WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2012- House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, responded this week to three conservative House members ousted from their committee assignments by the GOP Steering Committee.
Reps. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kans., Justin Amash, R-Mich., and David Schweikert, R-Ariz., each freshman members of the 112th, asked Boehner in a letter last Friday to disclose the reasoning behind the changes and to reveal any voting “scorecard" used to make the decisions.
In his letter Monday, Boehner said “there is no scorecard or any other single criteria used to determine committee assignments.” The Speaker’s short response also stated that “no appointment or decision is made without the assent of a majority of the Steering Committee Members” and referred the members to the Steering Committee for more information.
Huelskamp, who served on the agriculture and budget committees before the new assignments, published Boehner’s response this week and maintained that the Speaker “has confirmed a secret scorecard was used to punish conservative Republican Congressmen.”
“This decision by GOP leadership, in a closed-door backroom session, confirms the worst fears of the American people: that promises of transparency were simply an election-year Republican ploy," said Huelskamp, who is forced to leave the House Agriculture Committee without a Kansas representative.
"Mr. Speaker, the American people are disappointed. Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve to know. The American people demand to see your secret scorecard," Huelskamp continued in his response Tuesday.
Speaker Boehner’s letter is available here.
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