“We are looking for solutions,” said Young, who until recently was the president of the Senate’s Republican campaign arm and is eager to return to politics.
Mr. Schatz, who is a friend of some of these senators, emphasized their motivation: “If I am going to suffer during the Trump era, then I can enact some laws.”
In Louisiana, however, the fully trumpeted Republican Party expects only continued allegiance to the former president.
Cassidy faced immediate criticism for her vote and comments on Tuesday.
“I got a lot of calls this afternoon from Republicans in Louisiana who think @SenBillCassidy did a ‘terrible job’ today,” Blake Miguez, the Republican leader of the State Chamber, wrote on Twitter, reusing Cassidy’s criticism of Trump’s lawyers. “I understand their frustrations and join them in their disappointment.”
Even a member of the Louisiana Congressional delegation, Representative Mike Johnson, gave his opinion. “A lot of people back home are calling me about it now,” noted Johnson, a Republican, who said he was “surprised” by Mr. Cassidy’s move.
Maybe he shouldn’t.
As Stephanie Grace, a longtime political columnist for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, wrote in a December article anticipating Cassidy’s move, he “has long been part of bipartisan efforts to solve problems, even though his solutions are likely to go a long way. too much for some Republicans and fall far short of what many Democrats want. ”
Cassidy, a former Democrat like Kennedy and many southern Republicans his age, has long been less than dogmatic about health, a point of view he formed while working at his state’s charity hospitals. This has always been more than ironic for Louisiana politicians, since in 2014 he ousted Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, thanks to conservative attacks on former President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act. (On Wednesday, Mrs. Landrieu said of Mr. Cassidy: “Many people in Louisiana are proud of him, including me.”)