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The thing about the Rules Committee vote was 

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that nobody knew how it was going to come out. 

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I mean, you know, Even the civil rights bill, everybody knew that was going to pass. 

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Most bills — you know they're going to pass. I mean you can add the numbers, 

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but this bill - the Rules Committee divided delegations, 

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because you had John Kennedy and Speaker Rayburn-

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Speaker Rayburn, especially, put all of his prestige on the line.  

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This was what he was going to do for the new President. 

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He was going to get rid of the logjam 

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and roadblock that Judge Smith had successfully, for years, had in place 

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on Democratic legislation. 

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When the day of the vote came up, the floor was packed. 

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I mean, normally, the only time you would see the House Floor 

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like you dream about it on TV or see in the photographs of the State of the Union, 

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the only time you would see the floor - it would be rare that the floor would be packed.

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But on the debate on the Rules Committee, which, it had a limited timeframe.  

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It was all done in one day. 

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Members - the floor was packed. And I think there were a lot of people undecided. 

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And, that is the one piece of legislation that I saw that I think the debates were important.