First, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brings the House continuing resolution (CR) to the floor next week, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to deliver 41 Republican votes to filibuster it until Senator Reid agrees not to try and restore funding for Obamacare. McConnell has the power to ensure that Reid cannot get an amendment onto the bill that strips the Obamacare defunding language with a simple majority vote. As Breitbart News laid out on Friday, McConnell has closed down one pathway that Reid could use:
If [Reid] introduces an amendment before the Senate votes on cloture for the House CR[, t]hat would require a 60-vote threshold, and McConnell’s spokesman Don Stewart told Breitbart News that if Reid attempted that tactic, all Senate Republicans would stand together to block it.
However, a major avenue is still open through which Reid can get the amendment onto the bill with a simple majority. If McConnell decides Obamacare is worth fighting in earnest on must-pass legislation (ie non-symbolic votes), then he will deliver the 41 necessary votes to filibuster until Reid is forced to agree to a clean up-or-down Senate floor vote on the Obamacare defunding CR the House just passed. There is something McConnell can do using his power that could accomplish this: Filibuster the House CR until there is a unanimous consent agreement that any amendments added to it after cloture is invoked would also each require a 60-vote threshold. The power rests now with McConnell. Delivering the 41 votes is essential to help Ted Cruz.
Conservative group targets McConnell, Cornyn over Cruz filibuster
As legislators squabble over defunding Obamacare in a government funding bill, the top two Republican senators find themselves in the crosshairs, not of a Democratic group, but of a conservative group.
Senate Conservatives Fund has declared Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn “turncoats,” after both said they would not support a filibuster by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to prevent a vote on the House bill that funds the government while defunding Obamacare, a move Cruz hopes will prevent Democrats from amending the bill to fund the health-care law.
On Tuesday, McConnell said he supported the House bill, which would fund the government through Dec. 15 while removing funding for the health-care law. But he said he would not support Cruz’s plan to filibuster it.
“I just don’t happen to think filibustering a bill that defunds Obamacare is the best route to defunding Obamacare,” he said. “All it does is shut down the government and keep Obamacare funded. And none of us want that.”
Politico reported that Cornyn also will not support the bill.
“Sen. Cornyn will not block a bill that defunds Obamacare,” a spokeswoman said.
McConnell and Cornyn’s statements all but ensure that Democrats will have the votes necessary to overcome Cruz’s filibuster, after which, the Democratic majority in the Senate can pass a bill that funds the government and Obamacare.
That, according to an email Senate Conservatives Fund sent to supporters, amounts to “the ultimate betrayal.”
Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn have surrendered to Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democrats. More importantly, they have surrendered to Obamacare — the biggest job killer in America,” the email reads.
Senate Conservatives Fund could create bigger problems for Cornyn and McConnell if they were to provide monetary support to primary opponents challenging the two senators for their seats next year.
The group is already running a poll of its supporters to decide whether or not to endorse Matt Bevin, the businessman challenging McConnell in the Kentucky Senate race primary, and executive director Matt Hoskins said earlier this year that they were open to supporting Bevin.
Cornyn has not yet drawn a viable primary challenger, but there are a couple names floating around, including Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett and Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert.
At some point it'd be nice to start seeing some application of the 11th Commandment - which, as originally created - means the liberal side of the party must start tamping down its public hatred/excoriation of the more conservative side of the party.
At some point it'd be nice to start seeing some application of the 11th Commandment - which, as originally created - means the liberal side of the party must start tamping down its public hatred/excoriation of the more conservative side of the party.
And vice versa. Cruz just now trashed "Senators who are sitting home with their families, or at fundraisers, or doing anything but present here, engaged in this debate." He's at the low end of the Senate seniority hierarchy and here he's ripping men he's going to need in the future.
Nope. Go read the history of the 11th Amendment. It was devised in order to prevent any further trashing of conservative republicans by liberal republicans. You'd do yourself a world of good if you started reading a little more deeply about things before you start opining on them.
Oh. So only those who aren't screaming tea partiers have to refrain from criticism. Where is that written?
You would do yourself a huge favor by not lecturing me. Thanks.
While popularized by Reagan, "The Eleventh Commandment" was created by then California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson.
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The goal was to prevent a repetition of the liberal Republican assault on Barry Goldwater, attacks which contributed to Goldwater's defeat in the 1964 presidential election. East Coast Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller labeled Goldwater an "extremist" for his conservative positions and declared him unfit to hold office. Fellow Republican candidate for Governor George Christopher and California's liberal Republicans were leveling similar attacks on Reagan. Hoping to prevent a split in the Republican Party, Parkinson used the phrase as common ground. Party liberals eventually followed Parkinson's advice.