Jack Kingston: “You know, the amazing thing is, I was in the State legislature, and we had, out of 180 members, 26 Republicans, and yet…”

“You know, the amazing thing is, I was in the State legislature, and we had, out of 180 members, 26 Republicans, and yet the philosophies were still reflective of the State of Georgia. You could roughly say one-third of the people were fairly liberal, one-third of the people were fairly conservative, and then another third were either right of center or left of center. And so you had to have the legislative deliberations to get a bill in order to get, for the Georgia House, 91 votes to pass something. So I assumed that Congress would be the same way, where you would have some people from really safe hard left, hard right districts, and then people maybe from more swing districts where it's reflective of the American people, but every bill would have the mark of both parties on it. I was shocked when I came here and saw that it's full speed ahead with the majority party. I think that's why, when we took over the House in the 104th Congress, we had open rules. And you know what, we strayed from that. That was one reason the people threw us out and put the Democrats in. But now they've seen the Democrats, and they are sick and tired of this partisan stuff. They do want open debate on C-SPAN and amendments. So you know what would really be nice? If Mr. Akin offers an amendment and I vote against it and you vote for it--and it's okay to vote against your party members. And maybe you prefer a Democrat one.…”