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Ted Cruz: Obamacare attacked by Republican senator in marathon speech Ted Cruz pulls all-nighter as marathon anti-Obamacare speech churns on
(about 7 hours later)
Ted Cruz, a conservative senator, is delivering an old-style speaking marathon on Barack Obama's healthcare law, even though fellow Republicans have urged him to back down for fear of a possible government shutdown in a week. Texan Republican Ted Cruz was on track to match all-time record Senate filibusters on Wednesday after continuing through the night with a marathon speech against Obamacare, in a show of congressional theatrics devoid anything other than symbolic consequence.
The Texas senator vowed to speak until he was "no longer able to stand", and filled the time in a largely empty chamber, criticising the law and comparing the fight to the battle against the Nazis. He talked about the revolutionary war, the Washington ruling class, his Cuban-born father who worked as a cook and even recited Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham. Reading from children's books to keep going, a tired-looking Cruz was joined in shifts by fellow conservatives Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Pat Roberts in a stand against Barack Obama's plan to extend health insurance in the US.
"I rise today in opposition to Obamacare," Cruz said at 2.41pm EDT (1841 GMT), and he cast the three-year-old law as a job killer and a "liberal train wreck". Nine hours later he was showing no signs of letting up. Cruz's speech is not technically a filibuster, as it he is merely speaking during a permitted time slot and will be forced to yield to a procedural vote by Democrats on Wednesday afternoon.
Egged on by conservative groups, the potential 2016 presidential candidate and favourite of the ultraconservative Tea Party movement excoriated Republicans and Democrats in his criticism of Obama's signature domestic achievement and Congress's unwillingness to gut the law. Cruz supports the House-passed bill that would avert a government shutdown and defund Obamacare, as do many Republicans. The bill would keep the government operating until 15 December. The speech is intended to block the passage of what is known as a continuing resolution: a motion to maintain funding for the federal government. The resolution passed the House of Representatives on Friday, but is the subject of controversy because Republicans tacked on a provision that would defund the non-mandatory elements of the Affordable Care Act.
However, they lack the votes to stop the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, from moving ahead on the measure, stripping the healthcare defunding provision and sending the spending bill back to the House. That did not stop Cruz's quixotic speech. During his talkathon, eight Republican senators joined Cruz on the Senate floor, including Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, both of whom have been mentioned as possible presidential candidates. Cruz yielded to them for questions but did not give up his time controlling the debate. Some Republicans have disavowed Cruz's tactics. A number are fearful that they will be blamed for the consequences of a government shutdown and, others complain of the difficulty of explaining Cruz's position: attempting to block a measure that he supports.
"It is my hope, my fervent hope, that the voices of dissension within the Republican conference will stop firing at each other and start firing" at the target of the healthcare law, Cruz said, a clear acknowledgment of the opposition he faced. But Cruz's tactics do at least ensure proceedings go at the slowest possible pace.
The issue has caused turmoil in the Republican party, exacerbating the divide between Tea Party conservatives and Republican incumbents who have repeatedly voted against the healthcare law but now find themselves on the defensive. Republican senators said defunding Obamacare would simply not happen with a Democratic president and Democrats controlling the Senate. If his pseudo-filibuster continues until 3pm Wednesday, Cruz will break the record for the longest-ever Senate speech set by Strom Thurmond in 1957 in an attempt to prevent passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Democrats calculate that the public will blame Republicans for any interruption in government services or benefits, as it did in 1995-96 in the last shutdown confrontation that resembles the current one. Cruz began speaking out against Obamacare at 2.40pm on Tuesday and vowed to keep going until he was "no longer able to stand".
Both parties are using the healthcare reform issue to try to gain an edge in the 2014 elections when control of both houses of Congress will be at stake. Republican leaders, who have disavowed Cruz and his fellow hardliners, had hoped that they might be able to ensure a swift Senate vote so that they had time to avoid a government shutdown when the legislation is passed back to the House of Representatives for a final showdown before Monday night's deadline.
The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the No 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, opposed Cruz's tactic, and numerous Republicans stood with their leadership rather than Cruz. But Cruz has dismissed this as defeatism and is calling for Senate Republicans to block passage of the whole budget bill when they vote on Friday or Saturday so as to stop Democrats from stripping out language that would defund Obamacare.
Delaying tactics could push a final vote into the weekend, just days before the new fiscal year begins on 1 October. That would give the speaker, John Boehner, and House Republicans little time to come up with a new temporary spending bill needed to avert a partial government shutdown. Comparing the Senate procedures to a "rigged wrestling contest", he declared: "Most Americans could not give a flying flip about a bunch of politicians in Washington. Who cares? Almost all of us are in cheap suits with bad haircuts! Who cares?"
McConnell told reporters that if the House did not get a Senate-passed bill until Monday, lawmakers there would be in a tough spot. Cruz's own suit remained unruffled throughout, although at one stage Kansas senator Pat Roberts appeared with his tie hanging at half mast. The Texan first-term senator also revealed that he had swapped his usual ostrich-skin "argument boots" for a pair of black tennis shoes after taking advice from Rand Paul, who staged a shorter filibuster last year against US drone strikes.
Dick Durbin, the Senate's No 2 Democrat, said Democrats favoured a spending bill that would keep the government running until 15 November, which would force Congress to work sooner on a more sweeping piece of legislation – known as an omnibus spending bill – that he hopes would reverse some automatic spending cuts known as sequestration. Invoking the second world war, civil war, war of independence and space race in his favour, Cruz rarely skipped a beat as the night wore on, but his eyelids were visibly drooping by dawn.
Despite Cruz's effort, Reid set a test vote for Wednesday on a motion to move the measure ahead. At an early stage, he read the Dr Seuss children's classic Green Eggs and Ham, which he billed as a bedtime story to his daughters. While the tactic had charm, some commentators pointed out that the book may not have been the best choice: "The narrator keeps insisting that he hates green eggs and ham, but he's never had green eggs and ham," wrote Matt Iglesias at Slate. "When he finally tries them – he likes them! The Democrats' bet on the Affordable Care Act is that it's like green eggs and ham – they're convinced the public will like it when they try it.
Outside conservative groups that have been targeting Republican incumbents implored their members to call lawmakers and demand that they stand with Cruz and his attack on Obamacare. Nevertheless, Cruz ploughed on. Citing sources as varied as actor Ashton Kutcher and the Denny's restaurant chain, he also deployed the fiery rhetoric that has made him a 2016 presidential favourite among Tea Party conservatives.
"This is the ultimate betrayal," the Senate Conservatives Fund said of McConnell and Cornyn – two lawmakers up for re-election next year – in an email on Tuesday morning. "We need to make DC listen," he said. "Make them listen to the single mom working in the diner, struggling to feed her kids who has just been told she has to take a cut in hours due to Obamacare."
Cruz took breaks of up to an hour while yielding to questions from supportive Republicans but was also challenged by Democrat Tim Kaine who defended Obama's plan to extend health insurance to low-wage Americans. At one stage, senator Marco Rubio recited a story about Venezuelan toilet paper factories.
Hours before the speech started, Republican Senate leaders Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn refused to back a Cruz plan to block the resolution, opening the way for Democrat majority leader Harry Reid to schedule the first in a series of procedural votes starting on Wednesday afternoon.
"Senator McConnell supports the House Republicans' bill and will not vote to block it, since it defunds Obamacare and funds the government without increasing spending by a penny," a spokesman for McConnell said in a statement.
Senate majority leader Reid was also adamant that Cruz would not be allowed to frustrate passage of the bill any further. "I want to make sure everyone understands: There is no filibuster today," declared Reid at the outset of Tuesday's session.
Cruz also appeared to acknowledge that he had lost Republican support in the Senate, complaining that lawmakers on both sides were preparing to give away their filibuster rights by allowing Democrats to hold a simple majority vote on future amendments. "Our leaders, in both parties, are asking us to vote on a bill without knowing what is in it," he said.
Reid will bring a so-called motion to proceed vote on Wednesday followed by a cloture vote to end debate on Friday or Saturday. This requires 60 votes to pass, but without the support of Republican leaders, Cruz and Lee are unlikely to stop it going through.
After that, Reid is free to introduce an amendment on Sunday to the original budget resolution which strips out the threat to defund Obamacare and only requires 51 votes to pass.
This would mean a so-called "clean" budget resolution will be sent back to the House on Monday with only hours to go until the government funding authorisation expires.
Republicans may still choose to force a government shut down at this point, but speaker John Boehner is increasingly expected to allow a vote that would pass the budget resolution with help from Democrats and a minority of House Republicans.
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