Toomey sides with Cruz on crucial vote

Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey was the only senator serving the Philadelphia region to vote against the measure to end the shutdown, joining 17 other Republicans, including Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Toomey said he voted "no" because the bill failed to address government spending and the debt.

"The one major redeeming aspect of this bill is that it reopens the government," Toomey said in a statement. "But I cannot support piling hundreds of billions of dollars of debt on current and future generations of Americans without even a sliver of reform to start putting our fiscal house in order."

Toomey's vote produced an immediate reaction from Pennsylvania's Democrats, who proclaimed that he had joined the "extreme tea party" wing of the Republican Party.

"His vote tonight not only would extend the shutdown, but force the US economy into default and careen global financial markets into crisis," the state Democratic Party said in a news release. "This is just another continuation of Toomey's long streak of obstructionism that's way too extreme for Pennsylvania."

U.S. Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., a Democrat, supported the measure; as did both of New Jersey's senators, Republican Jeffrey S. Chiesa and Democrat Robert Menendez.

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