Sen. Ted Cruz
ended his nearly day-long filibuster at noon Wednesday, having held the
chamber floor for more than 21 hours straight, etched his place in the
record books with the fourth-longest filibuster in Senate history, and raised his own profile and boosted his quest to defund the health care law.
A lot of argument has come about as to whether Cruz's actions were indeed a true filibuster. The definition of "Filibuster" is "an action such as a prolonged speech that obstructs progress in a
legislative assembly while not technically contravening the required
procedures" which Cruz's speech did in fact do, even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had the power to stop it. Technically it was indeed a filibuster.
The
Texas Republican took control of the floor at 2:41 Tuesday afternoon
and only relinquished it at noon Wednesday because of rules that
required the Senate
to officially reconvene and conduct a session-opening prayer, then wait
an hour and hold a vote at 1 p.m. on whether to begin debating a
stopgap spending bill.
“When
I started this filibuster yesterday afternoon, I told the American
people that I intended to stand until I could stand no more,” he said.
The
1 p.m. vote was pro forma, with all 100 senators voting to keep the
process for the stopgap spending bill on track — though a more
contentious vote looms this weekend.
“We have a lot to do, and we should get there as quickly as we can,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who urged colleagues to speed up the process.
During the 21 hours and 19 minutes Mr. Cruz held the floor, he read from Dr. Seuss’s "Green Eggs and Ham” and Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged,” did an impression of Darth Vader, approvingly cited words of wisdom from actor Ashton Kutcher and the TV show “Duck Dynasty,” and chastised both his Senate colleagues and the press for misinterpreting what his fight is about.
He walked off the Senate
floor to applause and handshakes from Republican colleagues, and was
mobbed by reporters and photographers outside the chamber. He said he
hoped he had sparked a discussion.
“At this point the debate is in the hands of the American people,” Mr. Cruz said, before retreating, saying, “At this point I think I’ve spoken long enough.”
His
filibuster drew praise from tea party groups who said he was delivering
a message to establishment Republicans and Democrats in Washington, but
many of his colleagues said he’s muddled the GOP’s message in the middle of a critical fight over the annual spending bills and the health care law.
Democrats seemed content to let Mr. Cruz hold the floor, hoping that his colleagues break with him, exposing a deep rift within the GOP.
Popular reaction
Sen. Johnny Isakson,
Georgia Republican, said calls from constituents to his office remained
high and sentiment was decidedly opposed to President Obama’s health
care law, but there was confusion over what was going on in the Senate, where a complex series of votes have been set up for this week.
“There’s a lot of confusion about the vote,” Ms. Isakson said. “They admire the passion of Senator Cruz
on one hand, but they don’t really understand what’s happening with the
two votes, cloture vs. denying cloture, so we’re trying to help educate
them in what the reality is.”
If events play out as Democratic leaders have structured them, the Senate
will vote at 1 p.m. Wednesday to set up a final vote on bringing the
spending bill to the floor. That final vote would happen within 30
hours, and then the bill would be officially on the floor.
There would be
another 60-vote threshold for cutting off debate, known as “cloture,” on
the bill itself, which would trigger another 30-hour clock for final
passage. During that final time period, Democrats would have a chance to
strip out the Obamacare defunding language by a simple majority vote.
Mr. Cruz
was not be able to reach the third-longest filibuster in history, a
22-hour and 26-minute affair in 1953, because under the rules, the Senate will have to adjourn its session at noon and then immediately reconvene with Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, granted the right to control the floor.
There is no official definition of what constitutes a “filibuster” under the Senate’s debating rule, and Democrats challenged the idea that Mr. Cruz’s
talk-a-thon constituted a filibuster. They argued that because a vote
is locked in for later Wednesday, there is a final limit on how long Mr. Cruz could speak, and therefore he wasn’t able to really block any action.
“This is not a filibuster. This is an agreement he and I made that he could talk,” Mr. Reid told Mr. Cruz, trying to take some of the hype out of the Republican's effort.
Still, Mr. Reid said he was trying to hold votes as quickly as possible, and by speaking and refusing to cede the floor, Mr. Cruz was stalling those votes.
Though
he held control of the floor for more than 21 hours, Mr. Cruise was
only actually speaking for 13 hours and 15 minutes of that time, or
about 62 percent of the time.
A Washington Times count showed
fellow senators took up 8 hours and 3 minutes of floor time by asking
him questions, which often amounted to full floor speeches disguised by a
question at the very end.
Under Senate rules, Mr. Cruz was able to yield to colleagues for questions without losing the floor, a loophole that he exploited extensively.
At one point Florida GOP
Sen. Marco Rubio asked a question lasting 50 minutes, while Utah Sen.
Mike Lee asked one 47-minute question and another 44-minute question.
All told, Mr. Lee was on his feet asking questions of Mr. Cruz for 3 hours and 21 minutes, making the affair more of a tag-team speech than a solo filibuster.
Mr. Cruz
said he was trying to highlight the damage from the health care law,
which was signed in 2010 and which has slowly been coming into effect in
the three years since. Next week, the state-based health exchanges are
slated to open, offering those without employer-based coverage a chance
to buy insurance from a marketplace, often with the help of government
subsidies.
Mr. Cruz said he wants to halt the entire law, and will not vote for any spending bill that includes any money for it.
“I think Obamacare is a disaster. I think it’s a train wreck,” he said.
