Senate Votes To Fund ObamaCare

Cloture invoked 79-19 (60 vote threshold, there are 54 D, 46 R Senators)

This was the vote that mattered because Harry Reid could only get the 60 votes he needed with Republican help.  25Rs joined 54Ds to end debate on the House bill that defunded ObamaCare.

Conservative House Republicans said this cloture vote was “the same as a vote for ObamaCare itself” in this letter.

Official Roll Call showing how Senators voted here. Doug Ross’ color-coded list is here.

The Reid Amendment to gut House bill and fund ObamaCare passed as predicted along party lines 54-44 (50 vote threshold.)

The final passage of amended House bill, now funding ObamaCare passed as predicted along the same party lines: 54-44 (50 vote threshold.)

Earlier this week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed optimism that five vulnerable Democratic senators from Red States would vote with Republicans to defeat Reid’s amendment to strip out the Obamacare defunding language. Because God Knows, Democrats don’t walk in lock step (come and get me McCain) when it comes to these crucial votes.

It is what it is. 

Cruz’s Plan B via Robert Costa at NRO is to get House conservatives to stop Boehner from making a deal on the CR.

Boehner’s plan — to focus on a debt-limit package, rather than a drawn-out CR battle — made many conservatives uneasy. As they mulled a response, they reached out to Cruz.

On the call, Cruz told them that Boehner was making a mistake, and urged his friends to fight until the end on the CR. The group agreed, and they complained that Boehner’s shift to the debt limit was a diversion. Senator Mike Lee of Utah joined Cruz on the call, and both senators said they’d stand with House conservatives as they opposed the leadership.

By the call’s end, there was a consensus: until the CR talks are complete, Republicans should whip “no” on Boehner’s debt-limit plan, as a way of preventing the leadership from directing the strategy. And that’s exactly what happened late Thursday afternoon: GOP whip Kevin McCarthy worked the floor, but couldn’t find the votes for Boehner’s debt-limit plan. After McCarthy reported back about the Cruz-inspired uprising, the leadership shelved it.

They want a one-year delay of ObamaCare to be the price of funding the government, not of raising the debt ceiling next month.

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