WASHINGTON — The Senate moved ahead Wednesday with a bill that would both avert a government shutdown next week and defund ObamaCare following a 21-hour “filibuster” by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
“He drew a lot of attention to something that I think’s going to be a real disaster for our country,” fumed Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who himself gained national attention for a filibuster against drone strikes.
In the end, the Senate voted unanimously to cut off debate on a motion to take up the funding bill, with even Cruz voting to let the process take its course.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the entire exercise a “big waste of time.”
Democrats will eventually get to offer an amendment to strip out the ObamaCare defunding provision, setting up a clash with the House as the clock ticks toward a partial government shutdown at midnight Monday.
Both chambers have to pass the same bill and President Obama has to sign it to head off the shutdown.
Two financial deadlines loom — keeping the government operating after next week and raising the nation’s borrowing authority.
In a letter to Congress, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the government will have exhausted its borrowing authority by Oct. 17, leaving just $30 billion cash on hand to pay its bills.
Cruz’s talkathon technically wasn’t a filibuster, since existing rules dictated that it end at noon Wednesday, and he and his allies were merely holding the Senate floor.
At one point, Cruz appeared to compare opponents of his position to Nazi appeasers.
“I resoundingly reject that allegation,” shot back fellow Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
“I’m concerned about the tactics, the strategy, that has been divisive,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), speaking in the Capitol just as Cruz gave up the floor.
Afterward, Cruz, considered a Republican presidential contender in 2016, went on the Rush Limbaugh radio show and blasted political “theater” and “empty symbolic votes” — a reference to a scuttled House vote that would have kept the government running after an ObamaCare defunding provision fell away.
He talked about “how many Republicans want a show vote to pretend to their constituents they’re fighting for what they say they’re fighting for, rather than actually fighting for it and actually winning.”
In the latest budget machination, House leaders are considering attaching a one-year delay in ObamaCare’s “individual mandate” to the bill, keeping the government running.
Democrats have said they won’t swallow either defunding or delay.