Steve King of Wisconsin is reported to be Trump's pick as ambassador to Czech Republic

While the Trump White House has been slow to fill its political jobs, the presidential appointments from Wisconsin are piling up.

The latest?

Steve King, a 75-year-old Janesville businessman with a long history of activism in the Republican Party, is on tap for U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, according to reports in the Czech media.

King declined to comment, and no nomination has been announced yet.

King is a longtime member of the Republican National Committee and a close confidant to two fellow Wisconsinites at the center of power in Washington: White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The King pick would come on top of several others involving political figures from Wisconsin:

• Former Green Bay congressman Mark Green was nominated May 10 to run the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. He served with Ryan in Wisconsin's congressional delegation, lost a bid for governor in 2006, is well-regarded on both sides of the aisle and has an extensive history in international work. He was U.S. ambassador to Tanzania under President George W. Bush.
• Callista Gingrich, wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was nominated Thursday as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. (News of her pending selection was widely reported earlier this month.) She is a Wisconsin native who served as a congressional staffer before her marriage to Gingrich, who was married twice before. She helped convert her husband to Catholicism.
• Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. announced on his own in mid-May that he would serve as an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security. The department has not confirmed his selection. He would not have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate for this job.

These four Wisconsinites represent the very different kinds of political appointments that presidents make. Some are controversial, such as Clarke. Some come with virtually no controversy or opposition, such as Green. Some have concrete experience in the area they would be working in, including Green (international development) and Clarke (law enforcement and security). Some don’t. King has no ties to the Czech Republic or background in diplomacy, though that is not unusual for political appointments to the diplomatic corps.

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Some are strong political supporters of the president appointing them. Clarke campaigned heavily for Trump. In the case of Callista Gingrich, her husband has been both a vocal supporter and periodic critic of Trump.

By contrast, King and Green are lifelong Republicans who had no real political ties to Trump. As a member of the Republican National Committee and the organizing officer of the 2016 GOP convention, King was neutral in the GOP primaries.

But you would be hard-pressed to find someone with such close ties to both the White House chief of staff and the House speaker. King helped run the campaign Priebus waged to get elected RNC chair. As a teenager, Ryan volunteered and stuffed envelopes on King’s unsuccessful 1988 U.S. Senate campaign, when the conservative King lost a GOP primary to a more moderate Republican, Susan Engeleiter.

King was an early political patron of Ryan’s and chaired his congressional campaigns, beginning with Ryan's first successful run in 1998. King also has been a business partner of Ryan’s brother, Tobin.

If nominated and confirmed, King would be the second GOP activist from Wisconsin to serve as ambassador to the Czech Republic in a decade. Rick Graber, an attorney and now head of the Bradley Foundation, held the post from 2006 to 2009. Both Graber and King are former chairmen of the Wisconsin GOP.

When King’s name was first leaked to the Czech media earlier this month, it created some confusion, because it was assumed Trump had selected the better-known U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa, the hard-right, anti-immigration lawmaker.

But that was the wrong Steve King.