February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
To the surprise of very few, and with the endorsement this time of some leading editorial writers, the Long Island Republican was chosen to chair the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.
The committee is a powerful entity with a major say on how and where funds for national security should be directed.
King, who was active on the Northern Ireland issue from his earliest days in politics — he is a former Nassau County Comptroller — has been something of an independent voice in the GOP in recent years.
He was seen to be on the margins of his party in the first Bush term because he had supported John McCain in the 2000 GOP primaries.
But his appointment is a clear signal that the party now considers the seventh term representative and son of an NYPD detective, to be clear-thinking on the front line issue of national security.
Queens native King is one of the four co-chairs of the congressional Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs and played a central role in the trans-Atlantic negotiations leading up to the 1998 Good Friday agreement.
The Daily News in New York described King in an editorial as being “as knowledgeable as they come about terror threats and the need for emergency preparedness.”
ADAMS IN D.C., NY
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