[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 789 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 789

           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 10, 2020

Mr. King of Iowa submitted the following resolution; which was referred 
                to the Committee on House Administration

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas in a quote attributed to him by the New York Times, Congressman King is 
        alleged to have wondered when the phrases ``White nationalist, white 
        supremacist, Western Civilization'' became offensive, suggesting to some 
        that he does not view the first two terms as pejorative;
Whereas Congressman King has consistently disputed this interpretation, 
        maintaining that he was simply trying to ask when the phrase ``Western 
        Civilization'' had gained a pejorative connotation, an assertion that is 
        supported by the remaining section of the Times quote;
Whereas Congressman King says the conversation in which this quote is alleged to 
        happen was about the left's use of weaponized language: ``we discussed 
        the changing use of language in political discourse. We discussed the 
        worn out label `racist' and my observation that other slanderous labels 
        have been increasingly assigned to Conservatives by the Left, who 
        injected into our current political dialog such terms as Nazi, Fascist, 
        `White Nationalist, White Supremacist,--Western Civilization, how did 
        THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me 
        about the merits of our history and our civilization?' . . . just to 
        watch Western Civilization become a derogatory term in political 
        discourse today.'';
Whereas notably, none of the context of the discussion which spawned the 
        ``quote'' was included in the New York Times story. This context would 
        have added greater clarity to King's reported remarks, revealing that 
        his intention was to question the inclusion of ``WESTERN CIVILIZATION'' 
        alone as a pejorative;
Whereas no tape of the interview with the New York Times exists and the paper 
        refuses to release the reporter's notes of the conversation;
Whereas the question that Congressman King is purported to have been responding 
        to has not been disclosed and neither the New York Times nor the 
        reporter has answered whether the question posed included the two odious 
        ideologies that were then alleged in the response, logically leading the 
        Congressman to repeat back the ideologies as they had been first posed 
        by the reporter;
Whereas the structure of the purported quote contextually only makes sense if 
        the reporter did in fact refer to those odious ideologies in the 
        question posed, in so doing leading Congressman King to repeat them back 
        as he pondered the question that was asked of him;
Whereas the content of the Times ``quote'' makes it clear that King was ONLY 
        talking about ``Western Civilization''. The ``quote'': ``White 
        Nationalist, white Supremacist, Western civilization--how did THAT 
        language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about 
        the merits of our history and our civilization?'';
Whereas NOBODY IN AMERICA EVER SAT IN A CLASS about the merits of White 
        nationalism or White supremacism. The incorrect interpretation that has 
        been given to this ``quote'' refutes itself based on the ``quoted'' 
        sentence's own construction;
Whereas, on January 18th, 2019, Mark Steyn was quoted as saying ``He made a 
        mistake, Steve King. He agreed to give an interview on national 
        immigration policy to the New York Times. That's not a good faith 
        interview request. They're only asking you, and he should know this, 
        they're only asking you to stitch you up. To talk to you for three hours 
        and get you to use one phrase in there that they can lift out and kill 
        you with . . . This guy, Steve King, was trapped, trapped! The words he 
        said about `when did that become controversial', he meant the phrase 
        `Western Civilization'. He's not a white supremacist. He's not a white 
        nationalist. It's all stupid talk. So you've just surrendered the phrase 
        `Western Civilization'. I don't get that. I don't see what's in it for 
        conservatism in surrendering that phrase, in accepting the leftist's 
        view that the term `Western Civilization' is beyond the pale.'';
Whereas contemporaneous evidence supports King's version of the story: In a 
        Christian Science Monitor (CSM) article published on January 15, 2019 (5 
        days after the Times story broke), King is quoted making a similar 
        argument: ``In a conversation with the Monitor just before the holidays, 
        King defended himself against accusations of racism. The left, he says, 
        has weaponized terms like `racist', `Nazi' and `white nationalist' using 
        them against anyone who dares to defend American values or the 
        Constitution. `There are people that don't like America the way it is', 
        he says, `and there are people that don't like America when she was at 
        her best. They want to tear down the systems we have. I don't believe 
        that. I think our Founding Fathers got it right.'.'';
Whereas this CSM interview occurred prior to the release of the Times article, 
        and shows how King had been making a variation of this argument at the 
        approximate time he spoke to the Times reporter. In this case, though, 
        the CSM actually published it in the context in which it was made. It is 
        clear that King was making a similar argument to the Times;
Whereas the quote in the CSM is the FIRST DOCUMENTED INSTANCE of Steve King ever 
        using the phrase ``white nationalist''. This is an important point, 
        because King has asserted ``That ideology never shows up in my head. I 
        don't know how it could possibly come out of my mouth.''. A Lexis-Nexis 
        search dating back to 2000 shows King has never used any of the 
        following phrases: ``white nationalism'', ``white nationalist'', ``white 
        supremacist'', or ``white supremacy''. In the same time frame, King is 
        quoted 276 times using the term ``Western Civilization'';
Whereas based on this data, it appears unlikely that King spontaneously used the 
        phrases ``white nationalist'' and ``white supremacist'' in his 
        discussion with the Times reporter, as they were never common elements 
        of his speech. It suggests that King was repeating terms fed to him by 
        the Times;
Whereas the contention that King reacted to the Times reporter's use of the 
        phrases ``white nationalist'', ``white supremacist'', and ``western 
        civilization'' as pejoratives is supported by the body of the Times 
        article itself;
Whereas the article contains the following passage, likely written prior to the 
        King interview: ``Elected to Congress in 2002, Mr. King attracted the 
        attention of hate-watch groups like the Anti-Defamation League as he 
        spoke increasingly about preserving `Western Culture' or `Western 
        Civilization'. The groups consider those buzzwords that signal support 
        to white nationalists, along with an obsession with birthrates and 
        abortion rates among different ethnic groups.'' Doesn't it make more 
        sense that the reporter asked a question in which ``Western 
        Civilization'' was linked with the offensive epithets, and King 
        responded by wondering how it came to be that the meritorious phrase 
        ``Western Civilization'' became a similar pejorative? Certainly, the 
        answer he is alleged to have given fits with this belief;
Whereas the point King was attempting to make about the left's use of labels to 
        smear conservatives, labels which now include even the concept of 
        ``Western Civilization'' itself, is supported by Lexis-Nexis data. 
        Beginning in 2016 there has been an explosive increase in the use of the 
        labels ``White Supremacist'', ``White Supremacy'', ``White 
        Nationalist'', and ``White Nationalism''. This squares closely with what 
        Congressman King told Dave Price of WHO-TV regarding the phrase ``White 
        Nationalist'': ``It is a derogatory term today. I wouldn't have thought 
        so maybe a year or two or three ago. Today they use it as a derogatory 
        term, and it implies that you are a racist.'';
Whereas in his statement, King was trying to put into words his entirely 
        accurate observation that the term ``white nationalist'' has been 
        weaponized by the left against conservatives, and that its use in this 
        form has markedly increased over the past several years;
Whereas King's point about the increased frequency with which the weaponized 
        term ``white nationalist'' has been injected into modern political 
        dialogue is evident when data from a Lexis-Nexis News Database search is 
        analyzed and we learn that White nationalist was virtually an unused 
        term prior to 2016, and quickly surged to 31,057 usages in the year 
        2017;
Whereas as King told Price, it has only been in the last ``year or two or 
        three'' that the pejorative phrase ``white nationalist'' has gained 
        purchase in the political debate as a weaponized term;
Whereas a follow up New York Times story about Steve King entitled ``A Timeline 
        of Steve King's Racist Remarks and Divisive Actions'' was criticized by 
        legendary journalist Brit Hume as being ``completely bogus''. This 
        ``completely bogus'' story was written the next day by the same writer, 
        in the same paper, on the same general topic, and could possibly be 
        revealing of a bias regarding Congressman King;
Whereas the Congressional Record made the exact same error as the New York Times 
        in transcribing King's January 15, 2019, floor statement, when the 
        transcriptionist left out a break between the words ``white 
        supremacist'' and ``western civilization''. Video shows King 
        intentionally inserting a break between those words, but the transcript 
        does not reflect this;
Whereas no one believes the Congressional Record was acting with animus. But 
        their error did reveal how either a similar error, or an intentional 
        misplacement of punctuation, could have led to a botched quote in the 
        Times. Remember, King has always disputed the quote as it was portrayed 
        in the Times;
Whereas King is insisting upon a correction in the Congressional Record so that 
        it reflects the quote as he intentionally delivered it on the House 
        floor. King's correction reveals that he was attempting to separate 
        ``Western Civilization'' from the other two pejorative terms;
Whereas this is the New York Times/Congressional Record's mistaken quote: 
        ``White Nationalist, White Supremacist, Western Civilization--how did 
        THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me 
        about the merits of our history and our civilization?'';
Whereas this is the corrected quote: ``White Nationalist, White Supremacist,--
        Western Civilization, how did THAT language become offensive? Why did I 
        sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our 
        civilization?'';
Whereas one misplaced hyphen in the New York Times story gave birth to a 
        meritless controversy, by falsely implying that Congressman King did not 
        differentiate between the three phrases;
Whereas Congressman King was railroaded over a false quote. To believe the 
        version of events relied upon by Kevin McCarthy to strip King of 
        committee assignments, one must believe that an unreasonable but 
        ``sensational'' interpretation, for which no evidence exists, is more 
        likely to be accurate than a reasonable, ``noncontroversial'' 
        interpretation which is internally supported by context clues and 
        externally supported by data and other contemporaneous, published 
        accounts. One must also believe that the New York Times, a hostile, 
        liberal paper which has had other articles about Congressman Steve King 
        written by the same author thoroughly debunked as ``completely bogus'', 
        set aside its animus in this particular case;
Whereas clause 1 of rule IX defines questions of privileges of the House as 
        ``those affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, 
        dignity, and the integrity of its proceedings.''. Subjects giving rise 
        to questions of the privileges of the House include the integrity of the 
        Journal, the protection of House records and files, and the accuracy of 
        House documents and records; and
Whereas the mistaken quote, as also mistakenly recorded in the Congressional 
        Record, reflects directly on both the House's dignity and integrity: 
        Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Representatives shall 
correct the Congressional Record from January 15, 2019, online and in 
print, to reflect what was originally stated and then reiterated on the 
House floor: ``White Nationalist, White Supremacist,--Western 
Civilization, how did THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in 
classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our 
civilization?''.
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