Marco Rubio Rips Spending Deal But Skips Vote

And Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said in a statement to NBC News that Rubio had little time to review the bill, and is in fact running for president to change the process behind those types of bills.

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio skipped a vote on a year-end budget and tax package today, saying he opposed it but did not have the power to stop it. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, all all voted against the legislation.

The Texas senator has portrayed Rubio’s decision to back the 2013 bill as motivated primarily by winning over top Republican moneymen, and on Friday he mocked that Rubio was enamored by the fame as well.

Three other presidential candidates in the Senate voted against the bill, with Senator Lindsey Graham being the only candidate serving in the Senate to vote in favor, according to The Hill.

“In essence, not voting for it is a vote against it”, Rubio told CBS News in Iowa.

Rubio, R-Fla., was the only 2016 presidential candidate in the Senate to miss the vote, one of the chamber’s last for the year.

Rubio said earlier on Friday that the spending bill showed “what a broken Washington looks like under President (Barack) Obama”.

He had suggested in a Fox News interview Thursday that Republicans should “use procedures to force the slowdown and changes”. The Republican leadership informed senators Wednesday night and again Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was setting a time for the vote, but Rubio did not act.

Rubio also took a swipe at political rivals who called for him to give up his Senate seat because of the missed votes. As of late October he had missed nearly a third of votes this year, and he has only showed up to vote on a handful of days since then.

The Florida senator said he opposed the legislation, but due to Senate rules that required the bill to reach 60 votes, an absent vote was as effective as a vote against.