The Register's editorial

Even the most ardent supporters of U.S. Rep. Steve King have to acknowledge that as a legislator, as a man whose job it is to make laws, he is profoundly ineffective.

During the 14 years the Republican from Kiron has been in office, he has not authored a single piece of legislation that has become law. In fact, not one of King’s bills has even made it out of committee for a vote by the full House.

Granted, there are other ways to measure the effectiveness of a congressman. Some, for example, use their position to shape public opinion or pull colleagues to the right or the left on an issue. They’re influential in ways that can’t be calculated by the number of bills that carry their name.

Unfortunately for King, he wields zero influence in the House and is regarded as a publicity-seeking extremist even by members of his own party. Former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner once used an expletive to describe King in the wake of the Iowa congressman’s claim that many Mexican immigrants are drug mules with “calves the size of cantaloupes.”

But Boehner is gone, and in a few days Republicans will control not only the House and the Senate, but the White House. They now plan to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act and begin the process of building a 2,000-mile wall on the nation’s southern border — two initiatives that have long been close to King’s heart.

Given all that, you’d think King would be eager to hand over the mantle of chief agitator and flamethrower to one of his younger colleagues in the House while he attempts to establish himself as an experienced statesman who has long fought for conservative values.

But the 115th Congress had barely been sworn in last week when King took the opportunity to introduce a bill — if it can even be called that — seeking to prohibit the Supreme Court from citing its own past rulings on the Affordable Care Act in any future decisions made by the court.

“Obamacare should be ripped out by the roots,” King said. “And, thus, I have introduced this legislation in conjunction with my repeal bill in an effort to look ahead and bar the Supreme Court from citing Obamacare in forthcoming decisions as binding precedent ... By prohibiting the Supreme Court from citing Obamacare cases, we will be truly eradicating this unconstitutional policy from all three branches of government so that the repeal will be complete.”

King’s bill demonstrates a complete disregard for the separation of powers between the judicial branch and the legislative branch, which is a concept King claims to wholeheartedly embrace. It also signifies a fundamental lack of understanding as to the basic duties of Congress and the courts.

Perhaps the congressman should spend some time at CongressForKids.net, which explains, through colorful cartoons and games, the role of Congress and the courts. The site even includes a link to “The Constitution Power-Grab Game,” which promises to explain how the separation of powers “functions to protect the individual citizen from illegal power-hungry politicians.”

Not that it would help. King can’t possibly be so ignorant as to think his bill will ever come to a vote, let alone be passed. In all likelihood, this is just another piece of stagecraft in the congressman’s ongoing campaign to draw attention to himself, regardless of how foolish it makes him, or his party, appear.

In that sense, Steve King seems to be the exemplar of the adage typically attributed to P.T. Barnum: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”