GOP senators force day of procedural votes

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are forcing the Senate to take dozens of procedural votes in order to consider 20 nominations.

The Republican senators do oppose the executive and judicial nominations, but the obstruction is also linked to a fight over the government funding bill, known as the “cromnibus.”

{mosads}“It’s clear that this impasse we’re having here today is not about nominees. It’s about preventing us from funding the government,” Reid said on the Senate floor Saturday.

The Senate is considering the $1.1 trillion bill that would fund most of the government through September.

House Republicans refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security beyond February as protest to President Obama’s executive order on immigration, but Lee and Cruz say that doesn’t go far enough.

They want an amendment vote to prevent any federal funding going toward Obama’s immigration orders. But House members left town after passing the cromnibus Thursday night, meaning the Senate has to pass the bill as is to prevent a government shutdown Saturday night.

“On the eve of our government running out of funding, Senate Republicans are forcing completely unnecessary votes just to waste time and slow us down from funding the government,” Reid said.

Reid filed cloture on the long-term funding bill, setting up a procedural vote for 1 a.m. Sunday and final passage at 7 a.m. on Monday. If Cruz and Lee dropped their objection, those votes could be held sooner.

Reid has said he wants to clear 20 nominations before the Senate adjourns for the year and that if Lee and Cruz were going to force the Senate to be in session on Saturday he might as well get the ball rolling on the nominations.

“Now we wait,” Reid said. “But while we wait we shouldn’t waste time.”

Reid wants to clear at least 12 judicial nominations and three controversial executive nominees — Vivek Murthy to be the U.S. surgeon general, Sarah Saldaña to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement at DHS, and Carolyn Colvin to lead the Social Security Administration.

The procedural votes the Senate is taking on Saturday are the equivalent of changing the television channel. Reid needs a majority of senators present to approve going back and forth between legislative and executive session while he files cloture on the nominations.

The votes are breaking along party lines largely because Republicans oppose consideration of the nominees.