Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT)
Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have faced some anger from other Republicans over their weekend stunt that forced the Senate into a Saturday session to express symbolic opposition to President Obama's immigration moves. Not only did senators have to stick around for the weekend—as just about every article on the subject points out, New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte had plans to see
The Nutcracker with her daughter (seriously, how hard is Ayotte's staff flogging that angle?)—but Cruz and Lee bought time for Majority Leader Harry Reid to move forward more nominations than he might otherwise. Both Cruz and Lee have had their defensive moments over the whole episode, but now Cruz appears to be striking a new tone.
Lee has, so far, stuck to the original script:
“This is an outgoing Democratic Senate majority leader,” Lee told Fox News’s Bill Hemmer during a Monday morning interview. “It would have been political malpractice for him to adjourn for the year without getting these things through. I can guarantee you, Bill, not one person will be confirmed as a result of this that would not otherwise have been confirmed.”
Too bad for him people who aren't being held responsible for that aren't so sure about that. Cruz is taking the same approach on the nominations, but at a Senate Republican lunch not attended by Lee,
he did apologize to his colleagues for other reasons:
According to five senators who attended Tuesday’s caucus lunch, Cruz offered the apology in unsolicited remarks, saying that he regretted if any of his colleagues’ schedules were ruined by his maneuvering. He didn’t say whether he would do something similar again, senators said.
Guys? It's Ted Cruz. He's going to do something similar again.
But this is the Senate. The apology for making people work on the weekend probably is more important than an apology for enabling more confirmation votes.