Said Rep. Alcee Hastings at the House Rules Committee hearing today (the same one in which this testy exchange between Paul Ryan and Louise Slaughter took place):
I wish that I had been there when Thomas Edison made the remark that I think applies here: “There ain’t no rules around here, we’re trying to accomplish something.” And therefore, when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules, we make them up as we go along.
This would hardly be the first time Hastings made up rules as he went along. In 1988, when he was a sitting U.S. District Court judge, Hastings was impeached for bribery by the U.S. House of Representatives after he was charged with accepting $150,000 in exchange for granting a lenient sentence. He was convicted and removed from office a year later by the U.S. Senate.
Via Reason, Hastings is also known for crossing a few lines after dark:
When the lights go down and the squares leave the House floor and head back home to their second and third spouses, anything can happen in the glimmering dusky lights of Congress as the ghosts of Gerry Studds, Wilbur Mills, and Mark Foley roam the floor looking for action.
In this episode of C-SPAN After Dark, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) catalogs just about every fetish ever dreamed of by the U.S. Congress. We’re not exactly sure if he’s reading staff-written research or simply indulging in spontaneous bop prosody, but we’re pretty certain that America will never be the same again. Or that HR 1913, a.k.a. the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, never sounded so sweet.
Kids, don’t try this at an awards program!
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