The Senate Rules Committee on Thursday had a message for a group of tea partiers who planned to meet with Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and other lawmakers in a congressional office building to discuss cutting spending: You can’t meet here.
The meeting had long been scheduled in the Russell Senate office Building to meet and discuss the results of the “Tea Party Debt Commission,” a project of tea party-aligned FreedomWorks.
But a perturbed Lee said he was forced to relocate the meeting to private property after staffers with the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration told him the gathering violated the rules of the body.
“As I entered the room, much to my dismay, several members of the Senate rules committee staff pointed out to me that a group called FreedomWorks was here participating and had referred to this as a hearing,” Lee explained to tea party activists after re-grouping at the nearby Hillsdale College Kirby Center.
The Utah senator said committee staffers told him about a rule that says “outside groups may not use Senate office space for the purpose of conducting simulated legislative hearings.”
Lee said he was told that because activists were calling the meeting a “hearing,” it violated those rules.
“Heaven forbid somebody should call it a hearing,” Lee quipped.
Lee said he argued with the staffers that as senator, he had requested the space for “concerned citizens from across Utah and throughout America” to meet with him.
Nameplates for the event had already been removed from the room and they were about to remove the tables, Lee said.
Lee said he asked the staffers what could be done to ensure they didn’t violate any rules with the meeting, but they “could not and would not” answer his question. At that point, Lee said he was informed that the meeting could be held at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C. Center for Constitutional Studies and the group moved that way.
Curiously, shortly before the meeting, Capitol Police blocked the hallway in the Russell Building where the meeting was to be held, saying they were investigating a suspicious package.
A phone message left by The Daily Caller with the Senate Rules Committee was not immediately returned.
Other Republicans in attendance at the event included Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Iowa Rep. Steve King.