Huelskamp said his constituents are angry he was removed from two committees.
You know, we agree and disagree on a lot of things. But I am a conservative. It’s told to me, you’ve been removed. And I said ‘Why?’ and they said, ‘We can’t tell you.’ And that’s been the story for the last 10 days. We can’t tell you why.
But we’ve learned through other sources that apparently there was some type of secret scorecard, and you were conservative if you voted against the debt deal, for example. And if you voted against a number of the budget bills, you were scored down.
But I haven’t found a single member of leadership that’s been able to tell me. They won’t even visit with me and numerous other folks. There were four of us that were punished and kicked off of preferred committees. It’s unprecedented in the modern Congress. It’s kind of back to the days in which a speaker ran it with an iron hand.
Q: What was your reaction when you got that phone call?
A: Well, actually, I was sitting in the hospital; my dad had just [moved into] his recovery from a major surgery. So it’s probably not a good time to be calling me.
But, again, it’s the frustration of trying to explain to constituents exactly why do you kick a fifth-generation farmer off the House Ag Committee. Kansas has had a seat on that committee for over 100 years. We’ve had two chairman, including Sen. Roberts, and everybody’s speechless, including staff of the committee, including other members.
[Agriculture is] by far the biggest industry in the 1st District of Kansas and we are the biggest producing ag district in the whole country. And so we have quite a right to be on that committee.
But near as we can tell, it had to do with certain votes and they said, ‘Hey, if you didn’t vote the way John Boehner decided you should vote, and Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor, you’re removed from that committee.’
We need someone who works for our values in Kansas, and they’re significantly different than maybe the values of someone in the speaker’s [district] in Ohio or the majority leader’s in Virginia or the majority whip in California.
I promised to fight for conservative values. I voted exactly like I said I would and will continue to fight. But to be punished, removed from two committees, is stunning. It’s also frightening because other members in a general meeting of the entire conference were warned as well that leadership is watching all of us.
Q: You would have expected to be warned that this might happen. Would there have been any threats?
A: That’s probably the biggest surprise and biggest concern from my colleagues, whether they’re actually conservative or not. Even Democrats ask, ‘You mean they didn’t tell you ahead of time?’
You know, you could try to tell other people how to vote. I mean, that’s called lobbying and that’s fine. But gosh darn, I have a voting card. And I have 700,000 constituents.
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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