Paul is worse than rules-based. He doesn’t look at the spirit of the law and what it means, he takes the words and applies his own opinion of their meaning.. it is why he didn’t vote for the resolution of force against iraq, he says it is because it wasn’t a ‘declaration of war’ because the word ‘war’ wasn’t in there..
In other words, he would split hairs about every little word in a bill to a point where we don’t do anything.. sure that is good for spending bills, but NOT national security.