Doc Hastings: “We were promised this after the election, I remind my friend from California, this was after the election. The reason…”

“We were promised this after the election, I remind my friend from California, this was after the election. The reason for this is very obvious. The role of the Rules Committee is to funnel legislation so that every Member could have a possibility to be heard. We have 19 standing committees. Because we have two vacancies, there are 433 Members of the House today. We simply couldn't control this unless we had the standing committees doing their work. Yet, Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee this year is on track to rewrite more bills in the Rules Committee than we ever did during the 12 years that we were in control of Congress. They have done it with troops in Iraq. They did it with lobby reform. They did it with the farm bill legislation. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a bit about the farm bill. I come from rural America. I was very much involved in that process as we are going forward. I recall very, very specifically that when the farm bill came out of committee, it came out of committee with strong bipartisan support. Yet, when we went to the Rules Committee the next day to report out a rule, there was a massive tax increase that was put on that farm bill. I remember the distinguished ranking member, last year's chairman, of the Agriculture Committee, Bob Goodlatte from Virginia, came to the Rules Committee and testified. He said, I felt betrayed by what went on, because he was not a part of that process.”