Posted on 02/13/2014 4:51:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
There’s no man or woman in red-state America these days with more power than Cruz to set a new conservative litmus test. But c’mon: How many of you need to be formally warned at this point by your favorite Republican that the House is looking to sell out border hawks on immigration reform? It’s like blaming Rand Paul for turning libertarians against the NSA. He plays a useful role in bringing attention to the issue, but those people turned on their own initiative ages ago. Same here.
Cruz won’t mind being blamed for this one, though.
House Republicans who supported the “principles” of immigration reform floated by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, late last month grumbled Tuesday that the plan was dead on arrival because Cruz blasted it as “amnesty,” spurring a blizzard of negative phone calls to House Republicans…
Later that day [on January 30th, when the House GOP released its immigration principles], while Boehner was closeted with colleagues miles from the nation’s capital, Cruz used back-to-back television appearances to invoke the politically charged word “amnesty” to characterize the legalization offered by Boehner’s plan.
By the time the GOP caucus broke up and Boehner headed back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 31, the House speaker was backtracking. Republican lawmakers so distrusted President Obama’s readiness to enforce any immigration law that GOP lawmakers would not support immigration reform before the 2014 midterm congressional elections in November, Boehner declared.
Asked about his influential remarks Tuesday, Cruz said the Boehner plan was “inconsistent with the rule of law” and “a political mistake,” adding that he was “glad to see Republicans in the House agreed.”
Would any tea-party Republicans in the House have embraced the leadership’s immigration plan if Cruz had kept quiet? It’s not pressure from big-name conservatives that keeps them in line, it’s the fact that they come from overwhelmingly red districts and know what backing amnesty would mean for their primary chances. The more interesting thought experiment is what would have happened if Cruz had shocked the world and declared that Boehner’s plan sounded promising. That might have shaken loose some conservative votes for amnesty; there’s no sturdier political cover on the right at the moment than being able to say that Ted Cruz supports your position. I wonder if he’s ever tempted to do it, if only to bigfoot rivals like Rubio and Rand Paul by showing them he can bring righties around on an immigration deal to an extent that they can’t. Or maybe he doubts that he even has that much cachet. If Rubio’s tea-party cred could be incinerated in one stroke by trying to lead on this issue, why on earth would Cruz touch it?
His next conservative venture, incidentally, is the State Marriage Defense Act, which he introduced with Mike Lee yesterday. That’s a response both to the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision last year, striking down part of DOMA, and to Holder’s announcement earlier this week that the DOJ will begin acknowledging same-sex marriages as legitimate for federal legal purposes (e.g., invoking the spousal privilege during federal trials) regardless of whether the underlying state law recognizes them or not. Cruz’s and Lee’s bill would force the feds to follow state marriage law as guidance on that. It’s going nowhere in the Senate, needless to say, but it’s a smart bit of politics in both tackling a subject of social conservative concern and proposing a federalist solution to it that centrists can live with.
Go, Cruz, GO!!
Nice work Mr. Cruz. Doing what we sent you there to do. Another contribution is on the way.
Ted CRUZ/Sarah PALIN 2016
“House Republicans who supported the “principles” of immigration reform floated by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, late last month grumbled Tuesday that the plan was dead on arrival...”
Now it’s getting clearer why GOPe are turning on Boehner.
He failed his task.
How difficult is it really to control the borders?
I would prefer to see TED CRUZ become the SENATE MAJORITY LEADER.
JAMES MATTIS/SARAH PALIN 2016.
I wouldn’t mind moving to his district just so I could vote for him...
Good for Cruz. Keep cruzin Cruz.
Thank you Sen. Cruz, keep on truckin’.
The very first vehicle that I see coming north on US Hwy 59 that has Mexican military markings on it will be met with a certain degree of hostility.
RAH!
There is a damned good reason why we TEXANS busted our kiesters to put TED CRUZ into the SENATE.
We will put forth the same effort to remove that Back-Stabbing Quisling, John Wayne McCornyn.
Count on it.
Keep on jerking those quislings panties into a knot, Ted.
We got your back.
If one man can control the House, what does that say about the House?
Sen. Cruz is definitely The Man. He’s playing chess,while his enemies are playing checkers.
Thank God for the wisdom of Texas voters.
I have two primary points that cannot be compromised:
1) secure the border. Any federal official who doesn’t understand the treat posed by borders that are not secure should be removed from office.
2) No matter what we decide about the status of people who came here in violation of the law, stayed in violation of the law and who hold jobs in violation of the law, we must NEVER give them the right to vote.
Senator Cruz,
May Peety King eat a bad cannoli and then choke. And in doing so, P!$$Off the Eyetalian baker what made it and render unto him great offense, that he might call his cousins Vinny and Guido to go see why Peety didn’t like his cannoli.
Senator Cruz, God Bless and God Speed.
Yoo Da Man!
BTW, Senator Cruz, getcherself one of those mirrors on a telescoping rod, and have a go looking under your car every morning.
Better yet, get the local demoKaRATZ committee man to start your car for you.
We’re talking RATZ here, anything is possible.
My wife and I proudly display Cruz 2016 bumper stickers. Every patriot should have one. Bob
Wish Cruz the best. But unless all Conservatives coalesce behind ONE conservative candidate and support him or her through thick and thin, the RINOs will nominate “Jeb” Bush in a replay of 2012. And then, if by some miracle, he WINS, we will have four years of slower progressive instead of a repeal of statist left-wing programs.
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