The Tea Party-aligned senator Mike Lee has defended a controversial decision to force Republican leaders into an embarrassing vote on the debt limit – a vote that provided ammunition to conservative primary challengers.



Rightwing challengers to Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn, the two most senior Republicans in the Senate, on Thursday pounced on the fact that the duo aided the passage of legislation to increase the Treasury’s borrowing capacity.

But the action by McConnell and Cornyn was only required because of a procedural motion insisted upon by the Texas senator Ted Cruz. Without the Cruz manoeuvre, the debt limit bill could have passed with only Democrat votes.

Lee told the Guardian that he backed the move by Cruz, even though it forced McConnell and Cornyn into politically embarrassing votes. Lee insisted that procedural differences in the GOP are “nothing new”.

The bill had already passed the Republican-controlled House on Tuesday, after what amounted to a capitulation by Republicans to the White House, which had refused to negotiate over a bill that needed to be passed to avoid a potentially calamitous default on US debt.

Republican leaders such as McConnell and Cornyn wanted to give consent for the final Senate vote to be held swiftly, allowing Democrats to pass the bill and minimising further embarrassment to the party. But that course of action was impeded when the staunchly conservative Cruz threatened to use a filibuster to prevent the legislation from progressing.

In doing so, Cruz effectively insisted upon a procedural motion known as “cloture”, which expedites a bill – but only when there is the support of 60 senators.

For a dramatic 35 minutes on Wednesday, it seemed the vote for cloture, which required Republican support to meet the 60-vote threshold, might not pass. Top GOP senators were then forced to grit their teeth and vote for cloture, a move several knew would be used against them in forthcoming primary challenges.



The final vote to increase the debt limit was then passed by the Democrat-controlled Senate 55-43, straight down party lines.

In an interview with the Guardian on Thursday, Lee intimated he might also have blocked passage of the debt bill, saying he was unwilling to give his consent to allow Democrats to quickly usher it through. “I was not going to vote for cloture,” he said. “Because I was not willing to vote for cloture, I was not willing to give unanimous consent to avoid a cloture – because I tend to see those as the same thing.”

He added: “There are differences within the Republican party. Differences of opinion over what approach procedurally to take in connection with a particular vote, and there are also some policy differences. But that is nothing new.”

Although a Tea Party-backed figure often characterised as a sidekick to Cruz, Lee is a more nuanced, constructive force in the Senate. Lee has spent recent months embracing policies to address poverty, including some, such as a renewed emphasis on rehabilitation in the prison system, that have drawn alliances with Democrats.

The Utah senator, who along with Cruz helped orchestrate October’s 16-day government shutdown, which was bound up with another confrontation over the debt limit, said a conservative reform agenda, focused on middle- and low-income Americans, could bridge what he accepted was a “divide” in the party.

“There is a natural tension that tends to exist between a party’s base and its elected political leaders,” Lee said. “That tension has created what some have described as a hole within the Republican party.”



However, the internecine warfare engulfing the party was immediately laid bare on Thursday, when Republicans rightwingers seeking to unseat McConnell, the minority leader, and Cornyn, his chief whip, seized on their votes the previous night.

“This latest debt ceiling increase, passed with no spending concessions, is financially reckless,” said Matt Bevin, who had launched a challenge against McConnell for the Republican nomination in Kentucky. “As Kentucky’s US senator, I would vote against cloture on this bill and I would actively voice my opposition to this bill itself. True leadership is demanded at a time like this.”

A mock-up check, published by Bevin under the Twitter hashtag #MitchsBlankCheck, taunted the GOP leader and was made payable to Obama for “special interests and pet projects”.

McConnell holds a comfortable lead over Bevin, but there is concern that a bruising primary encounter with a Tea Party opponent will make the Senate minority leader more vulnerable. A recent poll found McConnell is effectively neck-and-neck with his Democratic primary challenger, Kentucky secretary of state Alison Lundergan Grimes.

But GOP leaders believe special interest groups on the right are to blame for splitting the party over the issue and are planning a concerted fightback against several conservative campaign groups backing primary challengers, according to party officials speaking privately last week.

Heritage Action, the leading advocacy group targeting the leadership, urged senators to block the debt extension and threatened that it would negatively score any Republicans supporting its passage. “Remember all those debt limit fights? Well, apparently Congress got tired of fighting. So now they’re working toward doing away with the debt limit altogether,” wrote Amy Payne on a Heritage blog on Thursday.

In recent years, conservatives fought to get at least some spending cuts, to begin putting the budget on a path to balance,” she added. “But not this year. No one put up a fight this time.”

However, the decision to force a procedural vote on Wednesday harmed several leading Republicans, including Cornyn, who faces a tough primary challenge in Texas.

Tea Party favourite Steve Stockman said he had been “swamped in messages from folks saying they’re no longer supporting Cornyn” after the cloture vote. “John Cornyn switched his vote to oppose you,” wrote Stockman in another tweet reminding supporters that early primary voting started from next week. “Why not switch yours to oppose him?”