As expected, the Senate this afternoon brought an official end to Ted Cruz’s effort to derail passage of a bill aimed at preventing the government from shutting down. The Senate voted 79-19 to invoke cloture, clearing the way for the upper chamber to finish its work stripping out the Obamacare-defunding language in the House’s short-term continuing resolution.
The Senate is expected to hold a final vote on the CR later today, at which point it will head back to the House where Speaker John Boehner and co. have already promised it will be DOA. There has been some recent speculation that the GOP may ultimately cave and simply attach their anti-ACA efforts to the debt-ceiling debate that looms on the horizon, but if they don’t we’re likely looking at a partial shutdown of the federal government on Tuesday. For now, the spotlight shifts from Ted Cruz and his ability to talk at length without a bathroom break to Boehner and House Republicans, who will be holding the hot potato with only four days to go.
