The Senate voted 100-0 to take up the House-passed continuing resolution Wednesday, while Sen. Ted Cruz indicated a willingness to accelerate the timetable for the more important vote to cut off debate on the bill. The Texas Republican has long said that the real test will come on the vote to limit debate on the underlying bill, after which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could get the simple majority vote to strike defunding of the health care law. If all the debate time is used, that would come on Saturday, although Cruz seems to be expressing a new willingness to truncate the debate time. At the end of his marathon floor talk Wednesday, he floated a series of consent agreements that could shorten the dayslong timeline for final Senate approval of a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown next week. Though it is unclear whether leaders will accept Cruz's offers, the fact that Cruz moved at all from his original position that the Senate should take up full debate time to Sunday could mark progress toward avoiding a shutdown. Many, including most Senate Republicans, view government shutdown as an unavoidable outcome unless the GOP cedes debate time. On Wednesday morning, Cruz offered to open debate on the House-approved continuing resolution by unanimous consent as long as the majority agreed to hold the vote to cut off debate on Friday, so more people might pay attention to it. (more…)
