Rep. Tim Huelskamp Votes for Paul Ryan for House Speaker

Conservative Kansas lawmaker Rep. Tim Huelskamp cast his vote for Paul Ryan for House Speaker on Thursday, he announced on the floor of the House.

Huelskamp, who serves on the Veterans Affairs and Small Business Committees and is the Pro-Life Caucus whip and chairman of the Tea Party Caucus, said:

I commend Daniel Webster on his campaign for speaker based on his proven ideas about how the House of Representatives should be run, starting by decentralizing the power of the Speaker, select staff and special interest lobbyists and redistributing it to the rest of the Congress. The House should be open to the contributions of all members who were elected to represent the American people. While Daniel Webster did not have the votes to become speaker, his reform principles have been embraced by Paul Ryan.

Huelskamp observed that Ryan changed some of his earlier demands when he was first asked to run for House Speaker:

Among other things, Ryan has promised to keep the “Motion to Vacate” and democratize the House with new decentralization rules by Thanksgiving, to abide by the new “Ryan Rule” requiring a majority of the Republican majority to move major issues to the floor, to reject last-minute deals, and to stop the culture of retribution and intimidation against fellow Republicans.

“Now Paul Ryan has 14 months to prove he can be a Speaker for the future, not of the past,” Huelskamp asserted.