Senate Republicans uphold symbolic ban on earmarks

The Senate GOP caucus upheld its ban on earmarks by avoiding a divisive vote on the matter Wednesday afternoon. 

"I think it was clear," Cruz said. "By the time we went in the room that the votes weren't there that a significant majority of the conference I would probably hazard a guess, two-thirds of the Republicans in the Senate conference, wanted to maintain the rule of a ban on earmarks and so we did."    The caucus, at a regularly scheduled meeting, both reaffirmed its existing ban on the practice and also supported the idea of banning raising the debt ceiling without proposing spending cuts elsewhere, a change in conference rules proposed by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla.