A vote in favor of cloture was a vote to cut off all debate on the House budget bill that would have defunded Obamacare. The following vote was to pass the bill providing the language to defund Obamacare was stripped from it. Cloture required 60 votes to pass, while passing the bill only require 51 votes. As we know the Democrats hold the majority in the Senate, but without Republican support they would not have the 60 votes needed for cloture.

By voting yes on cloture and no on stripping the language to defund out of the House budget bill, these senators ultimately sided with Harry Reid to provide him the ability to save Obamacare. In the process, they created the opportunity to lie to their constituents by saying that they voted for the bill to defund Obamacare, when in reality in the cloture vote that mattered these senators did the exact opposite. Bear these things in mind when next deciding who to vote for on your ballot.