Speaker John A. Boehner on the 15th day of the 2013 government shutdown. He later lampooned Senator Ted Cruz, who had embraced shutting down the government over Obamacare, as “Lucifer in the flesh.”
Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, has made preserving the legislative filibuster a central tenet of his tenure, although he has weakened it with several maneuvers.