Campaign Action
On Tuesday, the House voted 424-1 on a resolution of disapproval against Iowa Congress member Steve King, following his recent remarks endorsing white supremacy. The lone legislator to vote against the resolution, Democratic Congress member Bobby Rush, did so because he said the resolution didn’t go far enough—and he’s right.
“It really was not worth the paper that it was written on,” the Illinois legislator told CNN’s Erin Burnett following the Tuesday vote. “It became obsolete before the ink on the paper dried. So it certainly fell far short of what I think the action of the members of Congress should have been.”
The day before the vote, Rush had introduced a resolution to formally censure the “unrepentant racist,” writing that “King’s pattern of despicable comments harken back to the dark days of American history where his rabid, racist remarks would have been acceptable to a significant portion of our nation. This must come to a screeching halt right now.”
The fact is that Republicans tolerated King’s racism for years and regularly sought out his endorsements. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, flocked to his gatherings in Iowa while campaigning for president, and then made King national co-chair of his 2016 campaign. Following King’s latest racist remarks, Cruz now claims that "what Steve King said was stupid. It was stupid, it was hurtful, it was wrong. And he needs to stop it." Eye-roll.
Now, you could say that Republicans are doing this for show, but you could also say that no one believes for a second that Republicans are disowning racists, because “the same Republicans who are criticizing King are now treating Donald Trump and his racism with the same kind of blissful ignorance that they'd granted to King for so long.” As the saying goes, dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres, or “tell me who you walk with and I'll tell you who you are.”
The fact is that King has spent years being an indignant asshole (and damn proud of it), like the time he celebrated the deportation of a Dreamer with a tall beer. “First non-valedictorian DREAMer deported,” he tweeted. “Border Patrol, this one's for you.” He needs to go, and it begins with a formal censure, not a resolution that “meant so little that even Steve King could vote for it,” Rush said. “That is why we need to censure him. We need to punish him for his bigotry and racism.”