The Republican Party is in crisis mode.

On Friday, the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would effectively shut down many parts of the federal government unless Democrats in the Senate vote to defund the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

The bill is a stopgap spending measure, which, if un-passed, would leave the federal government unfunded. Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) attached a provision to the bill that prohibits the government from providing funding for Obamacare.

This is now the 42nd time the House has voted to gut President Barack Obama’s most significant domestic accomplishment — a coincidence lost on no one.

In recent years, the Republican Party has been sliding further to the right on the political spectrum. This has caused the legislative branch to become a dysfunctional “mess,” as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said last Friday.

The bill that was passed by Republicans in the House only perpetuates the problem.

Internal conflicts within the party include rising tension and alienating some Republicans. Coupled with a change in the party’s social policy stance — inevitable when Republicans from our generation begin to fill congressional seats — this might signal the beginning of the end for Bush-era Republicanism.

Attaching the defunding provision to such an important bill is a coercive ploy by Cruz and Lee. The Democratic majority in the Senate, coupled with a Democratic White House, would never vote to approve this bill. Republican leaders in the Senate, however, are well aware of this.

On Monday, news emerged that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn would not support the Cruz-Lee defunding plan. McConnell and Cornyn face a conundrum.

As Byron York outlined in The Washington Examiner, Senate rules require a 60-vote margin to begin debate and then limit debate on the continuing resolution — the defunding part of the bill.

If Republicans muster up enough votes to do that, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could propose an amendment to the bill striking the defunding provision. Such a proposal would only require a simple majority, which is also all that’s required to pass the resolution.

Therefore, even if Republicans were able to get the amended bill into Senate debate, it would be simple for Democrats to gut the defunding provision, pass the resolution and send it back to the House while Senate Republicans watched helplessly.

But more importantly than this, attaching the bill to a continuing resolution, which, if un-passed, would shut down our federal government, looks like an asinine power play by desperate and uncompromising Republican leadership — and it is.

From Tuesday to Wednesday, Cruz spoke for more than 20 hours straight on the Senate floor. During his faux filibuster — aptly named because, by Senate rules, he wasn’t actually prolonging any vote — Cruz read “Green Eggs and Ham,” quoted “Duck Dynasty” and “Star Wars,” and told the Senate how much he enjoyed White Castle hamburgers.

With midterm elections approaching and Obama’s low approval ratings coming off his bumbling of the Syria crisis, congressional Republicans could have made a move to gain leverage on Democrats and increase the party’s popularity with voters.

They failed to take advantage of the situation and made a mockery of our legislative process.

Congressional Republican leadership has to unite behind a compromise not just for the sake of the party, but for the United States in general.

Michael Hacker is a senior political science major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at mahacker@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @mikeincuse.

Published on September 26, 2013 at 2:28 am