WASHINGTON -- Most Senate Republicans joined with the chamber's Democratic majority Friday to overcome a filibuster on a bill to keep the government running past Monday, turning back a persistent stand by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to use the vote to kill President Obama's healthcare law.
The Senate is now expected to pass a Democratic amendment to strip a provision in the bill that cuts money for the Affordable Care Act. A simple majority is all that's required for that vote.
A final vote will return the bill to the House, putting pressure on the Republican-controlled chamber to act with just three days left to avoid a government shutdown before the end of the federal fiscal year.
If Congress fails to settle on a plan to keep the government funded by midnight Monday, the federal government will see its first shutdown in nearly two decades.
Republicans who lined up against Cruz's strategy explained that they were simply voting to move forward on a budget measure they supported. "I don't understand how I can otherwise vote on a matter that I want to see passed," said Sen. John Cornyn, the chamber's No. 2 Republican and Cruz's Texas colleague.
"There are some people across America that are so upset with Obamacare -- and I understand their frustration -- that say we ought to shut down the federal government," Cornyn said. "It won't work."
Furthermore, those Republicans also said acting quickly to return the bill to the House served the cause of undermining the law, commonly called Obamacare, because the GOP majority there would have time to attach alternative amendments that might have a greater chance of being passed in the Senate.
House Republicans have considered amendments to eliminate the law's new tax on medical devices or to postpone its requirement that Americans have health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine.
In a final floor speech before the vote, Cruz all but conceded defeat, acknowledging "Republican division on this issue." But the fight wasn't over, he said.
"I very much hope the next time this issue's before this body in a few days, that all 46 Republicans are united against Obamacare and standing with the American people, that we listen to the American people the way Senate Democrats are not," he said.
Cruz, in a more than 21-hour filibuster-like speech, interviews and more floor speeches, had insisted that the vote to move ahead on the bill was tantamount to a vote to sustain Obama's landmark healthcare law. If Republicans were united, he argued, the onus would be on Democrats to choose between the unpopular law and a government shutdown.
In an email sent Friday to supporters, Obama said the economy was being put at risk by "a group of far-right Republicans in Congress."
"They refuse to pass a budget unless I let them sabotage Obamacare, something they know is not going to happen. Now, we're left with only four days before a government shutdown," he wrote. "This is reckless and irresponsible. Republicans are not focused on what's best for you. They're playing political games."
The GOP's divisions over Cruz's strategy have largely played out behind closed doors, but they spilled into the open Thursday during a rare intraparty debate on the Senate floor. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Cruz and his conservative ally, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, were more interested in generating publicity for themselves than supporting an effort to quickly send the bill back to the House.
On Friday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the battle is "very dysfunctional."
"We are dividing the Republican Party," he said in an interview on CBS' "This Morning." "Rather than attacking Democrats and maybe trying to persuade those five or six Democrats who are in states that are leaning Republican, we are now launching attacks against Republicans funded by commercials that Senator Lee and Senator Cruz appear in."
House GOP leaders have not yet indicated how they will respond to the Senate action. On Thursday, they presented to their colleagues a plan for the next fiscal battle -- over whether to raise the nation's debt limit -- but by day's end, it appeared short of the support it would need to pass in the chamber.
Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebookmichael.memoli@latimes.com
Twitter: @MikeMemoli
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