TPM Reader AF sums it up nicely …
You probably saw Ted Cruz talking to Chris Wallace yesterday. At the end of the segment, he says if his plan A fails in the Senate, he wants the House to pass portions of the budget with an ACA defunding provision to the Senate and then see if the Senate and Obama will reject them.
The first would be a bill funding the military. He says that Reid and Obama will have trouble going against that one in the particular.
Here’s the problem with that: The majority in the Senate won’t vote “no.” They’ll vote “yes” on proceeding to vote. Then they’ll vote “yes” to amend the bill to strip defunding the ACA from it. And then finally they’ll vote “yes” to fund the military or whatever funding the provision concerns.
The only way that won’t happen is if Republicans stay united and filibuster it.
In either case, Obama hasn’t vetoed anything. And it won’t be Senate Democrats who stopped consideration of the funding/defunding, but the Senate Republicans. It’s quite clear Cruz has not thought out his legislative strategy.
Am I missing anything?
In answer to AF, no you’re not really missing anything. Indeed, Sahil Kapur covers this and other points in today’s feature story about Cruz’s on-going efforts to figure out a plan to get out of the current bind.
