The Senate sent a bill hiking the debt ceiling to President Obama's desk on Wednesday, but only after a dramatic fight that forced GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to cast a tough vote advancing the legislation.
McConnell and top lieutenant Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) reluctantly backed ending debate after it became clear that no one in their conference wanted to cast the deciding 60th vote.
With the upper chamber's Democrats and Independents all voting yes, Senate Republicans needed to muster five votes to overcome Cruz.
Yet during an hour of tense floor conversations, it appeared they might fail.
The vote started late, as Senate Republicans huddled behind closed doors. After meeting for roughly an hour in private, the conference still did not know whether it could conjure up the needed votes.
On the floor, the procedural vote ran on for another hour, with Republicans slow to offer support.
Cornyn and McConnell, who is the most vulnerable Senate Republican up for reelection in 2014, then voted to end the debate, making it clear the procedural motion would be approved.
After their dramatic votes, another group of Republicans met in a room off the Senate floor. They returned, and several switched their votes from no to yes.
Some members said they switched their votes to give cover to McConnell and Cornyn.
"I didn't want this to come down to just be a criticized vote for just a few of our people. It just wasn't right," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who fought off a primary challenger in 2012.
In the end, 12 Republicans voted to end debate in the 67-31 vote.
On final passage, the bill suspending the debt ceiling until March 15, 2015, was approved in a 55-43 vote, with every Republican voting no.
The bill will allow hundreds of billions in debt accumulated through that deadline to be added to the existing $17.2 trillion debt. It also ensures the debt ceiling will not need to be raised again until well after the midterm elections.
Obama backed the bill and is expected to sign it.
The battle over the procedural vote highlighted tensions in the GOP between establishment and Tea Party Republicans.
Centrist Republicans had spent days trying to convince Cruz to drop his filibuster so the bill could be approved in a simple majority vote on the backs of Democrats.
After the vote, Cruz blasted the debt hike as "a classic victory for Washington establishment interests."
Asked if McConnell should no longer lead Senate Republicans, Cruz demurred.
"That is ultimately a decision, in the first instance, for the voters of Kentucky to make," he said.
McConnell's GOP primary challenger Matt Bevin attacked the incumbent before the vote was over, writing on Twitter that Kentucky deserves better.
But McConnell was backed by members of his conference who praised what they described as a courageous vote.
"Hopefully people will understand that McConnell, in the toughest Republican race in the country, had the courage to vote the way the vast majority of everybody understood the vote needed to go," Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said. "He did that, and I think it shows tremendous courage on his part."
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who also planned to vote no but then switch his vote to yes on the procedural motion, said McConnell showed "a great deal of leadership, so did Cornyn."
"Both of them are in primaries, particularly Mitch. They played the leaders' role," he said.
It was the same position that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team played in Tuesday's House vote, when only 28 Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling.
McCain said the debt vote would allow the GOP to move on from fiscal fights that damaged the party's image in the fall, when it got the lion's share of the blame in polls for the government shutdown.
"Our focus is on ObamaCare, repeal and replace ObamaCare," McCain said. "If you shift the attention like we did on the shutdown of the government, then we lose our focus on what we think is important."
The Republicans who voted in favor of ending debate were McConnell, Cornyn, Hatch, McCain, Corker and Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), John Barasso (Wyo.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John Thune (S.D.). Thune and Barasso are also members of leadership.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted McConnell's vote will have minimal impact on his reelection race.
"I think people understood that he is not for raising the debt ceiling without something attached. Obviously, that was impossible after the house voted for a clean increase," Graham said. "Hopefully the other people voting with him helps and hopefully people see it as an act of pragmatic leadership."
| LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
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Like many other taxpayers, I believe oversight of Pate Transportation Partners is long overdue. Commissioner Al Riddle stood alone yesterday at the meeting of the Commissioners Court when he made a motion to retain the services of an engineer to oversee the remainder of the project after the $1.8 million mistake on the the railroad bridge on 271 south. I watched the other 3 Commissioners and the county judge sit there in silence after Al's motion and wondered who are they working for? Pate Transportation or the taxpayers of this county? There has been a lot of feedback on their actions the past 24 hours and the taxpayers are fed up with the lack of transparency and the feeling that we have been thrown under the bus by this court with the exception of Al.I have talked with the engineer who offered his services to the county in the fall of 2011 at no charge except for travel reimbursement. His offer was rejected by the court that included Don Boggs at the time, along with Mike Fields, Phillip Hinton, Thomas Hockaday and Judge Brian Lee. The memo that Commissioner Riddle mentioned yesterday about the offer from the retired engineer was sent to Commissioners in September 2011 by Judge Lee. The pro and con and this is a quote from Judge Lee:"Pro-having a professional engineer working directly for the county that would have full access to Pate might be good"
"Con-How is Pate going to like a county employee constantly looking over their shoulder and reporting info back to us that they might not want to share if it put them in a bad light."Yep, a bridge that is 16 inches too low and costing the taxpayers of this county a minimum of 1.8 million to redo does put the company, Pate Transportation Partners, in a pretty light bad light when they are being paid $6.8 million taxpayer dollars for construction management and oversight. What is going on at this courthouse when the court still doesn't see the need for oversight of Pate?!By the way, new rules have also been imposed by Judge Lee for public comment, 3 minute limit at the beginning of the meeting, no audience questions or participation allowed during the meeting. Looks like the only way taxpayers can discuss this issue now with the court is one on one without media coverage or being recorded in the minutes of the court. Has Pate influenced a gag order at the courthouse on the bridge fiasco?Barbara BruechnerTribune article at the link below:
You're welcome.
As a result of this, it would take a blithering cretin to derail the GOP's good fortune arising from the natural course of events.
Enter Speaker John A. Boehner (R.-Ohio).
If Boehner's purpose in putting an Obama-like immigration plan on the table as "the Republican position" was to get "doggie treats" from President Barack Obama, The Washington Post, pro-amnesty groups, and virtually every liberal in town, then, congrats!
Boehner, who, a few short months ago, was being vilified as Satan incarnate, is now every liberal's favorite Republican. Goooood boy!
If, on the other hand, Boehner has the least little bit of interest in keeping the speakership in GOP hands in 2015, then, well, not so much.
Here are five reasons why moving amnesty forward will keep Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) in power — and could even achieve the virtually impossible task of losing GOP control of the House:
(1) It means that months will be spent focusing on an issue that benefits Obama, rather than focusing on issues, such as Obamacare.
Focusing on ObamaCare is a good idea. As the employer mandate kicks in, the lost jobs, lost insurance, and increased premiums will only multiply, so why would you spend months in a bloody internecine battle that focuses everyone's attention on something else?
We've seen how MSNBC has used the Christie Bridgegate controversy to drown out the Obama's heath care debacle. But to willfully knock ObamaCare out of the news by unnecessarily moving legislation which will change the political balance of power for the rest of our lifetimes would be far, far worse.
Think immigration is an issue that will hurt Republicans? Wait until it's been on the front page of every newspaper for four months in a row.
Has it really not occurred to Boehner that, by putting Obama's priority at the top of the news, you amplify its ability to hurt you?
It means the GOP ground game will be destroyed
Want to know why New Hampshire went "blue" in 2006 and 2008? It wasn't because of demographics, as New Hampshire's "red tide" in 2010 demonstrated. Rather, it was because conservatives like me, disgusted with George W. Bush, Sen. John S. McCain III, Sen. John Sununu, and Rep. Charles Bass, began voting third-party or simply stayed home.
There were a lot of us. And it turned the state "blue," at least for awhile.
Once people get in the habit of voting third-party, it builds problems into the system, as conservative gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Cuccinelli found out in Virginia, when his bid was thwarted wholly as a result of a Third Party spoiler.
Obama understood that you don't win elections by destroying your base. Rather, he went systematically through the component parts of the Democratic Party, unions, trial lawyers, same sex couples, "Dreamers [sic]," pro-aborts and anti-gunners–gave each group a reason to work night and day to get him elected.
Boehner, on the other hand, is proposing to demolish the most important component of the GOP ground game by stabbing them repeatedly, and joining with Obama to defeat Republicans on an issue of absolute central importance to them. Do not assume that your base will work for you or even turn out in November under these circumstances.
It means that Obama's ground game will be energized
Nothing grows a movement as much as the imminent prospect of legislative victory.
We've seen how Obama has held out the continued possibility of Manchin-Toomey gun control, legislatively or otherwise, in order to keep the anti-gun movement energized. Pundits have even erroneously suggested that Reid's motion to reconsider could be used to bring it up in 2015, even though all legislation automatically dies with sine die adjournment at the end of a Congress.
The same is true in the case of immigration reform.
Democratic constituencies normally turn out in smaller numbers in off-year elections, and the GOP is counting on this to take the Senate.
But this doesn't necessarily have to be. And it won't be if Republicans spend months debating an issue which will energize and bring out Democratic voters. And, no, none of these infrequent voters are going to vote Republican because Barack Obama successfully jawboned the GOP into giving away the store.
Before the fight's even started, Obama has already broken Boehner in two "like a little boy"
I had interpreted Boehner's two sentences on legalization to mean that 11.5 million+ illegals (and it may be a lot more) wouldn't get citizenship under the Boehner legislation.
Not Barack.
Obama has already interpreted Boehner's principles as embracing green cards and a non-special "path to citizenship."
