That's the narrative the GOPe is advancing.
However, the devil's in the details.
By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | December 13th, 2014 at 07:53 PM
The level of butt hurt among pro-amnesty Republicans is staggering. They are savaging Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in ways the left refrained from savaging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for her own opposition to the CROmnibus.
Of note, Warren was fighting against corporate cronyism and Cruz and Lee are fighting to stop the President’s Amnesty.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) will be one of the unnamed Senators calling Cruz and Lee’s efforts “unproductive.” Several sources overheard him spinning reporters against Cruz and Lee. Other Republicans, including McConnell, joined in on the act.
And pro-amnesty Republican pundits and press have bought it hook, line, and sinker. Matt Lewis is a good example of what most are saying:
What did Cruz and Lee do? They made objections and dragged out the clock. In the interim, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) filed for cloture on nomination votes. Republican critics of Cruz and Lee claim that if they had not fought on amnesty, cloture would not have been filed on the nominations.
This is staggering bullcrap. In other words, Jeff Flake, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Matt Lewis, etc. believe Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).
Follow along for a basic explanation of what has transpired.
Cloture votes occur in the order they are filed, but after disposition of each bill or nomination that is the subject of the cloture petition.
For example, if Reid files cloture on bill A and bill B, one after the other, cloture on B only occurs after both cloture and passage of A.
Cloture, remember, is the procedure to cut off debate — not a vote on actual passage.
Last night Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the CROmnibus.
-Today he is going through procedural votes to file cloture on a number of nominations.
Under Senate rules though, both cloture and final passage of the CROmnibus must occur before the cloture votes on nominations can happen.
Therefore, we will be in the same place by Monday as we would be if Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) hadn’t objected to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).
A Senate source outside the Cruz and Lee offices with direct knowledge of the behind the scenes conversations tells me, “GOP leadership knew Reid was going to file cloture on up to 20 controversial nominations yesterday afternoon before they tried to move CROmnibus votes to Monday. They told us the process to clear non-controversial nominations had broken down because Reid was going to file cloture on these nominations. So they knew this was going to happen regardless.”
Another Senate source outside the Cruz and Lee offices tells me, “These guys are using Manu (a Politico reporter) as their stenographer. They’re really just pissed they have to work this weekend and that’s it. You can certainly tell who their friends are out in pundit land.”
The Republican leadership is arguing that they might have been able to convince Reid to hold off on these controversial nominations if we played ball on the CROmnibus, but that’s just speculation. The tradeoff last night was for Lee et al to give up their right to offer amendments on the CROmnibus in exchange for the possibility that Reid wouldn’t go through with his nominations, if he was feeling generous.
In Washington, more and more Republicans and their pundit allies have decided poop sandwiches sure are tasty!