Cruz, Lee, Paul to Headline Defunding Obamacare Rally

Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Rand Paul (R-KY) will join lawmakers at a defunding Obamacare rally on September 10–the day Congress returns from its August recess.

Lee, Cruz, and Paul have been the three leading proponents in the Senate of defunding Obamacare, and they will speak at the West Lawn of the Capitol at the event that will be a culmination of a five-day “Exempt America” tour that ForAmerica and the Tea Party Patriots will organize. 

As Breitbart News reported, ForAmerica Chairman Brent Bozell and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin will go on a five-day “Exempt America” tour across six states that will also target House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in addition to Republican senators who are on the fence on or oppose defunding Obamacare. They will travel to Kentucky, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia, and Boehner’s district in Ohio. The groups also intend to buy ads to pressure twelve Republican senators who are not on board with defunding Obamacare.

The current short-term resolution that funds the government expires on September 30, and Congress will have nine legislative days to reach an agreement on another funding resolution after the August recess. Cruz and Lee have been adamant that the House pass a resolution to fund the government except for Obamacare. They have said conservatives should then “win the argument” by convincing Americans that President Barack Obama and Democrats would rather shut down the government than extend the Obamacare exemptions big businesses and special interests have received to all Americans. 

On Sunday, Cruz said a “grassroots tsunami” would be needed in September to get 41 senators that are needed to put such an effort in motion because only 13 senators have agreed to join the defund Obamacare movement. Republicans like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) have called the idea terrible and dumb. 

Cruz, Lee, Martin, and Bozell have insisted that this may be the last, best opportunity to get rid of Obamacare before all of its regulations go into effect.