RELEASE: Chair Karen Carter Peterson Calls on Steve Scalise, GOP to Condemn Steve King for Katrina Victim Comments

Chair Karen Carter Peterson Condemns Rep. Steve King’s Comments Toward New Orleans Flood Victims

BATON ROUGE, LA – On Thursday, New Orleans native, State Senator and Chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party Karen Carter Peterson called on Rep. Scalise and the rest of the Louisiana Congressional Delegation to join her in condemning the comments made by federal representative Steve King attacking Hurricane Katrina victims.

In a town hall meeting in Iowa, Rep. King went out of his way to insult New Orleanians for the way they responded to Katrina. King claimed that FEMA officials told him “we go to a place like New Orleans and everybody’s looking around saying, who’s gonna help me, who’s gonna help me?” He used this derogatory characterization of New Orleanians to demonstrate his view that Iowans are superior. He said that unlike New Orleanians, Iowans “take care of each other.”

“I am thoroughly appalled at the comments Rep. Steve King made surrounding my city of New Orleans,” Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, Chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party said. “Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana leaving 1,800 dead with tens of thousands more homeless and impoverished. He has no right to comment on what our people have been through or continue to spread these falsities.”

“I strongly condemn Rep. King and the comments made and call on Rep. Steve Scalise who also represents the people of New Orleans, and his fellow members of Congress, to do the same. His dog whistle comments today are a further display of his racist, white supremacist beliefs and call on prejudiced, hate-filled stereotypes that he has no problem displaying. There is no place for this sort of hateful rhetoric in our government and we need our leaders to show that they will not tolerate it.”