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What Would Ted Cruz’s GOP Senate Do?
National Review ^ | 11/4/2014 | Joel Gehrke

Posted on 11/04/2014 7:45:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind

‘Utter foolishness”: That’s what Ted Cruz has to say about the agenda Republican leadership is looking to pass in this next meeting of Congress, the lame-duck session. The Texas senator was in Alaska this weekend campaigning for Republican Senate nominee Dan Sullivan, but much of his fire, as always, is being reserved for Republicans themselves.

He doesn’t like the idea of passing anything in the lame duck, and he doesn’t like what leadership has planned for that session or a GOP-controlled House and Senate.

“I think it makes zero sense for Congress to do anything of significance in a lame duck with a bunch of members of Congress who will have just been voted out of office,” Cruz says, before going on to hit the agenda that party leaders have outlined for the next Congress, too.

“If we have a majority and get together and name a bunch of post offices, that will only demoralize the American people,” Cruz says. Republican leaders have bigger plans than naming resolutions, but they have tried to temper conservative expectations for the next Congress.

“We are going to have to convince people that we are not going to be perfect, but let’s at least move the ball down the field and try to do things many of us have wanted to do for a long time,” South Dakota’s John Thune, a member of Senate leadership, told the New York Times. And House majority leader Kevin McCarthy has emphasized the need for Republicans to “prove we could govern,” a line that is becoming something of a refrain from GOP leadership in both chambers.

That’s exactly the wrong way for Republicans to go about leading Congress, Cruz believes. “We saw small-bore leadership in the mid 2000s with Republican leadership and it’s what ushered in the Obama presidency,” he says.

Now, Cruz says, “We need to stand for principle,” emphasizing that Republicans shouldn’t limit themselves to passing bills that Obama will agree to sign into law. (One assumes, of course, that some number of leadership’s proposals would be vetoed by the president, too.)

The lame-duck session, which takes place after the November elections but before new lawmakers take the oath of office in January, presents the first test for Republicans. Cruz panned McCarthy’s plan to pass a long-term funding measure before a new Congress is sworn in. It would give outgoing Senate majority leader Harry Reid a “final hurrah” before Republicans take the reins, he says, something the notoriously combative Cruz is not prepared to do. Instead, Cruz wants to pass a short-term funding measure that would give a Republican Congress some leverage over President Obama — if they’re willing to use the power of the purse to push certain policies.

Cruz also thinks Republicans will hurt themselves with too much legislating during the lame-duck session, when some in the GOP want to collaborate with already-defeated Democrats to pass unpopular policies. One issue, for instance, is a little-noticed policy fight that Cruz believes could hamstring the GOP’s efforts to win over working-class voters: the Internet sales tax.

“That is one of the favorite causes of the corporate lobbyists on K Street, to jack up taxes on millions of mom-and-pop Internet retailers,” Cruz he says. “Now, that helps all the big businesses at the expense of the little guy.”

Cruz’s warnings are part of an effort to rally the conservative grassroots against party leadership, but he also believes that passing conservative legislative priorities will help build a broader political coalition.

Cruz says the alternative to the leadership governing platform isn’t pie-in-the-sky legislating: He just wants Senate Republicans to take up the hundreds of economy-related bills that have already passed the House and died in a Democratic Senate. House speaker John Boehner has made a habit of protesting Reid’s pocket veto of GOP proposals, so it’s possible that the freshman gadfly and Republican leadership could unite behind a number of them.

Some degree of détente could be good for the senator’s presidential prospects. Where Senator Rand Paul started making alliances with the establishment long ago, Cruz embodies the conservative base’s distrust for Republican leadership. Though that sounds like a useful reputation in a Republican primary, you get the sense that Cruz doesn’t quite have the public image he wants.

As he tells it, his fights with leadership have taken place mostly because of his unwillingness to play Washington games.

“What I have tried to do since the day I was elected to the Senate is two things: Do what I said I would do and tell the truth,” he says. “It says something about Washington that those are viewed as such radical courses of action.”

For instance, he refused to grant unanimous consent to a procedural measure that would have allowed Democrats to raise the debt limit in February without any Republican votes, forcing some Republican leaders to vote for the measure — because Cruz was unwilling to support the increase himself.

Cruz has a well known reputation for hectoring Republican leaders, but he wants a political brand that has more general appeal.

He outlined ten priorities for the Republican Congress in a USA Today op-ed earlier this month, which touted several proposals dear to conservative activists — repeal of Obamacare, securing the border, congressional investigations of President Obama’s administration, and undoing Common Core — but didn’t put them at the top of the list. Rather, Cruz wrote: “First, [Republicans should] embrace a big pro-jobs, growth agenda.”

The legislative plan can even feel like an audition for a campaign in a year’s time. “Those who walk the corridors of power in the Obama administration have gotten fat and happy,” he says, adding that Republicans will reap political rewards for enacting conservative policies.

If Cruz loses the coming intra-party debate, he’ll have even more anti-establishment cred come primary season. If he wins, he’ll have something of a legislative record for the primaries and the general. Either way, Cruz’s plan to spar with Republican leadership in 2015 looks to be precisely calculated for 2016.

— Joel Gehrke is a political reporter for National Review Online.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cruz; gop; impeachment; impeachobama; senate; tedcruz

1 posted on 11/04/2014 7:45:12 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind; Kale; Jarhead9297; COUNTrecount; notaliberal; DoughtyOne; RitaOK; MountainDad; ...
Ted Cruz Ping!

If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.

Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!
2 posted on 11/04/2014 7:48:00 AM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency)
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To: SeekAndFind
“We are going to have to convince people that we are not going to be perfect, but let’s at least move the ball down the field and try to do things many of us have wanted to do for a long time,” South Dakota’s John Thune, a member of Senate leadership, told the New York Times.

Awesome, start demoralizing your base and downgrading expectations before the election is even over. Brilliant.

3 posted on 11/04/2014 7:49:05 AM PST by caligatrux (They always said that the living would envy the dead.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Cruz has a well known reputation for hectoring Republican leaders, but he wants a political brand that has more general appeal.

Slugs Cruz, then reads his mind; what a writer!
4 posted on 11/04/2014 7:52:28 AM PST by Resettozero
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To: SeekAndFind

Job one would probably be to get all the bills passed by the House that are being held up by the Dems into a vote in the Senate. That would be a good start.


5 posted on 11/04/2014 7:52:34 AM PST by al_c (Obama's standing in the world has fallen so much that Kenya now claims he was born in America.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Nothing except draw pictures of Obammy in Senate mens room.


6 posted on 11/04/2014 7:52:47 AM PST by Dallas59
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To: SeekAndFind

Dear President Cruz,

Thank You


7 posted on 11/04/2014 7:58:35 AM PST by eyeamok
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To: caligatrux

I agree with Sen. Thune. I do not find his statement demoralizing at all. I

We are not perfect—but there was ever only one Perfect Man—and we nailed Him to a cross.


8 posted on 11/04/2014 8:03:24 AM PST by basil (2ASisters.org)
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To: eyeamok

Ted Cruz for President.


9 posted on 11/04/2014 8:07:12 AM PST by p. henry
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To: SeekAndFind
I wrote this on another thread, I thought the sentiments could be applied here:

The left has been successful at complaining about the "do-nothing" Congress. And yet in the last 4 years our Republicans in the House have passed 500 pieces of legislation that gets to the Senate where Harried Reid looks at them, sniffs and then hunts for a camera to complain about how the Republican House members are sitting on their hands.

With a Republican Senate, that bottleneck of bills will be laid at the door of the White House and if our side is smart we will make Hussein eat every one of them.

Whether or not he signs anything, we will need to scream to high heaven at how out of touch he is, how lame duck he is.

I personally believe that Hussein will not sign Republican bill, even when being forced to like Old Slick. Let the fact that he has a pen and he refuses to use it become his short term legacy.

10 posted on 11/04/2014 8:20:46 AM PST by Slyfox (To put on the mind of George Washington read ALL of Deuteronomy 28, then read his Farewell Address)
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To: caligatrux
Awesome, start demoralizing your base and downgrading expectations before the election is even over. Brilliant.

I'm already demoralized.

The Republicans have made it very clear that they are only too happy to pass the Obama agenda if they win the Senate. So that will just give the Obama administration BI-PARTISAN COVER for the next two years leading up to the 2016 presidential elections.

Moreover, a Republican Senate victory will prove to the big goverment loving RINOcrats that they don't need the conservative base, on whom they have declared outright WAR, so you can forget about them becoming more conservative anytime soon -- not that we have any more time to wait.

You think it's crazy to say that Republicans intend to pass the Democrat agenda? Consider that:

The Republican leadership is lowering expectations about what they'll do if they take the Senate in 2014.

John McCain is already promising to restore the filibuster and promising to expedite approval of Obama's nominees “I will work very hard to go back to 60 votes,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who boldly predicts a Republican Senate would process Obama’s nominees “more rapidly than [Democrats] do today.”

And as for the House: John Boehner: ‘Very Few’ Republicans Will Oppose Me

Oh, and best of all, now Republicans are promising that a Senate takeover will increase the odds of passing immigration reform. Republicans: Immigration reform is more likely to happen if we take the Senate

Well at least the Republicans will repeal Obamacare. Oh wait, they won't.

The only SLIM chance we have to save our country at this point is to demonstrate beyond a doubt that the GOPs "moderate" agenda is doomed to fail at the polls.

Only then will we have a chance of having a true conservative Presidential nominee in 2016, and the utter collapse of Democrat credibility after two more years of their control of the Senate.

It is terrible to consider two more years of Democrat Senate Control, but no less terrible to consider the result of GOPe control.

11 posted on 11/04/2014 8:40:41 AM PST by Maceman
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To: SeekAndFind
"We saw small-bore leadership in the mid 2000s...."

Heh, heh, heh...

12 posted on 11/04/2014 9:03:05 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: SeekAndFind

Same thing the GOP has been doing for the past six years. Kowtowing to hussein.


13 posted on 11/04/2014 9:06:21 AM PST by bgill (CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: caligatrux

Thune has been a great disappointment.


14 posted on 11/04/2014 9:06:57 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: SeekAndFind

Yesterday romney was cheering and saying “now we’ll be able to pass amnesty”. What is their explanation again of how it will benefit our country? It defies reason and common sense. I’m not sure he isn’t trying to surpress the Republican vote and keep democrats in power.


15 posted on 11/04/2014 9:29:58 AM PST by duffee (Dump the Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, joe nosef.)
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To: SeekAndFind

If the GOPe even imagines that Cruz and the conservatives can gain control over the Senate, Jumping Jim Jeffords will not be alone. I imagine they will get Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins and maybe even Mark Kirk to make a fuss about joining the democrats and giving them the balance of power again. Remember, the GOPe RINOs fear/hate conservatives more than they hate democrats.


16 posted on 11/04/2014 9:36:03 AM PST by Waryone
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To: SeekAndFind

Repeal Obamacare!


17 posted on 11/04/2014 10:48:16 AM PST by 2001convSVT (Going Galt as fast as I can.)
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