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 As the face of the opposition to comprehensive immigration
legislation in Congress, King has long used fiery rhetoric to argue
for deporting all 12 million undocumented residents and fortifying
U.S. borders.
Now, the Iowa congressman's high-profile role in the debate over
President Barack Obama's executive order on immigration threatens
Republican leaders' efforts to rebrand the party as more friendly to
Hispanics, while his effort to block funding for the action raises
the risk of a government shutdown.
King and Representative Michele Bachmann, a fellow Tea Party
activist, plan a news conference on Wednesday to make their case
that Obama has violated the U.S. Constitution by moving to shield
4.7 million undocumented residents from deportation if they have no
serious criminal record.
Not stopping there, the 65-year-old, six-term lawmaker told Reuters
he would like to push legislation through the House to "censure"
Obama and top it off with a bill to block funding of the president's
immigration initiative.
 Doing anything less, he said, is "asking members of Congress to fund
a lawless, unconstitutional act. It can't be tolerated."
Shutting off funds to implement the executive action could kill
efforts to pass a government funding bill by a Dec. 11 deadline,
forcing the second shutdown of federal agencies in 14 months.
House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch
McConnell, both eager to avoid budget theatrics following a
politically disastrous 16-day government shutdown in October 2013,
are working to tamp down such demands from the most conservative
Republicans.
Boehner and McConnell also have an eye on the 2016 presidential
elections and the Republican Party's goal, developed after its 2012
White House defeat, to lure Hispanic votes with a more inclusive
message on immigration.
King has other ideas. In January he will host a "freedom summit" in
Des Moines for some of his party's most conservative ideologues,
including Texas Senator Ted Cruz and former Pennsylvania Senator
Rick Santorum, to sketch out their visions for America if they were
elected president in 2016.
"What's remarkable is that he (King) was marginalized, or seemed
marginalized, following the 2012 election when Republican leaders
and conservatives were lining up to pass immigration reform," said
Frank Sharry, a leading immigration advocate as head of the group
America's Voice.
Now, this "hardest of hard-liners," Sharry added, "is arguably the
most influential man in the House Republican caucus" on immigration
matters.
In the past two years, King repeatedly has stomped on Republican
efforts to appeal to more Hispanics. He has urged Congress to take
advantage of his construction business experience and build a
concrete wall along the southern border with Mexico.
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He also talked of illegal immigrant children with "calves the size
of cantaloupes," because he said they were hauling marijuana under
their pants as they crossed into the United States. That led Boehner
to lash out at King, calling his comments offensive and not
reflecting the values of the Republican Party. In mid-2013, as
Boehner vainly tried to lay the groundwork for a major immigration
bill, King successfully pushed an amendment in the House to shut
down Obama's 2012 initiative easing deportations against
undocumented people brought to the United States as children by
their parents.
But while King is a lightning rod for controversy, many of his
fellow Republicans are comfortable with at least some of his policy
positions, if not his style.
"To some extent, he and I see things similar in that I am a
law-and-order guy," said Representative John Carter of Texas, a
member of a bipartisan House group that for several years tried to
cobble together a comprehensive immigration bill.
"And Steve is a true believer that we ought to follow the law,"
Carter said.
Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University
in Des Moines, said Iowans encountered a cultural change by the end
of the 1990s as meat packing plants and manufacturers employed large
numbers of Hispanics in a state that, according to the Census
Bureau, is still 92.5 percent white.
"Some of that was greeted with open arms, some was greeted with a
certain amount of fear and uncertainty," Goldford said, adding,
"King has ridden the fear and uncertainty," although not with racist
intentions.
Craig Robinson, a former political director for the Republican Party
in Iowa, praised King for being a consistent voice on immigration,
although the language he uses "can make it easier for his opponents
to make him appear to be one of these cold-hearted conservatives."
Sharry countered: "I can't look into his heart. But I'll say I'm not
sure he has one."
(Editing by John Whitesides and Ken Wills)
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