Cruz to Senate GOP: 'A Vote for Cloture Is a Vote for Obamacare'

On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will want to use “brute political force” to insert Obamacare funding into the House bill next week with a 51-vote threshold and any Republican who supports a cloture vote for that will be supporting Obamacare.

Cruz said that “no pundit in Washington thought it was possible” until last week that the House would pass a bill to defund Obamacare, and that is why Republicans need to unite to support the House bill and ensure Reid does not insert an amendment to add Obamacare funding to the continuing resolution that the House passed last Friday. That resolution funds the government except for Obamacare, which Senators like Cruz and Mike Lee (R-UT) had been insisting for months, even as establishment Republicans resisted and demeaned their efforts. Congress and President Barack Obama must agree to a resolution to fund the government before October 1 to prevent a shutdown. 

Cruz said Reid wants to use “brute political power to force Obamacare funding through with just Democrats” like he passed Obamacare three  years ago. 

“If the majority is going to run the minority over with a train, the minority has the ability to stop them,” Cruz said. “A vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare.” 

Cruz insisted that since it takes 60 votes to get cloture to stop Reid from inserting an amendment to fund Obamacare, Republicans can unite to deny “cloture when the Majority Leader is abusing power.” That, Cruz said, would be supporting House Republicans and the House bill because a cloture vote would allow Reid to ultimately change the House’s bill by adding Obamacare funding to it.

Cruz said if Reid wants to ignore the House’s bill and the “will of the people,” then it should be an “easy decision for Senate Republicans to stand united and to support House Republicans.”

Cruz also said if Reid succeeds in adding Obamacare funding because other Senate Republicans vote for cloture, the House has to again lead and stay strong to defund Obamacare since the House is the only body where Republicans have a majority. If that happens, Cruz said Senate Democrats in red states–like Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AK) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA)–can then be targeted to defund the bill that is harming Americans, especially working class Americans who are losing health insurance and seeing their premiums rise. 

If there is still a stalemate, Cruz said the House should pass separate continuing resolutions to fund parts of the government–like the military–and it would then be “perilous” for Reid to shut down the military to deny the American people the Obamacare exemptions special interests and Congress have received. 

“We should stand our ground,” Cruz said, noting that Reid would ultimately be responsible for shutting down the government in such a scenario. Cruz also mentioned that Reid should listen to the American people that do not like Obamacare, which he said is such a bad law that unions and even Senate Democrats want out of it.