The Senate moved Wednesday to take up a House-passed temporary spending bill that defunds President Obama’s health-care law, despite Sen. Ted Cruz’s more than 21-hour attempt to delay the legislation.
Shortly after 1 p.m., the funding bill passed its first procedural hurdle in the Senate, which voted overwhelmingly to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed on the House’s continuing resolution. The Senate now is scheduled to hold up to 30 hours of debate on the funding bill.
The development came after Cruz (R-Tex.) ended his marathon talking attack on the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law more than three years ago, at noon Wednesday when he ran into a deadline imposed by Senate rules, allowing the body to take up the funding bill aimed at averting a looming government shutdown.
Cruz’s feat of stamina, which lasted 21 hours and 19 minutes, threatened to complicate House GOP efforts to pass the funding bill after the Senate modifies the House version.
Speaking on the Senate floor after Cruz ended his talkathon, Sen. John McCain blasted the freshman senator from Texas for suggesting during his speech that Republican lawmakers had not fought hard enough to stop the health-care law before Congress passed it in March 2010. McCain also vigorously objected to Cruz’s comparison of “pundits” who say that Obamacare cannot be defunded to politicians who appeased Nazi Germany before World War II.
“I resoundingly reject that allegation,” McCain said. He said Cruz had told him that he was not comparing U.S. legislators to Nazi appeasers, but McCain called that “a difference without a distinction” and said he still objects to Cruz’s language.
Cruz took the floor at 2:41 p.m. Tuesday, promising to speak “until I am no longer able to stand.” He proceeded to talk away, holding forth with occasional assistance from a handful of Republican colleagues, who gave him breaks from speaking by asking lengthy questions, although Cruz was still required to remain on his feet on the Senate floor, with no food or bathroom breaks.
The end of the speech-making, a filibuster in all but name, followed an exchange late Wednesday morning in which Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) informed Cruz that under Senate rules, he could continue speaking until 1 p.m. Cruz said he would yield the floor at noon when the Senate formally begins a new legislative day with a prayer.
To most Americans, it looked like a traditional filibuster, fixed in the popular imagination by Jimmy Stewart’s performance in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” But parliamentary procedures already in place dictated that Cruz would have to yield the floor by 1 p.m. Wednesday at the latest so that voting on the funding bill could proceed.
With Senate passage all but certain on a bill that will include funding for the health-care law, commonly known as Obamacare, Cruz’s controversial strategy will give House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and his colleagues only a few hours to respond with a different version of the legislation.
Both houses of Congress must reach agreement on funding legislation by Monday night to avoid most federal agencies closing on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a similarly contentious debate is simmering over raising the federal debt ceiling, with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warning Wednesday that the nation will exhaust its emergency borrowing capacity no later than Oct. 17.
The Cruz talkathon was the latest example of the increasingly stark division among Republicans, both on Capitol Hill and nationally. The Texas newcomer, just 42 and nine months into his first term in office, is carrying the banner for conservatives who urge a take-no-prisoners approach in confronting the president, even if it means shuttering the government.
But the move angered senior Republicans, who complained that Cruz and the other junior senators pushing this strategy did not understand the wounds the GOP suffered during the mid-1990s shutdown battles with President Bill Clinton. Back then, the party controlled both the House and Senate, a luxury compared with its tenuous majority in the House today.
Rosalind Helderman and Jeff Simon contributed to this report.
Shortly after 1 p.m., the funding bill passed its first procedural hurdle in the Senate, which voted overwhelmingly to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed on the House’s continuing resolution. The Senate now is scheduled to hold up to 30 hours of debate on the funding bill.
The development came after Cruz (R-Tex.) ended his marathon talking attack on the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law more than three years ago, at noon Wednesday when he ran into a deadline imposed by Senate rules, allowing the body to take up the funding bill aimed at averting a looming government shutdown.
Cruz’s feat of stamina, which lasted 21 hours and 19 minutes, threatened to complicate House GOP efforts to pass the funding bill after the Senate modifies the House version.
Speaking on the Senate floor after Cruz ended his talkathon, Sen. John McCain blasted the freshman senator from Texas for suggesting during his speech that Republican lawmakers had not fought hard enough to stop the health-care law before Congress passed it in March 2010. McCain also vigorously objected to Cruz’s comparison of “pundits” who say that Obamacare cannot be defunded to politicians who appeased Nazi Germany before World War II.
“I resoundingly reject that allegation,” McCain said. He said Cruz had told him that he was not comparing U.S. legislators to Nazi appeasers, but McCain called that “a difference without a distinction” and said he still objects to Cruz’s language.
Cruz took the floor at 2:41 p.m. Tuesday, promising to speak “until I am no longer able to stand.” He proceeded to talk away, holding forth with occasional assistance from a handful of Republican colleagues, who gave him breaks from speaking by asking lengthy questions, although Cruz was still required to remain on his feet on the Senate floor, with no food or bathroom breaks.
The end of the speech-making, a filibuster in all but name, followed an exchange late Wednesday morning in which Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) informed Cruz that under Senate rules, he could continue speaking until 1 p.m. Cruz said he would yield the floor at noon when the Senate formally begins a new legislative day with a prayer.
To most Americans, it looked like a traditional filibuster, fixed in the popular imagination by Jimmy Stewart’s performance in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” But parliamentary procedures already in place dictated that Cruz would have to yield the floor by 1 p.m. Wednesday at the latest so that voting on the funding bill could proceed.
With Senate passage all but certain on a bill that will include funding for the health-care law, commonly known as Obamacare, Cruz’s controversial strategy will give House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and his colleagues only a few hours to respond with a different version of the legislation.
Both houses of Congress must reach agreement on funding legislation by Monday night to avoid most federal agencies closing on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a similarly contentious debate is simmering over raising the federal debt ceiling, with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warning Wednesday that the nation will exhaust its emergency borrowing capacity no later than Oct. 17.
The Cruz talkathon was the latest example of the increasingly stark division among Republicans, both on Capitol Hill and nationally. The Texas newcomer, just 42 and nine months into his first term in office, is carrying the banner for conservatives who urge a take-no-prisoners approach in confronting the president, even if it means shuttering the government.
But the move angered senior Republicans, who complained that Cruz and the other junior senators pushing this strategy did not understand the wounds the GOP suffered during the mid-1990s shutdown battles with President Bill Clinton. Back then, the party controlled both the House and Senate, a luxury compared with its tenuous majority in the House today.
Rosalind Helderman and Jeff Simon contributed to this report.