Ted Cruz Was Against The Bill, Before He Was For It.

A lot of people are a bit confused about the course of events that are presently taking place in congress. Most people perceive that a piece of legislation passed the House of Representatives and now must go to the Senate to be approved or rejected. The sad truth is that is simply not the way it works in Washington, hasn't for some time. Any more, Washington rules for passing a law are more akin to playing the game mouse trap then what we all learned about in 3rd grade social studies class, so let’s take a moment and try to piece together exactly what is going on what the possible outcomes of the latest and greatest budget battle are.

The House of Representatives passes this Continuing Resolution, which according to most people over there anymore is just as good as a budget without all that paperwork and number crunching that is typically associated with trying to figure out how best to spend $3.5 Trillion dollars. This particular one would fund all the government programs through the end of next year with one minor exception. The American Care Act (i.e. Obamacare, or the ACA) was left out of the bill because the three people in congress who have read it really don’t like it. Then this resolution goes to the Senate, where they have a collection of arcane parliamentary rules that are more messed up and non-sequital then watching Andy Dick do Shakespeare in the Park. The wrench in the cogs here is that in the Senate, senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, along with a few others are trying to force Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to get 60 votes in order to make any amendments to the House passed bill, namely an amendment that would stick the part of the House bill that de-funds the ACA. 60 votes is typically needed to get anything through the senate anymore, but once passed, a parliamentary vote could be called for an amendment to the bill that effectively changes it into something completely different, kind of like when you ask for the Big Mac combo at McDonalds, then wind up with a half-eaten breakfast burrito instead, even though they stopped serving breakfast 8 hours ago.

In order to enforce this 60 vote requirement, Senator Ted Cruz is stating that he will use a little rule called the filibuster, where Ted will take over the floor of the Senate and will then begin yapping about anything from how much he loves Canada to how much he loves Texas, it doesn't really matter, the important aspect being that as long as Ted holds the floor, nothing can be voted on at all. If he gets a few people to join in, they could hold government at a standstill for days, though it seems that an appropriate metaphor for that would involve a molasses on a cold day versus a molasses in a blizzard.

The kind of jacked up aspect of this is as such, Ted Cruz is going to have to stop a vote on the bill itself, as is, if he doesn't get the 60 vote agreement now in order to avoid a parliamentary vote on any amendments to the bill later. He is trying now to avoid a scenario from playing out where a simple majority in the Senate can expo facto send the legislation to a joint committee of house and senate members where it is expected that republicans from the house will cave and allow the amendment that would keep funding for Obamacare to stand.

Got it? So Ted Cruz is going to be against the bill, before being for the bill. But unlike another Senators failed attempt to straddle the electorate, an informed public will know why before, during, and after any vote occurs. There is some evidence that a pretty nasty smear campaign against Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee is getting underway in order to undermine their attempt to derail the derailment of the debt and allow the government to keep moving along after the soft Oct. 1st deadline when we apparently are no longer able to use accounting tricks to keep up our funding charade.

Visual Aid on How Congress Works

So why haven’t they started this whole mess then? What’s the hold up? Well, other than some pretty exciting football games over the weekend, there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes from Senator Reid’s side to try and get ready for this battle. First of all, the aforementioned smear campaign to get some public support for his side, secondly, a dream scenario would be to get some moderate republican Senators like McCain and Graham over to his side, enough of these votes and Reid could potentially agree to Senator’s Cruz demand and still get his way as far as the bill is concerned. And of course, lastly, Obama is hoping for something else to go horribly wrong in his foreign policy that will take the spot light off of Cruz as he actually takes a stand for his beliefs and what he feels is a degradation of traditional America. Could you imagine if that kind of attitude caught on with the general public?