Purged Reps Speak Out: ‘Petty’ ‘Vindictive’ Establishment Punishing Members for Voting Conservative

A day after learning he was yanked from from the Agriculture Committee, Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp lit into GOP leaders Tuesday, charging that conservative Republicans are punished for not toeing Speaker John Boehner’s line.

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Huelskamp said at a Heritage Foundation event. “We were not notified about what might occur but it confirms in my mind the deepest suspicions that most Americans have about Washington D.C: it’s petty, it’s vindictive, and if you have conservative principles you will be punished.”

Huelskamp spoke at the briefing with Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who was booted from the Budget Committee as part of a series of committee moves by Republican leaders that drew criticism from the right. Amash said he still hadn’t been contacted by leadership about what happened, and neither man has been told which committees they’ll be appointed to in the next Congress.

Huelskamp said that when the Republican freshman class of 2010 came in, they were told they had to fundraise for the party and notify leadership how they would vote but could otherwise “vote their conscience and their district.”

His removal, the congressman said, was “not about principle, it was about obedience.”

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