Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon: Bring back 'Hastert rule'

The Washington Times ^ | March 12, 2013 | David Sherfinski

[JustTheTruth]

Rep. Matt Salmon said Tuesday he will abide by the “Hastert rule” — that no bill should advance without the support of a majority of House GOP members — after major legislation on the year-end “fiscal cliff” deal, Hurricane Sandy and a re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act passed the House without a majority of Republican support.

“I am sick and tired of folks that are doing everything they can to try to get a bad bill going, and then they vote against it when the bad bill’s got the momentum to go through,” the Arizona Republican said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We should be doing everything, using every tool in our toolbox, to stop bad legislation from happening.”

The so-called “Hastert rule” is named after former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and says the speaker will not bring a bill to the floor if it does not have the support of the majority of the controlling party. House Speaker John A. Boehner said recently that passing legislation without a Republican majority in the chamber is “not a practice I would expect to continue long-term.”

Mr. Salmon said, going forward, that he will also vote against bills that do not have offsets to spending increases — a violation of the “PAYGO” rules.

“If enough of my conservative colleagues in the House join me, we can unilaterally put an end to the growth of government that is moving us closer to Greece-like fiscal calamities,” he wrote.

[JustTheTruth]

Matt Salmon: “If enough of my conservative colleagues in the House join me, we can unilaterally put an end to the growth of government that is moving us closer to Greece-like fiscal calamities."

But what are the chances of enough so-called "conservativse" making THAT happen????

[cotton1706]

That these new congressmen don’t understand is that the Hastert Rule was a political trick. When Hastert was speaker, a lot of the old guard were still there, the moderate and establishment types. About 60 of them either retired or were defeated in ‘06 and ‘08. So bills basically had to get the approval of the establishment types to get to the floor.

However, now that there is a majority of real conservatives within the majority, the Hastert rule is unwanted and freqeuently tossed out. Because now the establishment types have to combine with the democrats to get the establisment bills through.