Steve King

Steven Arnold King (born May 28, 1949) is an American politician and businessman who was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Iowa from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Iowa's 5th congressional district until 2013 and the state's 4th congressional district from 2013 to 2021.

Born in 1949 in Storm Lake, Iowa, King attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970. He founded a construction company in 1975 and worked in business and environmental study before seeking the Republican nomination for the 6th district in the Iowa Senate in 1996. He won the primary and the general election, and was reelected in 2000. In 2002, King was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 5th congressional district after the incumbent, Tom Latham, was reassigned to the 4th congressional district after redistricting. He was reelected four times before the 2010 United States census removed the 5th district, after which King ran for the 4th district, which he represented from 2013 to 2021.

King is an opponent of immigration and multiculturalism, and has a long history of racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The Washington Post described King in 2018 as "the Congressman most openly affiliated with white nationalism." King has been criticized for his affiliation with white supremacist ideas, made controversial statements against immigrants, and supported European right-wing populist and far-right politicians who have engaged in racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia.

King's views and policy platforms did not attract major intra-party condemnation until shortly before the 2018 election, when 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. 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. King ran for reelection but, campaign funding and support having declined, lost the June 2020 Republican primary election to Randy Feenstra by 10 points.

King was born on May 28, 1949, in Storm Lake, Iowa, the son of Lila Mildred (née Culler), a homemaker, and Emmett Arnold King, a state police dispatcher. His father had Irish and German ancestry, and his mother had Welsh roots, as well as American ancestry going back to the colonial era. His paternal grandmother was a German immigrant. King graduated in 1967 from Denison Community High School. In 1972, he married Marilyn Kelly, with whom he has three children. Though he was raised in the United Methodist Church, King attends his wife's Catholic church, and converted to Catholicism 17 years after their marriage. His son Jeff King, a consultant, has been active in his political campaigns.

King attended Northwest Missouri State University from 1967 to 1970, where he was a member of the Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity and majored in mathematics and biology, but did not graduate. In 1975, King founded King Construction, an earthmoving company. In the 1980s, he founded the Kiron Business Association. King's involvement with the Iowa Land Improvement Contractors' Association led to regional and national offices in that organization and a growing interest in public policy.

In 1996, King was elected to Iowa's 6th Senate district, defeating incumbent senator Wayne Bennett in the primary 68%–31%. and Eileen Heiden, a Democrat, in the general election 64%–35%. In 2000, he won reelection to a second term, defeating Democratic nominee Dennis Ryan 70%–30%. During his tenure in the Iowa Senate, King filed a bill requiring public schools to teach children that the U.S. "is the unchallenged greatest nation in the world and that it has derived its strength from... Christianity, free enterprise capitalism and Western civilization", and served as chief sponsor of a law making English the official language of Iowa.

In 2002, after redistricting, King ran for the open seat in Iowa's 5th congressional district. The incumbent, fellow Republican Tom Latham, had his home drawn into the reconfigured 4th district. King finished first in the Republican primary of four candidates with 31% of the vote, less than the 35% voting threshold needed to win; subsequently, a nominating convention was held, at which he was nominated, defeating state house speaker Brent Siegrist 51%–47%. King won the general election, defeating Council Bluffs city councilman Paul Shomshor 62%–38%. He won all the counties in the predominantly Republican district except Pottawattamie.

King won reelection to a second term, defeating Democratic candidate Joyce Schulte, 63%–37%. He won all the counties in the district except Clarke.

In 2006, King won reelection to a third term, defeating Schulte again, 59%–36%. He won all the counties in the district except Clarke and Union.

King won reelection to a fourth term, defeating Democratic candidate Rob Hubler, 60%–37%. For the first time in his career he won all 32 counties in his district.

King won reelection to a fifth term, defeating Matt Campbell, 66%–32%. King won all 32 counties in his district.

King opposes abortion. He had a 100% rating from the National Right to Life Committee. King voted against allowing human embryonic stem cell research. He supports the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would ban federal funding of abortions except in cases of what the bill calls "forcible rape". This would remove the coverage from Medicaid that covers abortions for victims of statutory rape or incest.

After Todd Akin made a controversial statement about "legitimate rape" on August 19, 2012, King came to his defense, characterizing the critiques as "petty personal attacks" and calling Akin a "strong Christian man". King said that Akin's voting record should be more important than his words. Six months later, King's defense of Akin (who lost his race) was seen as politically damaging by Steven J. Law of the Conservative Victory Project, a group including Karl Rove that was working to discourage conservative candidates they deemed unelectable, to enable more viable conservative candidates to gain office. Law said, "We're concerned about Steve King's Todd Akin problem."

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 (before many women know they are pregnant). The bill would have made a physician who performed a prohibited abortion subject to a fine, up to five years in prison, or both. It would have made women who undergo a prohibited abortion ineligible for prosecution.

In August 2019, while defending his opposition to abortion in cases of rape or incest, King asked, "What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?" Iowa state senator Randy Feenstra, who went on to defeat King in the 2020 Republican primary, tweeted: "I am 100% pro-life but Steve King's bizarre comments and behavior diminish our message & damage our cause". U.S. representative Liz Cheney called King's comments "appalling and bizarre" and called for his resignation. King's comments were also criticized by Steve Scalise, Kevin McCarthy, Donald Trump, and Elise Jordan.

In February 2010, King tweeted about chasing and shooting a raccoon that had tried to enter his house during a blizzard, prompting criticism from animal rights groups. He defended his actions, saying the animal may have had rabies.

After King's loss in the 2020 Republican primary in Iowa's 4th congressional district, he wrote a book giving his account of what happened and travelled for several months to promote it. The book is entitled Walking Through the Fire: My Fight for the Heart and Soul of America. It was put out by Fidelis Publishing, known for publishing Christian and conservative books. King says he was motivated to write lest "the media and the elitists in the Republican Party write a political epitaph" for him. The book maintains that freedom of speech is being undermined and that the Democratic Party is weaponizing terms like "white nationalist" and "white supremacist". King claims his attempts to warn America about this was why he lost his party's support, saying "I'm trying to tell America, and what do they [Republican leadership] do? Politically assassinate me for trying to let them know what's happening to all of us."

In 2021, he told the Des Moines Register that while he currently had no plans to return to politics, he would if there was a "groundswell". He went on to say, "I don't see that at this point. But I do see a lot of support, and we've got a lot of policies and causes that we need to push. We've got state conventions coming up and a platform to be shaped."

King has campaigned against carbon-capture pipelines; at an August 2023 event cosponsored by the John Birch Society, he criticized the use of eminent domain and financial motivations behind the pipelines.

In December 2023, King campaigned with Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 presidential candidate, at an event in Lakeside, Iowa, but had not endorsed him. In January 2024, he gave a full endorsement of him.