Critic: Peter King's panel does nothing

WASHINGTON -- The ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee charged Wednesday that its chairman, Rep. Peter King, has run a "do nothing committee."

In an email statement to reporters, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) took the unusually partisan shot at King, a Seaford Republican, who is chairman of a committee that prides itself on bipartisanship on most issues.

King rejected the charge and said, "I stand by our record."

Thompson said under King, the committee has produced just one bill that passed the House in the first 10 months of this year, placing it second to last among House committees.

That compares, Thompson said, with the seven bills the House passed during the same period during Congressional sessions in 2007 and 2009, when he chaired the committee.

"With just 15 legislative days remaining in the first session of this Congress, I have trouble seeing how we escape the moniker of a 'do nothing committee,' " Thompson said.

The committee website shows the panel has four bills waiting for consideration and has passed another four bills that haven't gotten to the House floor for a vote.

King defended his tenure. "We are taking the issue of homeland security seriously," he said, citing committee hearings he held on the Fort Hood shootings, the subway bomber and on American Muslim radicalization that he said Thompson should have held but didn't.

King said he has been focusing on a Homeland Security authorization bill, which establishes the legal basis for programs and agencies. There has not been such a bill in three years.

King said he's worked on that legislation with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman and ranking member of the Senate's homeland security committee, for months. "We want to try to make sure whatever passes the House clears in the Senate," he said.

But with so little time and a crowded agenda, the House appears to be unlikely to vote on the authorization bill this year, Thompson said. King agreed.

Thompson said he sent the email Wednesday to give King "an argument" to use with the House leaders "to get some legislation to the floor and passed."

King said the email was partisan. Thompson said, "I don't think there is any breach of bipartisanship by stating the facts."