Starting
on Tuesday afternoon, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) made a 21-hour speech against
Obamacare, but it wasn’t a filibuster. It was long, he wasn’t allowed to sit or
leave the floor, and he was passionate. So why is this not a filibuster?
Technically,
Senator Cruz was not interfering with the Senate’s business. There was a vote
at 1pm today to begin debate on the continuing resolution the House passed, and
Ted Cruz had the floor until then. It would only be a filibuster if he had 41
Senators who would refuse to vote to proceed to debate.[1]
Majority Leader Reid had the 60 votes he needed to invoke cloture on the motion
to proceed to debate of the continuing resolution, so Ted Cruz’s speech was
merely grandstanding.[2]
Cloture
is a motion to end debate on a topic and needs the support of 60 Senators to
pass. This particular cloture vote was used to signify that Senators wanted to
proceed to debating the bill the House had passed.[3]
Basically, the Senate had to vote to end debate before they could have a
debate.
After
Senator Cruz’s marathon speech, the Senate voted to proceed to debate 100-0. [4]
Not only did Senator Cruz not prevent the Senate from voting to begin the
debate, he voted to begin debate on the measure. The Senate now has 30 hours to
debate the continuing resolution that will fund the government until
mid-December before they vote on it.[5]
It is likely that the Democratic-majority Senate will strip the provision that
defunds Obamacare. This means the bill will be sent back to the House for a
final vote. It’s beginning to look like the vote to fund our government for
another month and a half will come down to the wire.
[1] http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/don-t-call-it-a-filibuster-20130924
[2] http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/don-t-call-it-a-filibuster-20130924
[3] http://democrats.senate.gov/2013/09/25/roll-call-vote-on-cloture-on-mtp-to-h-j-res-59-continuing-resolution/
[4] http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00205
[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sen-ted-cruz-ends-his-talkathon/2013/09/25/4fcf8b66-25f3-11e3-ad0d-b7c8d2a594b9_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
No comments:
Post a Comment