the Des Moines Register that while he currently had no plans to return to politics, he would if there was a "groundswell".