King was the representative for Iowa’s 4th congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 2013 to 2020.
He was previously the representative for Iowa’s 5th congressional district as a Republican from 2003 to 2012.
Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided instead by incumbent politicians running in the very same election. Their attempts to suppress entire state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and using a disinformation campaign of lies and conspiracy theories was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.
King was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. Shortly after the election, King joined a case before the Supreme Court calling for all the votes for president in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states that were narrowly won by Democrats — to be discarded, in order to change the outcome of the election, based on lies and a preposterous legal argument which the Supreme Court rejected. (Following the rejection of several related cases before the Supreme Court, another legislator who joined the case called for violence.) The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors.
![Photo of Rep. Steve King [R-IA4, 2013-2020]](/static/legislator-photos/400220-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Legislative Metrics
Read our 2020 Report Card for King.
Ideology–Leadership Chart
King is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2020 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills King sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Dec 28, 2020. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
King was the primary sponsor of 1 bill that was enacted:
Does 1 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
King sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Immigration (31%) Taxation (17%) Government Operations and Politics (11%) Crime and Law Enforcement (11%) Health (9%) Labor and Employment (8%) Agriculture and Food (6%) Law (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
King recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.Res. 1273 (116th): Nullifying the impeachment of Donald John Trump.
- H.R. 9062 (116th): To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to modify provisions relating to …
- H.R. 9063 (116th): To require agencies of the Federal Government to define the term service …
- H.R. 9064 (116th): To Amend and Improve Federal law regarding in the areas of immigration, …
- H.R. 8876 (116th): To authorize the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reclassify …
- H.R. 8836 (116th): HAMLET Act
- H.R. 8838 (116th): Legal Immigration for the U.S. Act
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Jan 2003 to Dec 2020, King missed 355 of 12,265 roll call votes, which is 2.9%. This is on par with the median of 2.3% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Dec 2020. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
