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After 21-Hour Cruz Speech, Senate Votes to Take Up Budget A New Senator Stops Talking, and a Vote on Spending Nears
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour, 19-minute verbal assault on President Obama’s signature health care law ended Wednesday when the Senate voted 100-to-0 to move to consider House legislation that Democrats plan to use to keep the government open next week. WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday moved toward approving legislation to keep the government open without gutting the health care law after Senator Ted Cruz’s 21-hour-and-19-minute verbal assault on it ended with a 100-to-0 vote that is likely to lead to an outcome that Mr. Cruz had tried to stop.
Mr. Cruz’s marathon session — which began Tuesday afternoon, went straight through the night and ended at a predetermined noon deadline — did not win over senators from either party, and in fact Mr. Cruz even voted to open debate. After the vote, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and a Cruz ally, said Mr. Cruz never intended to oppose the motion to take up the bill, a position contradicted by his words and procedural motions for days before the tally. The strange series of events started with Mr. Cruz’s marathon speech — which began Tuesday afternoon and went on until noon on Wednesday — and ended with the unanimous vote to cut off debate and proceed to consideration of a bill passed by the House that would keep the government open past Monday.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, greeted the conclusion of Mr. Cruz’s performance by declaring it “a big waste of time.” Mr. Cruz’s “yes” vote angered fellow Senate Republicans, baffled Democrats and confused conservative activists who had mobilized to stand with him against any procedural step forward.
The vote ended debate and the Senate will formally take up a bill the House passed that keeps the government open through Dec. 15 while gutting the president’s Affordable Care Act. On Sunday he made clear that he opposed cutting off debate — called cloture — unless the majority leader, Harry Reid, agreed that a vote to strip language from the bill that would gut the health care law be given a 60-vote threshold for passage. On “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Cruz, a freshman from Texas, declared his opposition to “any vote for cloture, any vote to allow Harry Reid to add funding for Obamacare with just a 51-vote threshold.”
That legislation is precisely what Mr. Cruz, a Texas Republican, has clamored for, but he opposed taking it up, knowing that Democratic leaders would most likely have the votes to strip out the health care language and other Republican policies attached. “A vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare,” Mr. Cruz said.
But with his indefatigable loquaciousness, Mr. Cruz managed to raise his own profile, anger some colleagues, thrill others, and elevate further the war over the health care law. The program begins enrolling the uninsured on Tuesday, the same day much of the government would shut down if the budget showdown were not resolved. Yet after the vote on Wednesday, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, said Mr. Cruz had never intended to oppose the motion to take up the bill, an assertion contradicted by Mr. Cruz’s words and procedural motions for days before the tally. Aides to senior Republican senators fumed that they had been deluged by conservative activists pressing for a “no” vote.
“We must all hang together or we most assuredly will all hang separately,” Mr. Cruz said in the 11th hour of his stand, quoting Benjamin Franklin and addressing his fellow Republican senators. He vowed to keep up his parliamentary battle to thwart “the train wreck, the nightmare, the disaster that is Obamacare.” On the Democratic side, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said that “the only reason Ted Cruz switched to ‘yes’ is that he would have had so few people voting with him it would have been embarrassing.”
Just feet away from the Senate chamber, in the ornate Lyndon Baines Johnson Room, Senate Democratic women gathered with mothers and babies to castigate the effort and defend the health care law. Mr. Reid greeted the conclusion of Mr. Cruz’s performance by declaring it “a big waste of time.”
“They can talk for the rest of this term. They can stand there day and night. They can shut down government, and those who are colluders can stand with them,” fumed Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland. “We are going to stand with the people of the United States of America.” While heads spun on Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew on Wednesday handed Congress a new deadline to worry about — Oct. 17. That is when the Treasury will have only $30 billion of cash on hand, putting the United States on the precipice of an unprecedented default, unless Congress raises the government’s statutory borrowing limit. It is the first hard deadline offered by the Treasury and compounds the problems of a Congress already struggling to keep the government open past Monday, when much of it will run out of money.
Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, said Mr. Cruz’s performance “changes nothing. He’s gotten a lot of airtime, and that’s something I’m sure he’s pleased about.” “The president remains willing to negotiate over the future direction of fiscal policy, but he will not negotiate over whether the United States will pay its bills for past commitments,” Mr. Lew wrote in a letter to the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio.
Wednesday’s vote is the first in a series that will culminate in a final vote on Sunday. Later this week, Mr. Reid will formally introduce a new version of the House stopgap-spending bill stripped of the health care language and shortened to keep the government operating from Oct. 1 to Nov. 15 rather than Dec. 15, as the House wanted. The biggest vote will most likely come this weekend, when Democrats must win over 60 senators to cut off debate on their leader’s bill. The Senate will formally take up a House bill on Thursday that keeps the government open through Dec. 15 while stripping money from President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Senate leaders in both parties closed in on an agreement to push forward final votes and cut off debate on the spending bill itself. That would give Mr. Boehner more time to find a path forward in the restive House before the midnight Monday deadline shutting down the government.
If they succeed, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio would have a matter of hours to decide whether to have the House vote on the Senate’s spending bill over the strenuous opposition of conservative activists or to add new Republican policy provisions to the spending bill and send it back to the Senate, a move sure to shutter the government. House Republicans will begin the second stage of the fiscal showdown on Thursday with a meeting to approve legislation to increase the debt ceiling and delay the health care law for a year, force construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and speed up an overhaul of the tax code.
Even many Republicans have encouraged House leaders to relent. Some Senate Republicans urged Mr. Boehner to put a spending bill without policy prescriptions to a vote to keep the government operating — possibly for as little as a week — while negotiations continued. Other Republicans said he should attach only minor changes to the Affordable Care Act, like a repeal of a tax on medical devices that helps pay for the law.
“There’s no other way,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “As soon as we have 67 votes in the United States Senate, we’ll win. Unfortunately we’re not even close.” Aides to the Republican leadership said Mr. Boehner would make a decision about his next moves only after the Senate completes work on a bill that Democrats hope will finance the government through Nov. 15 without any conservative policy measures. Senate Republicans conceded they are not likely to stop that, and they pressed Mr. Cruz and his allies to relent.
“We’re getting so late here there really could be a shutdown,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah. “That doesn’t help anybody.”
With his indefatigable stand on the Senate floor, Mr. Cruz — who was elected just last year — managed to raise his own profile, anger some colleagues, thrill others and escalate the war over the health care law. The program begins enrolling the uninsured on Tuesday, the same day much of the government would shut down.
“We must all hang together or we most assuredly will all hang separately,” Mr. Cruz said in the 21st hour of his speech, quoting Benjamin Franklin and addressing his fellow Republican senators.
Just feet away from the Senate chamber, in the ornate Lyndon Baines Johnson Room, Senate Democratic women gathered with mothers and babies to castigate the effort and to defend the health care law.
“They can talk for the rest of this term,” said Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland. “They can stand there day and night. They can shut down government, and those who are colluders can stand with them. We are going to stand with the people of the United States of America.”
The biggest vote will be on the spending bill later this week, when Democrats must win over 60 senators to cut off debate on the measure, which leaves the health care law alone.
If they succeed, Mr. Boehner may have a matter of just hours to decide whether to let the House vote on the Senate’s spending bill over the strenuous opposition of conservative activists, or to add Republican policy provisions to the bill and send it back to the Senate, a move sure to shutter the government.
For now, Mr. Cruz is basking in his moment.For now, Mr. Cruz is basking in his moment.
His performance was not technically a filibuster. He merely held the floor until the clock ran out on the procedural vote, which he could not delay. But nine months into his first term in elective office, the Texan has become a lightning rod, a hero to conservative activists, a rogue to others in both parties. “Coming into this debate, we clearly were not united,” he said, greeting reporters off the floor. “There were significant divisions in the conference. I hope those divisions dissolve, that we come together in party unity and that all 46 Republicans vote against cloture on the bill on Friday or Saturday.”
When he yielded the Senate floor, he did not rush off. He sat for 10 seconds, then stood for the day’s opening prayer, accepted congratulations, greeted House Republicans who came over to watch, and walked away in no haste six minutes later — tie loosened, but little worse for the wear. But those divisions were far from healed. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, followed Mr. Cruz to the floor with a blistering speech, saying the health care law had been subject to months of debate in committee and on the floor, had been amended repeatedly, and was an issue in the 2012 presidential election. He was especially incensed by Mr. Cruz’s comparison of Republicans who are not standing with him to appeasers who allowed Hitler to march through Europe.
“Coming into this debate, we clearly were not united,” he said, greeting reporters off the floor. “There were significant divisions in the conference. I hope those divisions dissolve, that we come together in party unity and that all 46 Republicans vote against cloture on the bill on Friday or Saturday, whenever that vote occurs.”
“Otherwise,” he warned, “I will say this: Any senator who votes with majority leader Harry Reid and the Democrats to give majority leader Reid the ability to fund Obamacare on a pure 51-vote party vote has made the decision to allow Obamacare to be funded.”
But those divisions were far from healed. Mr. McCain followed Mr. Cruz to the floor with a blistering speech, saying the health care law was subject to months of debate in committee and on the floor, was amended repeatedly and was subject to a presidential election. He was especially incensed by Mr. Cruz’s comparison of Republicans who are not standing with him to appeasers who allowed Hitler to maraud through Europe.
“Elections have consequences, and those elections were clear,” Mr. McCain said. “A majority of the American people supported the president of the United States and renewed his stewardship of this country.”“Elections have consequences, and those elections were clear,” Mr. McCain said. “A majority of the American people supported the president of the United States and renewed his stewardship of this country.”
The scene inside the Senate chamber late Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning was sometimes an unusual one for the staid body, especially when Mr. Cruz paused briefly in his attack to read his two young daughters a bedtime story — “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss.

Annie Lowrey, Ashley Parker and Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.

At other times, he compared his fight to efforts by leaders who stood against the Nazis, ended the cold war or started the American Revolution.
“Everyone in America knows Obamacare is destroying the economy,” said Mr. Cruz, who began speaking at 2:41 p.m. on Tuesday. “Where is the urgency?”
His Senate speech was among some of the longest on record, including those by Robert M. La Follette, who spoke for 18 hours and 23 minutes in 1908 and Alfonse M. D’Amato, who went on for 23 hours and 30 minutes in 1986. The record was set by Strom Thurmond at 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957.