King among lawmakers refusing to accept vacation

Steve King

Congressman Steve King didn't get to visit the wheelhouse of the Storm Lake dredging boat on Monday as planned.

Instead, the western Iowa U.S. Representative raced back to Washington to join about 24 other Republican House members in an unprecedented efffort to guide a vote on a comprehensive energy bill through treacherous waters.

They had plenty of elbow room - the rest of Congress left last week for a five-week summer break.

King and the others want Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call members back to vote on an energy bill that in part would expand North American drilling.

"Speaker Pelosi successfully blocked this from coming to a vote, and that is unconscionable," King told the Pilot-Tribune in an interview from the House floor during the effort on Monday.

"Congress is going on a five week vacation, and Speaker Pelosi is going on a book-signing tour, and meanwhile, the American people are paying $4 a gallon for gasoline," King steamed.

The congressional standoff over energy stems largely from Republicans wanting to lift restrictions on offshore drilling while Democrats want oil companies to drill unused leases. A crackdown on oil market speculation is also at issue.

Last Friday, between 40 and 50 members of Congress had planned to give five-minute speeches on the energy issues, leading up to what they expected would be a vote prior to recess.

In the middle of this process, King said, at Pelosi's order, the lights were shut off on the Congress members who wished to continue work on the issues, their microphones were cut off and TV coverage ordered stopped.

"I've been told that this is simply unprecedented, to muzzle an issue in this way, and I have no reason to doubt that it it true," King said.

A couple of the members decided to go ahead with their speeches anyway, as their peers left. "Those of us who remained took turns talking Friday, and we started to go out and bring tourists in. Rules allow this when we are not in regular session, so why not? It was a chance for visitors to Washington to come into the chamber and sit right in the seats normally being used by members of Congress," said King.

After canceling his Storm Lake visit - which King hopes to make up as soon as possible - King and the other couple of dozen members went back to the House Monday morning, opened with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance on their own, and proceeded to hold an unofficial session without the majority of the members. By then, the word was getting around that something unusual was going on.

"I wouldn't say it was standing-room only, but it was pretty full in here," he said. Again, members ushered tourists into the hall.

"Some of our members say this isn't a Republican or a Democrat problem, but an American problem," King said of the energy debate. "There is truth to that, but it is also true that 90 percent of Republicans voted in favor of expansion of our energy supply and 90 percent of Democrats voted against it."

King didn't classify his group's action as a protest, but said they did want to be heard and to make a point. "We are not demanding that our vote passes, but that it comes to the floor for a fair vote."

The local Congressman expects no vacation any time soon. "We'll just keep rotating - personally, as you can imagine, it is a little hard for me to hold my remarks to five minutes," King laughed. "We will keep hammering away as long as people come to town. We will keep it up until Speaker Pelosi calls a special session to deal with this - it is our duty."

Then, King hopes, the dredge will be waiting.

"I want to get out there and see it in operation on Storm Lake. I've been in an earth-moving business for a long time, and I think it will all fit for me as I see it in action. It will give me a little extra juice to try to get our federal appropriations funding."

When Congress abruptly pulled "earmark" funding policy, a lot of projects like Storm Lake dredging were suddenly at a loss for federal funding.

"I don't understand why legitimate programs like this can't still be reviewed for funding," King said. "By completely eliminating earmarks, all we are saying is that we would presume to have some unnamed bureaucrats behind the scenes making the decisions where the taxpayer money goes instead of the individuals who the people elect to represent them."

King recently has felt the impact of some media criticism, and reportedly declined to participate in a debate sponsored by the Sioux City Journal due to what he felt was unfair coverage.

"I don't want to say whether I've been treated fairly or not," King told the Pilot-Tribune Monday. "I will say that the press is getting analytically very lazy. They think they can print anything, whether it is barely a rumor-let alone fact.

"As far as I'm concerned they have the right to say whatever they will on the editorial page, because I believe in the Constitutional right to free speech, but when they start printing their own offensive opinions in the news pages as if they were fact, I do have a problem with that."

King said that he would work with any form of media that treats him decently, but that he would no longer go out of his way for those that do not.

"If you treat someone well and they turn around and slap you, you turn the other cheek and try again. But if they just slap you again for it, well, as far as I'm concerned, I'm out of cheeks."