House Speaker Paul Ryan will freeze amnesty bills, sideline open-border trade deals and revive the Hastert Rule, said Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who supported the Jan. 3 reelection of Ryan to the Speaker’s chair.
“House Speaker Paul Ryan and I had two substantive private discussions on the legislative agenda for the 115th Congress and came to an understanding,” Gohmert told Breitbart News.
One Ryan promise that won his vote, said Gohmert, was Ryan’s support for the Hastert Rule, which forbids the House Republican leadership from holding votes on bills that are not supported by the majority of the House Republican Conference. That rules prevents the GOP leadership from quietly working with Democratic leaders to bypass conservatives in the GOP caucus.
Since 2012, House Republican leaders have sometimes cut deals with President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders instead of passing bills favored by House conservatives. The backroom deals mean that Democrats get a closed-door veto over conservative priorities, such as defunding Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities, while priorities favored by Democrats of business-linked GOP legislators get included in must-pass bills. Those deals helped revive the business-backed Export-Import Bank, for example.
Ryan also agreed that no bills would be rolled out to legalize anyone in this country who is here illegally, “unless and until we achieve complete border security with a wall built to President Trump’s liking,” Gohmert said.
Ryan’s third promise puts an end to the president’s open-border trade policies and the president’s threats to punish the United Kingdom if it leaves the European Union. “This House will not resurrect the Trans-Pacific Partnership disaster,” Gohmert said.
“We will only bring up a trade bill that ensures fairness to Great Britain in the wake of the successful Brexit vote to end Britain’s participation in the European Union,” he added.
“It is my sincerest desire to try to work with leadership to ensure this Congress pursues the agenda we promised to voters, and in the spirit of that cooperation in this new 115th Congress, I cast my vote for Paul Ryan for Speaker of the House today,” he said.
“Everyone here in Congress knows I have no problem standing up to Republicans, no matter what their position, if they are breaking our promises to our constituents and to America,” he said.
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