Cruz needs 40 additional Republicans to stand with him to oppose cloture on the bill. Cruz's block-the-vote strategy

Only amid the chaos of a looming government shutdown could it make sense for lawmakers to oppose a bill they support.

But that’s exactly what Sen. Ted Cruz and his conservative allies are trying to persuade Republicans to do in the Senate.


The Texas senator is asking Republicans to stand united to block a procedural vote next week on the House’s spending bill that defunds Obamacare. Cruz and others are wary of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s ability to strip out the Obamacare language by a majority vote if the continuing resolution advances past a pair of 60-vote threshold procedural votes.

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“I hope that every Senate Republican will stand together and oppose cloture on the bill in order to keep the House bill intact and not let Harry Reid add Obamacare funding back in,” Cruz said in a statement on Friday. Later, on Fox News he doubled down, warning that “Harry Reid is going to try and play procedural games.”

The freshman senator has emerged as perhaps the loudest voice in the Republican Party in recent weeks, steering the House toward passing a spending bill that defunds Obamacare. Reid said on Thursday that the House bill is “dead” in the Senate, stoking fears of an Oct. 1 government shutdown that many senior Republicans believe could blow up in the party’s face.

Cruz needs 40 additional Republicans — out of 46 Republicans in the upper chamber — to stand with him. He already has a handful on his side, like Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, but on Thursday several senior Republicans made it clear they’ll reject Cruz’s requests and won’t oppose procedural votes on a bill they support.

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“I’d vote to end debate on it, because I like the policy,” said Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. “The notion of encouraging Republican senators to vote against a bill they support doesn’t seem like a very sensible strategy to me.”

“If you’re for eliminating Obamacare, you’re going to vote to proceed and invoke cloture. And then Harry will clean the bill out,” said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said he “absolutely” believes most Senate Republicans will keep the bill moving procedurally as long as it contains the defund provision.

“Most will support cloture,” Burr said.

A Lee aide said that if 41 Republicans don’t back Cruz’s strategy to stymie Democrat leadership then “the American people would rightly view that as a reversal of the Republican position.”

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On Fox News Friday, Cruz said that “peoples’ positions have been moving.”

“If Republicans stick together, Harry Reid might choose to kill the CR and threaten a government shutdown,” Cruz said.

In that case Cruz said the House should proceed with “limited CRs” to fund individual pieces of government like the military rather than face a shutdown. But it’s safe to say House Republicans have had their fill of advice from the Senate GOP at this point.

“I’m going to try not to do to them what they do to us. Which is tell us what to do,” said Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of House leadership.

Rachel Van Dongen contributed to this report.