First off, the coming story from Senator Cornyn will be that he did, in fact, vote to defund the ACA. So, technically, he did. However, a full understanding of the Senate process is needed to understand how this vote alone did nothing to keep the language in the CR of defunding. By now, all have heard of the famous cloture vote. This was a simple vote to close debate on the CR. So, you have some republicans claiming that they shouldn't slow the vote down in order to return it to the House quickly to avoid a government shutdown. This is where the divide on the cloture comes in. The faster we close debate, the faster we vote, the faster it gets back to the House. However, lest we forget the card up Senator Reid's sleeve. Everyone knew full well that once cloture was closed, the Senator would allow only one amendment to the bill and it would be his. His would be to strip the defunding language from the bill. And, the numbers, we can't forget the numbers can we? To stop cloture 60 votes were needed. 60, is a pretty achievable number had the GOP stuck together. Now, to strip the language and pass the bill, only 51 votes were needed. With the Senate divided, republicans had NO chance this route. It was clearly going to be a party line vote.
One must understand government shutdown looms with either route. Now, the bill goes back to the House. Should the House stand their ground and craft something to still defund, then it goes back to the Senate for all this mess again. Not to mention, anything presented to President with funding striped will be vetoed and doesn't have the votes to be overridden.
So, what are we left with? It's all about principles. It was Senator Cornyn's duty as a supposed Conservative to NOT vote yes on cloture and allow the bill to be striped. Sure, he can claim he voted against once it was stripped, but it took no physic to predict the outcome. In the end, he hoped the Senate trickery in its procedures would mask his true voting activity. We have Mr. Cruz to thank for publicly explaining the entire process in his 21 hour Senate speech.
Cornyn and other GOP members claiming they wanted to have no part in shutting down government have done nothing to diminish that. The House will likely still include defunding language and in the end still have a standoff. What these elder Senators don't realize, they have the people on their side this shutdown. Others, like Senator Cruz, know this. It will be made crystal clear that republicans funded the government and the Democrats or Obama shut it down over defunding language. Defunding of a law that a majority of American's do not support. Also, we must not forget Senator Reid not allowing any amendments to the bill but his own. Had amendments been able to be added and or discussed, we could have had a different outcome.
Senator Cornyn today let down the majority of Texans. And, Texans don't forget easily. Mr. Cornyn is currently up for re-election. He does have an opponent. We suppose the closing question should be: Will your dissatisfaction show through the upcoming primary?