Sen. Ted Cruz began a talk-a-thon on the Senate Tuesday afternoon and vowed to keep speaking “until I am no longer able to stand” as he tries to halt President Obama’s health care law. “I rise today to speak for 26 million Texans and 300 million Americans,” Mr. Cruz began.
He took to the floor armed with a big black binder, thick with papers, presumably to read as he talks.
He began at 2:41, and can talk up until noon tomorrow, when under the Senate rules he would have to stop and the Senate would proceed to vote on ending debate and bringing the spending bill to the floor.
The bill right now includes provisions to defund Obamacare, which Mr. Cruz supports, but under the rules Democrats can strip those provisions out with a majority vote. So Mr. Cruz is trying to block the entire bill — including the parts he supports — in protest.
Earlier in the day Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that what Mr. Cruz was doing should not be considered a filibuster, since he cannot actually change the floor schedule that was already locked in on Monday, and that forces the chamber to vote by Wednesday afternoon.
“I want to disabuse everyone. There will be no filibuster today,” Mr. Reid said as he opened the Senate floor action for the day.
Usually Mr. Reid is eager to accuse Republicans of filibusters, arguing that the GOP is using a gridlock tactic to block popular legislation. But in this case Mr. Cruz is feeding off of conservatives’ support, and Mr. Reid appears to want to try to burst their that support.