Huelskamp Has Ag Dreams Again Now Boehner is Leaving September 25, 2015

(AP) – Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp hopes to eventually regain a seat on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee now that Speaker John Boehner has announced plans to resign.
But Huelskamp said Friday that he’s focusing first on fellow Republicans picking a replacement for Boehner. Huelskamp clashed with the Ohio Republican, and Boehner stripped him of an Agriculture Committee seat late in 2012.
Huelskamp said Republicans need new leaders and that voters are tired of the political establishment. The western Kansas congressman said GOP House members returned to Washington after their latest recess tired of defending Boehner back home.
Other Kansas Republicans were complimentary of Boehner, including former presidential nominee and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole.
Dole said Boehner had been plagued by, in his words, a group of Republican naysayers.

Shutdown Nears, House Expects Another Last Ditch Vote September 30, 2013

(AP) – A conservative challenge to the president’s health care law has the federal government teetering on the brink of a partial shutdown.

The Senate has the next move on must-do legislation required to keep the government open past midnight on Monday, and the Democratic-led chamber is expected to reject the latest effort from House Republicans to use a normally routine measure to attack President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

Congress was closed for the day on Sunday after a post-midnight vote in the GOP-run House to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law and repeal a tax on medical devices as the price for avoiding a shutdown. The Senate is slated to convene Monday afternoon just 10 hours before the shutdown deadline, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has already promised that majority Democrats will kill the House’s latest volley.

A House GOP leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, said the House would again rebuff the Senate’s efforts to advance the short-term funding bill as a simple, “clean” measure shorn of anti-heath care reform provisions.

Since the last government shutdown 17 years ago, temporary funding bills known as continuing resolutions have been noncontroversial, with neither party willing to chance a shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn’t otherwise win. But with health insurance exchanges set to open Tuesday, tea party Republicans are willing to take the risk in their drive to kill the law, so-called “Obamacare.”

“You’re going to shut down the government if you can’t prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable care,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

A leader of the tea party Republicans, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, insisted the blame rests with Senate Democrats.

“The House has twice now voted to keep the government open. And if we have a shutdown, it will only be because when the Senate comes back, Harry Reid says, ‘I refuse even to talk,'” said Cruz, who led a 21-hour broadside against allowing the temporary funding bill to advance if stripped clean of a tea party-backed provision to derail Obamacare. The effort failed.

The battle started with a House vote to pass the short-term funding bill with a provision that would have eliminated the federal dollars needed to put Obama’s health care overhaul into place. The Senate voted along party lines to strip that out and set the measure back to the House.

The latest House bill, passed early Sunday by a near party-line vote of 231-192, sent back to the Senate two major changes: a one-year delay of key provisions of the health insurance law and repeal of a new tax on medical devices that partially funds it. The steps still go too far for the White House and its Democratic allies.

Senate rules often make it difficult to move quickly, but the chamber can act on the House’s latest proposals by simply calling them up and killing them.

Eyes were turning to the House for its next move. A senior leader vowed the House would not simply give in to Democrats’ demands to pass the Senate’s “clean” funding bill.

“The House will get back together in enough time, send another provision not to shut the government down, but to fund it, and it will have a few other options in there for the Senate to look at again,” said McCarthy, the No. 3 House Republican leader.

He suggested that House Republicans would try blocking a mandate that individuals buy health insurance or face a tax penalty, saying there might be some Democratic support in the Senate for that.

Huelskamp Worries About Family After Voting Against Boehner January 8, 2013

Ks-1 Congressman Tim Huelskamp
Huffington Post:
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) blasted out a fundraising email to supporters on Monday, telling them that he was effectively a wanted man following his vote last week against Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) for speaker of the House.
“But voting against a sitting Speaker of the House was a great risk. They will punish me. They will attack my family. But America is too important to be lost to overspending, high taxes, and big government. I refuse to stand by and allow our country to be destroyed,” the email said, according to The Hill. “For my principled vote, Washington insiders are coming after me. I need your help and the help of 100 fellow conservatives immediately. If you are tired of Republicans who campaign as conservatives — but vote like Democrats — stand with me and make your contribution of $35 here.”
Huelskamp, an outspoken conservative known for bucking the establishment, has been a loud critic of Boehner, especially after being stripped of a key committee post in early December. He remains on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and was recently assigned to the Small Business Committee.
During the speaker vote last Thursday, Huelskamp became one of the most visible faces of the coup against Boehner when Politico posted a picture of his iPadshowing that he and other conservative House Republicans had conspired to topple the speaker. Huelskamp cast a vote for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as speaker, but Boehner was eventually reelected after the opposing coalitionreportedly fell apart.
While Huelskamp appears convinced that GOP leaders will be seeking retribution for his stand against them, Boehner met with House Republicans late last week and promised that he wasn’t out for blood.
“I don’t hold grudges, and my door is always open to you,” the newly reelected speaker told defectors, according to Roll Call.

Kansas Congressman Casts “No Confidence” Vote Against House Speaker Boehner January 4, 2013

The ongoing feud between Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp and House Speaker John Boehner continues into the new Congress.
Huelskamp was one of a handful of Republican lawmakers who did not vote Thursday for Boehner’s re-election as House Speaker.
Huelskamp told the New York Times there were more Republicans who wanted to vote against Boehner but the House leadership leaned on Members not to do it.
Boehner kicked Huelskamp off the House Agriculture and Budget Committees last month.
Huelskamp claims it is because he was not loyal enough to the House leadership on key votes last year.
Huelskamp says the Boehner leadership team is not conservative enough for him or his 700,000 Kansans in his district, which covers the western half of the state.
“While I congratulate Speaker John Boehner on his re-election, I fear that — unless the House begins to stand as a beacon of conservatism and offers Americans a true alternative to the ideology of Big Government — these next two years may very well be our last in the majority,” Huelskamp said.

Kansas Congressional Rebel Huelskamp Claims “Victory” in Boehner Plan B Failure December 23, 2012

src=”https://20poundsofheadlines.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/20121223-081122.jpg” alt=”20121223-081122.jpg” class=”alignnone size-full” />Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp claimed victory last week when House Speaker John Boehner’s ‘Plan B’ failed to make it to a House vote late Thursday night.
Huelskamp is one of four Republican House Members stripped of plum committee assignments ( Agriculture & Budget Committees) by the GOP Leadership.. Huelskamp says he was punished for not being loyal enough to Speaker Boehner.
A news release from his office State’s Huelskamp “led the the efforts” to block the bill coming up for a vote. He called it a ” Victory for Republican Principles”.
” Republican leadership thought they could silence conservatives when they kicked us off our Committees. I’m glad that enough of my colleagues refused to back down after the threats and intimidation, thus preventing the Conference from abandoning our principles,” Huelskamp said in a statement.
The Speaker pulled the Plan B option to deal with the fiscal cliff when it became apparent he didn’t have the needed GOP votes.
Huelskamp, and other House Republicans thought the Plan B deal broke the view to end as many taxes as possible and improve the economic climate to create jobs.
“‘Plan B’ abandons those goals – and our convictions right alongside them. For the last two years, ‘the job creator’ has been a priority; ‘Plan B’ kicks him to the curb,” according to Huelskamp.
The Kansas Republican says the 700,000 voters of the big Ks- district, which covers the western half of the whole state, have told him to stick to his principles.
Huelskamp says he still doesn’t know what his new committee assignments will be when the 113th Congress begins next month.