Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Kiron, tried to get the U.S. House to impose travel restrictions on its Speaker this week. Republicans roundly criticized Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for traveling to Syria earlier this year and meeting with Syria’s president.
This past week Congressman King sponsored an amendment to a budget bill that would have forbid State Department funds from being used to pay for Pelosi’s travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the Sudan or Syria. King says those nations are known sponsors of terrorism and an elected leader of congress has no business visiting those countries.
President Bush asked Pelosi not to visit Syria in April, and King contends Pelosi’s trip violated a 200-year-old U.S. law that bars U.S. citizens from injecting themselves between the United States and foreign countries. King’s travel restriction proposal failed on a 84 to 337 vote in the House shortly after midnight Friday morning.