David Thomas: “my understanding is the resolution in front of us is whether or not the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Laughlin] shall be…”

“my understanding is the resolution in front of us is whether or not the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Laughlin] shall be assigned to the Committee on Ways and Means. At the beginning the 104th Congress the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Laughlin] was a Democrat. He currently is a Republican. The ratio on the Committee on Ways and Means is 21 to 15. I know for a fact that the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], argued long and hard for a ration of 21 to 14. He was denied his wishes of that committee ratio by the wisdom of leadership, because the minority leader begged him to put another Democrat on. So when we started, it was 21 to 15. They got their Democrat at the beginning. It was not what we wanted. If we add the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Laughlin] as a Republican, the ratio will be 22 to 15. That is still not 60 percent; 21 to 15 is not 60 percent; 22 to 15 is not 60 percent. I have been on the Committee on Ways and Means since 1983. It has been between 63 and 66 percent loaded in favor of the majority in that entire time, so it is not about ratio. One of the difficulties we have in examining this business of party switchers is because in the brief 17 years that I have been in Congress I have never seen anybody from this side of the aisle decide not be a Republican and go over there. In the time that I have been here, I have seen a number of Democrats come over here.…”