Senate rules

Yesterday the multi-billion program to keep the border wide open went down in flames in the Senate, for a surprising reason.  Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) first tried to crack open Harry Reid's no-amendment gambit to permit the Cruz amendment, which would have prohibited the President from carrying out his promise/threat to grant amnesty to 6 million or so illegal immigrants by executive order.  That vote failed, 43 yea/52 nay.  But Sessions wasn't done:  he raised a point of order that the expensive program violated the pay-as-you-go rules, because its cost was balanced by neither spending cuts nor tax increases.  The vote to waive Sessions' point of order, which would have required a 60-vote majority to succeed, received only a 50 yea/44 nay vote.