In seven days, most of the federal government will be shuttered unless Congress can break its impasse on how to fund it. Before the crisis climaxes at midnight Sept. 30, lawmakers will slog through a mix of arcane procedural maneuvers and political theater. Here is the sequence of steps Washington will take this week in the run-up to the potential shutdown: 1. Senate majority leader Harry Reid sets up a vote to fund the government while removing the House-passed provision that would defund President Obama’s health care law. The first step toward a resolution of the crisis is clear: early this week, Reid will file a procedural motion to open debate on the three-month funding measure passed on Sept. 20 by the Republican-controlled House. Shortly after, Reid will file for cloture to end debate on the measure. Cloture requires a 30-hour waiting period, then as many as 30 hours of debate. At the end of that debate, Reid needs 60 votes to move forward, a threshold he should reach because many Republican Senators are disinclined to filibuster a bill they support. After cloture, but before final passage, Reid will move to amend the House-passed funding bill to strip out the language defunding Obamacare — a move that would only require a simple majority. 2. Enter Ted Cruz. For months, the Texas Senator has called for a stopgap budget bill that defunds Obamacare. Now that the House has passed one, Cruz intends to block the bill, potentially forcing a government shutdown in the process. “A vote for cloture is a vote for Obamacare,” Cruz said on Fox News Sunday. A move to filibuster the very bill he has long sought would encapsulate the absurdity of Congress, but Cruz has only himself to blame. He spent months hectoring his House colleagues to pass the doomed funding measure. When they complied last week, they did so in part to force Cruz to live up to his more-conservative-than-thou talk. But Reid’s ability to harness Senate rules means Cruz has no hope to actually prevent Senate Democrats from