Senate Takes Next Step Toward Shutdown Showdown

After a dramatic 21-plus hours in which Republican Sen. Ted Cruz stood to express his opposition to President Obama's health care programs, the Senate early Wednesday afternoon voted 100-0 to move ahead and take up legislation that would avert a government shutdown next Tuesday.

As expected, the move by the Democratic-led Senate sets up what promises to be another showdown with the Republican-controlled House.

USA Today writes that the unanimous vote:

"Cleared the way to begin debate on a House-passed stopgap spending bill that includes language to defund the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare]. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to strip that provision from the bill and return to the House later this week a clean stopgap measure to keep the government funded through Nov. 15.

"The overwhelming support for the procedural vote made clear that the votes do not exist in Congress to defund the law, but Cruz's filibuster-style speech drew praise from colleagues and opponents of the law."

The Hill sums up what happened this way:

"Senators voted by a margin of 100 to 0 to end debate on a motion to proceed to the House-passed stopgap, which includes language to prioritize debt payments if Congress fails to raise the debt limit this fall. The vote sets the stage for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to offer an amendment to strip the defund-ObamaCare and the debt-prioritization language out of the House measure.

"Republicans said they support advancing the legislation because it would defund the controversial healthcare law."

Now, if things go as expected, the House and Senate will be at odds over what should and should not be included in legislation that would keep the government open past the Sept. 30 end of its fiscal year.

Watch Live: Sen. Ted Cruz's Senate Floor Speech

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Sen. Ted Cruz's anti-Obamacare strategy seemed to fall flat Tuesday with many of his fellow Senate Republicans. They urged him to back down out of concern over a possible government shutdown next week.

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Tea Party conservative Ted Cruz is delivering a long speech in the Senate right now over President Barack Obama's health care law. He began just after 2:40 p.m. ET Tuesday and, with some help from a few other senators, was still going as dawn neared Wednesday.

C-Span2 is broadcasting the speech live.

During his marathon talking session, Cruz is being joined by other Republicans including Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

Cruz has yielded to them for questions but he is still controlling the debate, which began early Tuesday afternoon. We posted some video of the "bedtime stories" he read to his two daughters — Green Eggs And Ham. Over at The Washington Post's The Fix blog, there are some more highlights.

While Cruz's talkathon has been described as a filibuster, Frank James of NPR's It's All Politics blog explains that term isn't quite exact:

"Cruz wanted Senate Republicans to filibuster the House bill — to stop it in its tracks — unless Senate Democrats agreed to weaken their ability to strip out the unfunding measure. 'I intend to speak until I cannot stand,' he said Tuesday on the Senate floor.

"But it was mostly for show. Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said Cruz's extended Senate floor speech wasn't really a filibuster because the vote to end debate and bring up the House bill would go on as scheduled."

A test vote on the Federal Spending and Health Care Law is scheduled for Wednesday.