Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) joined an extended GOP floor debate as the Senate prepared to consider the first appropriations bill of the year -- even though the Democrat-led has shirked its legal duty to pass a budget for more than 800 straight days.
Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions raised a point of order [303 (c)] which initiated the debate and a vote on whether to uphold or override the legal requirement from the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.
In a landmark vote, Sessions' point of order was supported by 40 Republican Senators to prevent consideration of the appropriations measure (4 GOP Senators were not present to vote), which is particularly noteworthy given that the underlying bill had broad bipartisan support. Under current law, Sessions' point of order requires a majority of Senators to be sustained, so it fell short, however Sessions is pushing forward a measure to raise the threshold to 60 votes in order to violate the Budget Act requirement.
