Congressional Correspondent
WSJ
Siobhan Hughes reports for the WSJ:
WASHINGTON—Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa), who was stripped of committee assignments last year for questioning what was wrong with white supremacy in the U.S., lost his bid for a 10th term after Republicans abandoned his campaign and endorsed a primary challenger.
Randy Feenstra, a state legislator, had 45.8% of the vote with 36 of 39 counties reporting, according to Iowa’s secretary of state. He was positioned to win a five-way primary, the Associated Press projected, and easily clear a 35% threshold that under state law allows him to avoid a state convention choosing the nominee. Mr. Feenstra will compete against Democrat J.D. Scholten, a former professional baseball player who also tried to win the seat in 2018.
Mr. King, whose district is home to giant meat-processing facilities with a large immigrant workforce, has a history of criticizing immigrants.
In 2013, Mr. King, the only Iowa Republican in the House, compared Hispanic immigrants to drug mules, saying that “for every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that, they weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” That triggered a rebuke from then-House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), who said that “what he said does not reflect the values of the American people or the Republican Party.”
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Read the rest of Siobhan’s article at the link.
Probably the best news of the week.
In 21 years on the immigration bench, at both the trial and appellate levels, I saw first-hand the amazing, essential, and largely unheralded contributions of immigrants (both documented and undocumented) to our society, at all levels. King’s racist rhetoric was so outrageously and demonstrably unfair and untrue!
As the essential workers who have basically kept America afloat during the pandemic, many at risk of their own health and safety, have shown, it is long past time for us to “lose” the Trump/Miller White Nationalist nonsense, stop caging kids and returning asylum seekers to danger, and integrate the millions of law abiding undocumented residents into our society. The “Dred Scottification of the other” by Trump, which has been disgracefully enabled by a tone-deaf Supreme Court and feckless Congress, needs to end! Removal of King is a small, but significant, step.
Thanks again to Siobhan for giving this story the clear and timely reporting it deserves.
Due Process Forever!
PWS
06-03-20