If Paul Ryan really meant what he said in
this riff by on the applicability of the Hastert Rule to immigration reform, then he basically thinks the Hastert Rule is a non-issue—but I don't think he meant what he said:
RYAN: So this is, I call it an inside baseball term, which is the Speaker of the House is saying we want to to follow the so-called "Hastert Rule," which is the majority of the majority needs to support a bill for it to proceed. Bringing these bills to the floor, we’ll find out. It is not, “they don’t come to the floor unless we have a majority of the majority,” because we don’t know if we have a majority until we vote on it. Okay, that was kind of confusing, right?
So here’s where I see things going. I’ve spoken to John Boehner as recently as three days ago about this, which is, we all agree it is better to legislate in stages instead of one big thousand plus page bill that no one has read. [...] I’m trying to get to a consensus so a majority of us do support those component parts. I believe that’s achievable because when people really look at the details and they focus on what’s right, I believe what I’ve just laid out is something that a consensus of Republicans and Democrats can agree to.
On the one hand, it's tempting to be encouraged by Ryan essentially dismissing the Hastert Rule. The problem is that I don't think he was dismissing it for the right reason. First, he didn't challenge the idea that a majority of Republicans should be able to block immigration reform even if a majority of the House would vote for it—he just said it's really hard to figure out where a majority of Republicans stand. That's baloney, and he knows it.
But why would Ryan try to dismiss the Hastert Rule with such a blatantly silly argument? Simple: Because he didn't want to defend it to the person whose question he was answering. Ryan was conducting a bilingual listening session; the crowd was supportive of immigration reform. Ryan knew he couldn't really defend using the Hastert Rule without getting in hot water, so he basically pretended that it didn't exist.
Moreover, if you pay attention to what he said after talking about the Hastert Rule, it's entirely consistent with everything John Boehner has been saying about how Republicans plan to move forward on a piecemeal basis. As Jonathan Chait points out, in theory a piecemeal approach could accomplish the same goals as the Senate bill, but there's really no reason to expect that it will given that the simplest way of achieving the same goals as the Senate bill would be for the House to vote on the Senate bill–or at least its own version of the Senate bill.
Boehner is using the Hastert Rule as an explanation for why he isn't holding a vote on the Senate bill. Ryan, despite his mumbo jumbo on the Hastert Rule, shares Boehner's position that there doesn't need to be a vote on it—which means that on a practical level, Ryan might as well have said nothing at all.
The one thing Ryan's comments prove beyond a shadow of doubt is that he continues to be a world-class bullshit artist, capable of saying absolutely nothing with utter sincerity. I guess if there's any bit of good news, it's that while his schtick works for Republicans (among Republicans, Ryan is the most popular Republican, according to Pew's latest poll), last November's election proved that the country as a whole hasn't been sold on his bill of goods.