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Showing posts with label Filibuster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Filibuster. Show all posts
Monday, September 30, 2013
10 Pro Tips For A Fantastic Filibuster
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Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Ted Cruz Privately Approached Harry Reid To Ask For Time To "Filibuster"
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), denounces Obamacare as he speaks on the Senate floor. Handout / ReutersWASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz has known since Monday exactly how long he’d be allowed to speak, and that no matter how long he talked, he wouldn’t be able to prevent a vote he had hoped to stop.
That’s because, according to a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, Cruz approached Reid privately on the floor requesting the time to talk. And when no other Senator objected, Reid allowed it.
The spokesman, Adam Jentleson, blasted Cruz on Twitter Tuesday afternoon:
The Texas Republican has been speaking on the Senate floor since early Tuesday, to protest Obamacare and a looming vote on a short-term budget resolution that Cruz has pushed his colleagues to oppose.Because Reid had already filed what’s known as “cloture” on the continuing resolution — effectively a countdown clock to a vote that would end debate on the bill — the vote will happen and Cruz will need to stop talking by Wednesday afternoon.
“By that time there was nothing Senator Cruz could do to delay the Wednesday cloture vote, so Senator Reid did not object,” Jentleson said in an email.
A spokesman for Cruz responded to the report, telling BuzzFeed, “That’s correct.”
Reid mentioned their conversation on the floor Monday:
“People can talk all they want. There’s no way that we can be prevented from having that vote. We’ll have conversation, but it’s not — there won’t be any filibusters. Because this is under the rules of the time for talking but it doesn’t delay anything,” Reid said. As I indicated today earlier with a conversation I had with a Republican senator, just follow the rules. Whatever the rules are we’ll follow them and do the best we can to make sure we’re as fair to everyone as possible.”
How Ted Cruz's Anti-Obamacare Filibuster Could Cost Him Millions
WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s quixotic campaign to defund Obamacare — currently culminating in an hours-long quasi-filibuster on the Senate floor — has caused conservative activists across the country to swoon.
But one key contingent of the Republican Party is decidedly unimpressed with the gambit: big-ticket donors.
According to several Republican sources, most of whom declined to disparage a rising star on the record, the party’s donor class is rolling its eyes at Cruz’s last-minute, long-shot attempt to keep the controversial health care law from fully going into effect — dismissing it as unintelligible parliamentary trickery at best, and counterproductive self-promotion at worst.
Cruz, who most Republicans believe is positioning himself for a 2016 presidential run, will need the support of at least a portion of the party’s moneyed donors to stay competitive in a primary. But skeptics say he’s running the risk of being seen as unserious by the same people he will need to write him checks in a couple of years.
“Sure, he’s revving up the base, but so did Michele Bachmann and Pat Buchanan,” said one longtime Republican strategist who has worked on multiple state and national campaigns. “If you’re serious about running for president… you need the serious money, more than the direct mail crowd and the small money donors.”
“That,” the Republican said, “is the difference between winning the Iowa Caucus and winning in a serious state like Florida.”
Like most Americans, Republican donors generally oppose Obamacare — but many disagree with the tactics Cruz has employed to block it. The Texas senator has pursued a strategy that could force a government shutdown unless funding for the law is revoked.
“People see it as an inside-the-beltway play, and I think donors see it the same way,” said one operative with ties to major GOP fundraisers. He noted that while activists may take visceral satisfaction in Cruz’s campaign, many donors are more results-oriented — and they’re savvy enough to know that none of his maneuvering will actually stop the law from being implemented.
But Cruz has never shown much interest in, or capacity for courting his party’s elite. He was elected in Texas by taking on the favored candidate of the establishment and running to his right as a champion of the common conservative voter. And at a Republican National Committee fundraiser this week in Manhattan, Cruz was one of the only prospective 2016 candidates who didn’t show his face.
As of June 30, Cruz’s PAC, the Jobs, Growth & Freedom Fund, raised just $313,323 with $183,537 cash on hand, according to OpenSecrets.org. That’s a far cry from the $1.8 million Rubio’s PAC has raised, and the $929,904 Rand Paul’s PAC has taken in.
Cruz’s war chest is likely to grow some following his headline-grabbing filibuster. Jackie Bodnar, spokesperson for the Tea Party activist powerhouse FreedomWorks, said of Cruz’s crusade, “It’s giving me 2010 flashbacks. Republicans especially should know, with all eyes on the Senate, grassroots America is watching them.”
But several Republicans expressed doubt that the activist support Cruz is receiving will ultimately make up for the credibility he’s losing among the big-money crowd.
“When the Wall Street Journal starts to belittle you… that’s what these people read every day,” said one senior GOP aide.
A spokesman for Cruz declined to comment.
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