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King says White House favors ‘rifle shots of immigration reform’ rather than massive all-in-one bill

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Congressman Steve King.

Iowa Congressman Steve King says he’s getting signals from the White House on the president’s preferred path on immigration policy.

“I talked to the White House about three or four days ago. They said: ‘We’re done with amnesty,’ but they’re interested in going forward with rifle-shots of immigration reform, which is what I’ve always been for,” King says. “Let’s set ’em up one bill at a time. Let’s not crowd them all together and confuse the American people. Let everybody see what we’re doing.”

King suggests with a “rifle-shot” approach, there would be bills that address just one topic, like border wall funding in one bill and another that addresses so-called “DACA” recipients who were illegally brought into the country by their parents when they were children.

“If we can’t move anything because all of the oxygen is sucked out of the political atmosphere by the upcoming announcement of an appointment to the impending vacancy on the US Supreme Court, I guess that’s alright because that’s the most important thing right now,” King says, “to get a constitutionalist seated on the court who will rule on the text and the original understanding of the Constitution and the text of the law rather than legislate from the bench.”

President Trump is scheduled to reveal his nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy on Monday night.

Last month, Congressman King was among the Republicans who helped defeat two immigration bills advanced by House GOP leaders. King says the failure of those bills improves the chances future proposals will be in line with his views.

“I think they are better than I expected they would be at this point,” King says. “My major concern on immigration, the thing that has animated me on the immigration issue — and I don’t think anyone out there would question whether I am animated on that issue or not — it has aways been for restoring respect for the rule of law.”

J.D. Scholten of Sioux City, King’s Democratic opponent, says it’s time to “modernize” the country’s immigration policies.

“We absolutely have to have secure borders, but then beyond that we’ve got to have an immigration court that is functional and not months and even years behind,” Scholten says. “And then we need to have a visa program that matches our economy and then a pathway to residency and a pathway to citizenship that should be earned.”

Scholten says it’s frustrating to watch the D.C. debate on this topic.

“I mean what isn’t happening is something being done,” Scholten says.

President Trump tweeted Thursday that Congress should “FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW.” This followed recent presidential tweets suggesting Republicans pass the House GOP’s immigration-related bills along with the idea Republicans should abandon the issue now and wait for a “red wave” of Republicans to be elected to congress.

(Reporting by Bob Fisher, KGLO, Mason City; additional reporting by Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson)

Congressman King urged no vote on bill he called ‘instant amnesty’

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Congressman Steve King was among those urging his Republican colleagues to vote against a bill in the U.S. House that King says is “instant amnesty” for more than five million people living in the country illegally. The bill failed to pass the Republican-led House early this afternoon.

“Since Ronald Reagan signed the amnesty act in 1986…it set up the sign again that said: ‘If you can get enough people into America that have broken our immigration laws, sooner or later there’ll be another amnesty,’ there have been six other lesser amnesties since 1986, but this one would be the biggest one in the United States of America,” King said recently during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.

King argued enclaves of immigrants who’ve entered the country illegally are failing to assimilate into the U.S.

“We’ve got to secure the border,” King said. “We’ve got to restore the respect for the rule of law or we’ll never be a sovereign nation again and we’ve gone through a lot of damage.”

King said President Trump’s recent executive order stopping the separation of children from parents who crossed the border illegally was “the best temporary solution” given the public reaction, but King said a permanent fix is needed.

“This doesn’t turn down the magnet for people to come to America,” King said. “We’ve got to shut that magnet off.”

King also has addressed questions about his re-tweet of a Nazi sympathizer’s views on immigration issues. King said he retweeted a Breitbart headline without researching the article’s author because the headline indicated Europe is waking up to the danger of unlimited immigration.

“If we destroy the nation-state with globalism, then you merge all these cultures and we’re back to being scrambled again,” King said. “And I think we’ve got to respect all people in the world, but let’s respect ourselves enough to know that we’ve built something in America that has never been matched in the history of the world. Let’s not destroy it over some myopic idea that all cultures are equal. They’re not.”

During his appearance on C-SPAN, King said people who’ve criticized him for his tweet either “don’t understand the English language” or are “willfully” trying to mislead the public.

(This article was updated at 1:03 p.m.)

Reynolds says congress should act ASAP on immigration

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Governor Kim Reynolds.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is joining Republican governors from Maryland and Massachusetts in saying she would not send Iowa National Guard troops to the southern border if the soldiers are called to separate children from parents crossing into the country illegally.

“There are other issues — human trafficking, drugs coming across, safety at the border, then if that would be a request, then I would consider that,” Reynolds says.

While President Trump tweeted today said Republicans in congress should wait until after the November election to enact new immigration policies, Reynolds says she’d like to see congress act as soon as possible.

A new state law that takes effect July 1st will cut off state funding to any city or county in the state that fails to cooperate with federal immigration agents. Reynolds says the law will not trigger any immediate action, as she is “not aware of” any so-called “sanctuary cities” in the state.

“Right now there isn’t, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable,” Reynolds says. “You know, one of my number one responsibilities is to make sure that we keep Iowans safe and I don’t think it’s unreasonable if somebody that’s here and they’ve broken the law and they’ve been apprehended that it’s unreasonable to send them back because it’s important that we maintain the safety of Iowans.”

Congressman Steve King has been an outspoken critic of any effort to provide what he calls “amnesty” to people who entered the country illegally. During an interview with Breitbart News, King said he did not want Somali refugees working in pork plants in his congressional district since Muslims do not eat pork. Reynolds says she disagrees with King’s on that, but she rejects the idea King’s string of headline-grabbing comments are making Iowa less attractive to businesses considering relocating or expanding here.

“I don’t think some of the comments he made are absolutely reflective of Iowans and who we are as a people,” Reynolds says. “He is one of over 4000 honorary chairs in my campaign…He is not involved in policy or issues that we’re working on and the fact of the matter is he does represent over a fourth of the state, so people that live in his district.”

Reynolds made her remarks during taping of the “Iowa Press” program which airs tonight at 7:30 on Iowa Public Television.

 

‘March for Our Lives’ tour stops in Sioux City

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Jaclyn Corin talks during stop in Sioux City.

The national gun control advocacy group “March for Our Lives” bus tour stopped in Sioux City today.

A student from Marjorie Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida Jaclyn Corin was the keynote speaker.

Seventeen people were killed during a February shooting at the high school and Corin talked about her advocacy to stop gun violence in the wake of the killings of her fellow students and teachers.

“I personally organized a protest to our state capital of Tallahassee less than a week after the shooting. And we amazingly did not stop advocating from the start — and here we are four months out and we are still not stopping,” Corin says. Corin says her group wants what she calls “morally just leaders” elected to political office.

The bus tour is stopping in three Iowa Congressional districts represented by strong gun rights supporters. Corin criticized the National Rifle Association and it’s support of those lawmakers such as 4th District Congressmen Steve King:

“Lobby groups like the National Rifle Association have such a stranglehold over our politicians and they bar these politicians from passing common sense gun laws to protect their own constituents — which is completely unAmerican,” Corin says.

Corin and a student from Chicago talked to a predominantly Democratic audience of 100 people that included King’s opponent for Congress, J.D. Scholten and numerous local party leaders and supporters. Corin’s group then met with local high school students to discuss how to get young people out to vote. They also made posters for a planned afternoon protest outside of Congressman Steve King’s Sioux City office.

She says they will hold a vigil at King’s office to honor all the lives that have been lost to gun violence. “because Steve King is not a morally just leader.”

King is in Washington, D.C. and not at his Sioux City office. The Congressman declined to respond to Corin’s remarks or the protest at his office.

(Photo and story by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)

 

Parkland students to protest at Congressman King’s office

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The national gun control advocacy group “March for Our Lives” is making three stops in Iowa this week in Congressional districts represented by strong gun rights supporters.

Today’s stop will be outside the offices of Congressman Steve King, a staunch supporter of the second amendment and a critic of March for Our Lives. Organizer Kyrah Simon is from Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed during a high school shooting in February. Simon has a message for King.

“It’s really that the young people are not afraid, we’re not willing to back down to hatred,” Simon says. “Our voices are just as important, just as strong as his. We’re willing to make a change if he’s unwilling to do that.” Simon says a vigil will be held outside King’s office in Sioux City at noon today, as he’s a fervent supporter of gun rights and has sparred with the students on social media.

Simon says, “I think what’s amazing with the movement is that a few days after the shooting when everything was still raw, they had the courage, they had the bravery to go out and speak to the media, get their voices out, make an organization to implement change in our country.” They’re calling this the “Road to Change” bus tour. On Thursday, the group plans to hold an afternoon rally in Cedar Rapids and another event at Linn-Mar High School in Marion on Thursday night.

(Thanks to Rob Dillard, Iowa Public Radio)

 

King says ‘nothing cruel’ about separating kids from parents at southern border

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Republican Congressman Steve King has been an active tweeter today, urging people to call congress and voice their opposition to bills that would provide what King calls “amnesty” to anyone who entered the U.S. illegally.

King tweeted out a link to an interview he did with TMZ about the separation of children from parents crossing illegally at the southern border. King told the TMZ cameraman there is “nothing cruel” about the way the children are being treated and they are not being held in cages.

King has toured detention centers near the southern border before. The use of chain link fencing is needed, King has said, to separate the boys from the girls.

King also said on Twitter today that the only way to stop what he describes as a “flood of illegals” is for the U.S. to deport “substantially more…than the number of those who arrive seeking amnesty.”

 

 

Congressman King, challenger Scholten focus on trade concerns (AUDIO)

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Congressman Steve King is urging his fellow Republicans who are “apprehensive” about President Trump’s trade talk to give Trump “time and room” to make some deals.

“I’ve been asking for years for a president who would play brinksmanship who was also an enigma,” King said Saturday. “It’s really a powerful position to have when you’re doing foreign trade and negotiations and geopolitical maneuvers of all kinds. Well, we elected Donald Trump and I think we got both of those things.”

King made his comments this weekend at the Iowa Republican Party’s state convention.

AUDIO of King’s speech, 6:44

King predicted there will be a “red tsunami” this November. King also spoke up for the nation’s embattled attorney general who’s drawn Trump’s ire at time and who has defended the policy separating children from parents entering the country illegally at the border.

“I’m a supporter of Jeff Sessons. He’s a noble man,” King said. “He believes in the Bible and the Constitution and in the rule of law.”

King’s Democratic opponent, J.C. Scholten of Sioux City, rallied with delegates at the Iowa Democratic Party’s state convention this weekend.

“Who’s ready to beat Steve King?” Scholten asked, getting a big cheer from the Democratic delegates. “Now my second question: ‘Who thinks this race is unwinnable?’ Because that’s what I’ve been told every day since I launched my campaign back in July and I’m sick of it. I’ve modeled my campaign after two of my political heroes: Tom Harkin and Berkely Bedell.”

Harkin and Bedell — both Democrats — are former congressmen who represented many of counties included in Iowa’s current fourth congressional district. Scholten suggested there’s a reason King recently re-tweeted the views of a neo-Nazi.

“He doesn’t have an answer to farmers who have been struggling for four consecutive years on low commodity prices at a time, now, with tariffs to add on top of that,” Scholten said. “…But this is race is not about the crap that comes out of his mouth. It’s about what we can do.”

AUDIO of Scholten’s speech, 3:35

 

Iowa Democrats, Republicans to hold state conventions Saturday

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Democrats and Republicans will hold their state conventions in Des Moines tomorrow.

Democrats will gather in downtown Des Moines and Fred Hubbell — the party’s nominee for governor –will reveal who he’s chosen as a running mate.

“Of course, our focus as been on the primary. We had to win the primary before we had the opportunity to choose a lieutenant governor,” Hubbell said last Friday on Iowa Public Television, “and we will choose a very talented, capable person to be our lieutenant governor.”

Speculation has centered on a few names, including two women who are state senators. Since 1990, every Democrat and Republican nominated to run for governor has opted for “gender balance” at the top of the ticket. Hubbell said he’s had one major consideration.

“Pick a person who is very talented, very experienced,” Hubbell said on IPTV last Friday, “and, if something were to happen to me as governor, could step in and do a great job.”

Republicans are holding their state convention across town, on the state fairgrounds. The GOP delegates will formally nominate Adam Gregg as their party’s lieutenant governor candidate. Governor Kim Reynolds announced he’d be her running mate and governing partner in May of last year, the day after she took over from departing Governor Terry Branstad.

An amendment to Iowa’s Constitution changed the process of electing lieutenant governors in 1990. Below is the list of Democrats and Republicans who’ve run together as a team since then.

1990:

Republican gubernatorial nominee Terry Branstad, the incumbent and eventual winner in 1990, chose state Senator Joy Corning of Cedar Falls, as his running mate. This was the first election in which the new state constitutional amendment took effect, so candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in Iowa ran as a team — just as the president and vice president do.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Don Avenson chose Jo Ann Zimmerman as his running mate. Zimmerman, the first woman elected as lieutenant governor, was also the state’s last independently elected lieutenant governor. Zimmerman, a nurse from Waukee, ended her campaign for governor before the primary and became half of the “A to Z” ticket.

1994:

Republican Terry Branstad successfully ran for a fourth term as governor and Joy Corning was again his running mate.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bonnie Campbell chose Leonard Boswell, a military veteran and state senator from Davis City, as her running mate. Boswell ran for congress in 1996 and served in the U.S. House until  January of 2013.

1998:

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tom Vilsack and the winner of the 1998 election chose Sally Pederson as his running mate. Pederson, a Vinton native, was the former food editor of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, a former Meredith Corporation executive and she was active in civic organizations in the Des Moines area. Pederson later served as chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Jim Ross Lightfoot chose Almo Hawkins of Des Moines as his running mate and she became the first African American nominated by a major party for statewide office when delegates at the 1998 state convention ratified Lightfoot’s choice. Hawkins, a former reporter for KCCI television in Des Moines, had worked in state government.

2002:

Democrat Tom Vilsack successfully ran for reelection and Sally Pederson was again his lieutenant governor running mate.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Gross chose Debi Durham of Sioux City as his running mate. Durham was the head of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce. She is currently head of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, a position she’s held since January of 2011.

2006:

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chet Culver and the winner of the 2006 election chose Patty Judge as his running mate. Judge, a former state senator from Albia who had served two terms as Iowa’s first female secretary of agriculture, ended her own campaign for governor before the primary to become Culver’s running mate.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Jim Nussle chose Bob Vander Plaats as his running mate. Vander Plaats had run unsuccessfully for governor in 2002 and was running again in 2006, but ended his own campaign to become Nussle’s lieutenant governor running mate. (Vander Plaats ran a third time for governor in 2010, losing to Terry Branstad. See more below.) Vander Plaats is now president and CEO of The Family Leader.

2010:

Republican Terry Branstad successfully ran for a fifth term as governor, selecting state Senator Kim Reynolds of Osceola as his running mate. Reynolds had competition for the slot on the ticket at the GOP’s state convention that year, though. Bob Vander Plaats, who finished second to Branstad in the primary, was nominated at the convention by state Representative Dwayne Alons of Hull to be Branstad’s running mate. Congressman Steve King nominated Reynolds. Reynolds won the most votes from delegates, securing the lieutenant governor slot on the GOP’s 2010 ticket.

Democratic Governor Chet Culver and Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge sought reelection in 2010.

2014:

Republican Terry Branstad won a sixth term as governor with Kim Reynolds as his lieutenant governor running mate.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Hatch chose Cedar Rapids City Councilwoman Monica Vernon as his running mate. Vernon had just finished second in the Democratic Party’s primary in the first congressional district. Hatch announced Vernon as his pick a few days after the primary, before the state convention, at a union hall in Cedar Rapids.

 

 

 

 

Three Democrats, one Republican and a Libertarian line up to challenge Steve King

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J.D. Scholten

Republican Congressman Steve King has a primary opponent and three other candidates are competing to be the Democrat who runs in the fourth congressional district this fall.

King is seeking a ninth term in the U.S. House. The district is decidedly Republican, but the Democrats who’ve lined up to run against King are hoping King’s headline-grabbing comments may be a turn-off for Republicans and independents, while Democratic turn out may be higher in a mid-term election.

Thirty-eight-year-old J.D. Scholten, a paralegal from Sioux City, is a former professional baseball player who says his competitive energy extends to the political field.

“I’m fighting for your job. I’m fighting for your wage and your paycheck and I’m fighting for your health care and I’m fighting for your kids’ education,” Scholten says. “That’s what it boils down to.”

Fifty-five-year-old Leann Jacobsen is a member of Spencer’s city council who helped start a farmers market and a coffeehouse/wine bar in Spencer.

“I don’t think candidates that have run in the past have done a really intentional job of holding Steve King accountable for the fact that he does nothing and gets nothing done,” Jacobsen says.

Fifty-eight year old John Paschen, an Ames pediatrician, says running for office wasn’t on his bucket list, but Paschen says he felt he had no choice but to run given the current political climate.

The Republican running against Congressman King in the primary is 46-year-old Cindi Hanson of Sioux City, an administrator at the community college campus in South Sioux City, Nebraska. Hanson, who says she is a moderate Republican, argues it’s time for some collaboration in congress, “instead of being severely entrenched and in an extreme position.”

Congressman King says he believes he has a “reasonable chance” to win in November.

Libertarian Charles Aldrich of Clarion is also running for congress in the fourth district. Aldrich, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, is an industrial engineer.

Congressman King surprised by failed House vote on the Farm Bill

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Congressman Steve King.

Iowa Congressman Steve King says he was taken aback by the failure of the Farm Bill on Friday in the U.S. House.

“It was a surprise. It was a surprise to me. I told people I thought it would pass by a small margin of votes, maybe five, plus or minus one or two,” King says. “I was watching the whip team before that vote was called. They were relaxed, thinking it was all in the bag. Then, when I watched the board, it went the other way.”

King, a Republican from Kiron who serves on the House Agriculture Committee, was in Orange City over the weekend. He says explains why the bill failed.

“No Democrat would vote for it because it had work requirements in the SNAP program,” King says. “So, they pretty well certified themselves as being against work. I’m not particularly surprised at that, but that’s the position they took, so it all had to be passed with Republican votes.” At least nine Republicans joined with Democrats in voting against the Farm Bill, colleagues King calls “liberal Republicans,” who also disagreed with the SNAP work requirements. There were several other Republicans who King refers to as “the Freedom Caucus people,” who also opposed the Farm Bill.

“There were 13 of them that voted no and they did so because they want an immigration bill to come to the floor,” King says. “That immigration bill has got two components of amnesty in it and I oppose that immigration bill and I’m just stunned that they would take two separate issues, vote no on something that they would otherwise vote yes on, just to get some leverage to get a bill to the floor that has amnesty in it.”

King is still optimistic and remains confident the House will pass a Farm Bill within the next month or so that will be very similar to the bill that just failed.

(By Dennis Morrice, KLEM, Le Mars)