Long Island Press Story

The weekly Long Island Press printed a story about Peter King, Social Security reform, Unions, constituents and King's reaction to them all.
The article "Kingly Fashion" by Elizabeth Cady Brown follows King from the Town Hall meeting sponsored by the In This Together Campaign that King didn't have the guts to show up to, to the Long Island Federation of Labor's annual congressional meeting where he did show up.


"Republican Peter King, the six-term U.S. congressman from Massapequa, is blunt-spoken, even rude, in a profession where taffy-sweet platitudes are the norm. He has gone so far as to call various voters "self-righteous," "ignorant," "wacko" and "morally wrong."
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"I regret you don't know as much about Social Security as you pretend," he wrote to one business owner who has lived in the third district for 22 years. "Many thanks for your March 15th letter," he wrote to another constituent. "It is very reassuring to know that I am opposed by the likes of you."
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"Groups such as [ITTC] have no regard for senior citizens or for their country," King said on March 24. "They are strictly partisan hit men and I don't want to have anything to do with them." On March 31, he called them "wacko malcontents."
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"This muddled approach is risky. Bob Master, the legislative director for CWA District 1, calls Social Security a litmus-test issue for the union. "I think this will call into question our support for Congressman King," he says."
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"We do take a little offense to being called liberal wackos," says Bonanza. "We aren't some left-wing conspiracy folks out to get Peter King. We are conservative trade unionists who have been supportive of him in all his elections."