David Obey: “I knew Bill Natcher for a little over 25 years, and my experience in observing him was that he was a man of both starch…”

“I knew Bill Natcher for a little over 25 years, and my experience in observing him was that he was a man of both starch and steel. My first experience with him came shortly after I went on the Committee on Appropriations and he was my first subcommittee Chair, he and Julie Butler Hansen. I served on D.C. and on Interior subcommittees. My first experience in dealing with Bill Natcher came on an occasion on which he and I were on opposite sides of an issue. I found out just how tough he was, because he had decided, for reasons that I respected but disagreed with, that he was not going to support funding of the D.C. Subway at that point because he felt that previously agreed arrangements had not been lived up to. I decided that as a newcomer I thought that that judgment should be changed. So I organized an effort which resulted in Mr. Giaimo from Connecticut offering the amendment to provide the funding for the subway system. And after a long, protracted fight, we won in the House and, I thought then, because the Senate was for it, that we were going to win. But I discovered very quickly that Bill knew the rules. So he simply decided that he was going to try not to bring out a D.C. Appropriation bill at all that year, force us into a continuing resolution, where last year's rules and regulations would prevail. Our win on the floor would have been gone.…”