I snagged this from HotAir because if you are like me, you are a little confused why Ted Cruz would have pushed the House to pass the continuing resolution with the "de-fund Obamacare" provisions in it and then be planning on a filibuster in the Senate to keep the bill from getting to the floor. Maybe this will help.
Everyone understand why Cruz has been forced into this position? It goes back to the procedural quirk that Byron York wrote about last night and that I excerpted at length this morning. When Reid first introduces the House’s “defund” CR, it’ll face a cloture vote on whether to proceed to a debate about it. That requires 60 votes, but that should be no problem. Republicans will vote yes because they support defunding O-Care and Democrats will vote yes because they know it’s a necessary step to passing their own “clean” CR that includes funding for the law. Once that vote is over, though, Reid can strip out the “defunding” part of the House bill and then pass the new “clean” CR with simple majority votes. Thus, the only opportunity the Cruz/Lee contingent will have to stop Democrats from passing their own CR is by opposing the initial cloture vote on the House bill — even though that puts them in the singularly unusual position of trying to block a measure that was passed by their own party, which they themselves cheered all the way through passage in the other chamber.
Now, serious question: Why would Reid care whether the House bill is filibustered? We’re headed for deadlock here between the House and Senate one way or another. If Dems succeed in invoking cloture on the House bill and then strip out the O-Care funding, just as everyone expects will happen, then the ball is back in Boehner’s court. Either he can hold firm for awhile and risk a shutdown or he can cave and pass Reid’s “clean” CR. If, on the other hand, Cruz and Lee succeed in filibustering the House bill, then the Senate will pass nothing and … we’ll still be facing a shutdown. Except now, instead of simply blaming Republicans for it, Democrats will add the curious detail that Republicans in the Senate ended up blocking their own party’s bill in order to make it happen. Even worse, a successful filibuster would mean that red-state Dems like Landrieu and Begich who are up for reelection wouldn’t have to take a very tough vote in favor of funding ObamaCare as part of their party’s “clean” CR. If you’re going to go to the mat and shut down the government over ObamaCare, at least make vulnerable incumbents from the other party sweat through it.
Oh, and in case you were wondering why the adults in the GOP were not in favor of this method of de-funding Obamacare, it might be due to the fact that they understand how the process works. The "young Turks" don't seem to care about that. They just like to see themselves throwing tantrums on TV or in front of a bunch of "liberty" lovers. And by "liberty" in this context I'm speaking of those Discordians who favor "No Rules!".
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