I would bet that a meeting was held before the vote to decide in many cases who would vote yes and who would vote no based on who is up for re-election in 2014.
Cornyn is one of those. Given the choice he would have voted yes but because he has to run in 2014, someone who isn’t up for election until 2016 voted yes to ensure passage and Cornyn could vote no. Three years from now, how many people will remember who voted yes and who voted no? Maybe we here on FR but certainly not a majority of people.
You got that right. Even though Cornyn voted no on this he still needs to be primary challenged in 2014. It was reported that he worked behind the scenes with Mitch McConnell to give Republicans cover to vote yes on this.
That’s how they do it.
The leaders find out who can vote YES and who can vote NO and enough YES votes are recruited to pass the legislation.
In this case they wanted more than 2/3rd’s and they got 68 on board with 15 GOP votes.
The rest were given the opportunity to vote NO to save their political hides with the folks back home.
Watch Boehner do this to get the bill passed in the House later on......