Rand Paul walked out of a Homeland Security Committee meeting after the Democratic Chairman Sen. Gary Peters (Michigan) bested him in a procedural argument in order to block Republican votes on the Fire Grants and Safety Act.
Peters used additional amendments to undo those offered by Paul, including one that would have made fire departments ineligible for federal grants if they fire employees for not having the Covid-19 vaccine.
Paul whined it wasn’t fair, noting Peters was blocking the content of the proposal with his amendments.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Paul protested at one point as Peters continued to undermine his amendments. “This is legislative legerdemain to obscure the fact that you’re trying to not vote directly on this.”
“If this is the way you’re going to run the committee, I would suggest that Republicans leave. I don’t see why we should stick around if you’re going to make up the rules,” Paul demanded of Peters.
Even Kyrsten Sinema, the Independent, tried to lower the temperature.
“We all take a couple minutes, lower the temperature, just figure out the procedure,” Sinema offered.
But eventually Baby Paul walked out.
And Gary Peters remained hopefully they would find common ground in the future.
I look forward to working with Sen. Paul and hopefully we can find common ground to go forward. Some of the amendments he offered were not germane to the substance of the bill that we were dealing with.
