Posted on 09/26/2013 8:02:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour effort Tuesday and Wednesday drew derision from both inside and outside the halls of the Capitol. But Cruz’s allies tell National Review Online that they hope his “talking filibuster” could end up being a game-changer in the Senate.
Advocates of the defund effort are pushing for Senate Republicans to vote against cloture on the House-written CR on Friday, in an effort to keep Reid from adding an amendment to strip the bill of the provision that defunds the Affordable Care Act. It would take 41 votes to prevent cloture, and there’s nowhere near that much support for their move right now. That’s where the Cruzibuster or what have you comes in.
“There’s sort of this conventional wisdom that the fight’s over in the Senate, and nothing’s further from the truth,” says Dan Holler of Heritage Action, one of the groups most involved in the efforts to defund the president’s health-care law.
Sources in the push for the defunding of the Affordable Care Act see a path to victory that goes roughly like this: Cruz gives an impressive performance on the Senate floor (check), grassroots activists are galvanized by the event (check), there’s an outpouring of grassroots pressure on Republican senators (to be seen), and as a result, 41 Republicans decide to vote against cloture on the House CR (also to be seen).
That means the next two days are a pretty big deal for defunding advocates.
“We have a lot of work to do in 48 hours,” Holler says, “so the difference between this and August recess was that the senators are up here in Washington and sort of isolated from their constituents. So if constituents are able to get through and deliver the message, then I’m pretty sure we’ll prevail.”
Holler says that he thinks between 15 and 20 senators currently plan to vote against cloture, though most haven’t said so publicly. If about half of the Republican conference publicly opposes the cloture vote, then the remaining undecided senators will feel significant pressure to join Cruz and his cohorts, he says. That’s a lot of ground to cover in not a lot of time, but Holler and others are optimistic.
“It’s amazing how smart people outside Washington are,” he says. “They get the fact that a vote in favor of cloture is a vote to give Harry Reid power; they understand that. Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Lee have built up a ton of trust in the conservative movement, and it’s going to be difficult for senators to say, “I’m not standing with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee and others.”
That remains to be seen. A Senate GOP aide who spoke with National Review Online anonymously says his boss hasn’t yet decided how to vote on cloture despite getting “non-stop phone calls” yesterday. The senator’s office received about a thousand phone calls that day pushing for his boss to vote with Lee and Cruz.
Tactically, I like Jim Thompson’s (sic) idea:
Individual bills funding each thing we agree with. Let the Senate pass each one.
Just never pass any bill that includes 0bamaCare.
Let the Democrats vote against Social Security because it doesn’t come in an omnibus spending bill that includes 0bamaCare.
Excellent question I believe the Cruz faction of the GOP, which I understand is about 15 Senators, is to vote no on closure until Harry Reid agrees to “regular order”. As I understand it regular order allows all Senators to offer amendments and all amendments are subject to a 60 vote threshold to be adopted. I do not understand why the GOP would not be on board to this approach. Perhaps there is a communication problem? Now I fully understand why Harry Reid do not want regular order. The Senate is a strange place.
Here’s the plan for the House in 3 sentences:
Whatever Obama threatens to “shut down,” immediately appropriate the funds to prevent the “shutdown. BUT ADD A RIDER TO EVERY FUND APPROPRIATIONS BILL — NO FUNDS FOR OBAMACARE. Continue doing this ad nauseum.
The loudest opposition to Cruz this past couple of days has been from republicans - pundits and politicians
It’s the ONLY opposition. They’re doing the dems’ job for them
They are mistagged Democrats
Yes, the individual spending bill would be a good idea. No bill for HHS.
Guys, heads up.
This is a look over there moment. Word is the CR under debate had a level of spending in it out to Dec 15. Reid is pulling it back to Nov 15, but holding the spending level and THAT WILL BUST THE SEQUESTER LIMITS.
This Obamacare fight is being used to conceal a huge ramp in spending that breaks the Sequester law, which is the only thing that has restrained a smidgeon of spending in modern history.
If the Senate can not stop the funding then I think it is a bridge to far to ask the house to do it without Senate backup. So if Harry gets his way in the Senate then the House should pass the CR. There appears to be little public support to defund the gov via a CR resolution. However there is massive support to defund gov via raising the debt limit. So lets see what happen in the Senate, then let the House make the best deal it can with the CR. Then go “all in” on raising the debt limit. If I were in the House I would insist on removal of all exemptions in the CR. Fair one fair for all.
Defund all Republicans that enable Obamacare.
Let’s get a whole bunch of these people primaried.
If the efforts of Cruz and some of the Congress critters fail, it won’t be too long before Americans, including half-witted media clowns, realize Cruz was right. But then it will be too long into the Obamacare black hole to get out of it.
Absolutely not a waste of time.
Yours is OK...Add PP defunding......Matter of fact, any hard nosed, "plan" works for me.
I am so friggin tired of getting rolled by stupid people like Dingy Harry & Nirobi Barry.
Dag nabit...the House of Reps are the funders of govt...I want them to do their do diligence, fund what is fundable, and defund which is not worthy...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.