DeMint: With Filibuster, Cruz Was Just Going for Normal Order

National Review Online - The Corner ^ | February 16, 2014 11:21 AM | Patrick Brennan

[SoConPubbie]

Heritage Foundation president and former senator Jim DeMint defended Senator Ted Cruz’s brief filibuster this week that forced a 60-vote threshold to raise the debt ceiling, requiring Republican votes to do so.

DeMint argued Cruz was merely holding to normal procedure: ”The normal rule is you take 60 votes to move to a final vote, [which] they call cloture. I think that several members, including Ted Cruz, were simply asking, ‘Let’s keep the normal rules here.’ And that didn’t suit some folks.”

“The reason there’s a 60-vote rule in the Senate, and the reason Republican leadership fought so hard to keep it for nominations, is it requires some bipartisan working-together to pass something,” DeMint said. “The debt limit and just giving the president a blank check is an important vote, and to say we’re going to waive the rules to make it easier — if Ted Cruz hadn’t required standard procedure, there are several others [Republican senators] who would.”

Cruz’s decision to require what DeMint said was normal order angered a number of Republicans, since it meant that a number of Republican senators would then have to vote for ending debate on the debt limit, instead of moving to a simple majority vote where only Democratic senators would need to approve of the measure.

Most Senate motions, however, go to a simple majority vote, without cloture being invoked. For a variety of reasons, cloture is an increasingly common way to end debate. But as long as no senator wants to continue the debate, cloture and its 60-vote threshold aren’t necessary, so Cruz’s measure was not necessarily a maintenance of “normal order.”

[SoConPubbie]

	"If we must have an enemy at the head of Government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace of his foolish and bad measures." - Alexander Hamilton "We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals as our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the Party over to the so-called moderates wouldn’t make any sense at all." -- President Ronald Reagan "A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." - Thomas Paine 1792 "It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

[SoConPubbie]

Ted Cruz Ping!

If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.

Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!

[Graewoulf]

Yup, DeMint is correct.

What we have here is failure to recognize Official Congressional Checks and Balances in “Shutdown” Reid’s US Senate.

[bestintxas]

Cruz did the “normal” thing in making the RINOs vote against all conservatives and with the libs

[COBOL2Java]

The worst thing you can do to a craven politician is expose their mendacity. Cruz did this with his move, and for that he earned their wrath.

[Starstruck]

They throw him under the bus every chance they get. A little payback is a good thing.

[DoodleDawg]

Demint is damning Cruz with faint praise by suggesting he was motivated by wanting to follow “the normal course of events”. Cruz knew what he was doing. His opposition wasmotivated by a lack of cuts to offset the increase, not by any senate tradition. He wanted senators to take a stand on one side or the other...and they did.

[N. Theknow]

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And if you notice...the cockroach is facing to the left.

[TWhiteBear]

Lets keep our eyes on the issues, which are unlimited government spending approval without any spending reform or tax reduction. It is fine to note the courageous position of Sen. Ted Cruz in opposing bad government as far as his methods go, but we, like Sen. Ted Cruz, have to keep focused on better government.
TWB

[NormsRevenge]

The “New Normal” in gubernance.

GoP stfu. Obama is the law.

[xzins]

I don’t believe in any filibuster ever, so it really doesn’t matter.