Free Republic

Texas' two Republican Senators disagree on what Republicans should prioritize if the party regains control of Congress. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is considering a 2016 presidential run and is seen as the conservative voice in Congress, wants Republicans to try to repeal Obamacare and stop President Barack Obama's executive grants of amnesty. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who may become Majority Whip if the GOP wins a net of six Senate seats this year, believes Republicans will only win the White House in 2016 if conservative stalwarts like Cruz water down their bold conservatism and compromise. Cornyn recently said "that...

It's time to term limit Senator Cornyn. There is no need to pass a term limit amendment to the Constitution If mandatory term limits were in place, then John Cornyn would be out of a job this election. It is up to the voters to effect term limits on long-term incumbents. This is especially true when the incumbent has too often followed the establishment party line of increasing the federal debt, even before Obama was elected. According to Freedom Works here are the ten worst votes cast by Senator Cornyn: 1. Cornyn Voted to Let Harry Reid Fund ObamaCare (2013,...

Second-term U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s influence as Minority Whip is key for Texas and for the Republican Party, says a longtime friend and fundraiser. Longview’s Dr. John Coppedge has known the former Texas Attorney General for more than two decades and is once again sounding the fundraising call as Cornyn seeks a third term in office in November – partnering with other East Texas politicos, he’s putting together a Feb. 16 rally featuring the Texas senator alongside renowned GOP strategist and political pundit Karl Rove and country music star Neal McCoy.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is returning to Longview for a fundraiser that aims low at the wallet but high on attendance. “What we’re trying to do with this event is something I don’t think, typically, has been done before,” said John Coppedge, a Longview doctor. “We wanted to have an event that was fun and afforded the opportunity for a lot more people to participate in the process.” Political fundraisers, particularly for national office candidates, tend to be those $1,000-a-plate soirées that most people just hear about. Coppedge said the one planned for Feb. 16 is designed to draw as...

Dwayne Stovall, a Republican primary candidate for Senate, will drive across Texas to tell you he’s more conservative than Sen. John Cornyn and tighter with the tea party than Rep. Steve Stockman. A former oilfield worker and business owner from Cleveland, Texas, Stovall is one of seven primary challengers for Cornyn’s seat. With just a few weeks until the March 4 primary, he’s crisscrossing the state and reaching out online, having some success raising funds and gaining supporters. While the outspoken Stockman has claimed the title of the tea party candidate, some tea party groups are going with Stovall, who...

We recommend incumbent John Cornyn for the GOP's U.S. Senate nomination, based on unmatched experience and decades of service to Texas. The theme among a bevy of challengers seems to be that Cornyn is a CINO, a conservative in name only. This is not just counter-intuitive but counter-factual. Various ratings — liberal and conservative — have agreed on one thing, Cornyn's conservative credentials are genuine. Not conservative? Cornyn is No. 2 in Senate leadership and diverged only slightly from the conservative playbook in a year in which he offered a measure that would further beef up security at the border...

Dwayne Stovall Earns Endorsement from Grassroots America and from Former Stockman Supporter and Wins Seventh Straw Poll (February 6, 2014) - Tea Party-endorsed candidate in Texas for U. S. Senate, Dwayne Stovall, just received a notification from JoAnn Fleming, executive director of Grassroots America - We the People - one of the largest constitutional conservative grassroots groups in Texas, that Dwayne Stovall has earned the enthusiastic and unanimous support from its board of directors. The organization will release a full statement of support later today. Stovall also wins the support and endorsement of Southern Conservative, a group that formerly supported...

AUSTIN – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn – bedeviled by some in the tea party who’d prefer him to be more Ted Cruz-like – said Friday Republicans must prove they can govern like ‘responsible adults’ and be a big-tent party welcoming a variety of people who share their principles. “What we’ve seen is that when we’re divided, we capitulate. We basically hand the victory to our political opponents. They win elections, and then they get to govern, and that leads us in disastrous directions like we’re seeing now,” Cornyn told reporters. Cornyn was joined by Gov. Rick Perry at a re-election...

In a heated radio interview with Texas-based Matt Patrick of KTRH Wednesday, Senator John Cornyn awkwardly defended himself from charges that he did not support Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in their efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as nicely laid out by Matthew Boyle of Breitbart. According to Boyle, a "a senior congressional staffer" told Breitbart that "Instead of helping Cruz with their power as Senate GOP leaders, [Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell and Cornyn are working against him." Indeed, the staffer did not mince words and said, ““To be clear, nobody is...

After three years of getting ready, yesterday the nation signed on to get Obamacare only to have websites across America crash. The ones that were not crashing were scam sites designed for identity theft. Amid all of that, if you tried to get Obamacare through an internet search engine, you probably got scammed. “[S]ome of these scam sites actually have better search-engine rankings than official sites,” reports UPI. This is the backdrop to the fight to defund Obamacare. Some pundits claim if it were not for the shutdown the press would have covered the disastrous launch. A press that has...

Texas Senator John Cornyn is in trouble with the tea party. At the Texas Tribune policy conference last weekend six tea party leaders were asked if want a strong candidate to challenge Cornyn in the Republican primary. Five of them said yes. Listen 0:003:09Story airing on KERA 90.1 Included in that group were former gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, who now heads We Texans a limited government group; Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party President Julie McCarty; and Republican state representatives Matt Krause from Fort Worth and Jonathan Stickland from Bedford. The fifth and most vocal critic was JoAnn Fleming. Her email...

I explained to fellow Texans in a note last Friday why they shouldn’t support John Cornyn. Today comes further evidence. In an effort to further mislead Texans, and in an attempt to pretend his cowardice hadn’t been, this deceptive politician, this un-Texan, has posted a phony poll on his website asking a question based on a false premise. The question itself is a lie. He asks: “Do you agree with Senator Cornyn’s vote to De-fund Obamacare?” The truth is that he didn’t vote to de-fund Obamacare. Instead, he voted to permit Harry Reid and the Democrats to prevail. His poll...

Members of the Armed Citizen Project say they’re not getting any direct response to their requests for U.S. Senator John Cornyn to change his mind about Obamacare. They say they want the Texas Republican to support fellow Texan Ted Cruz in the effort to defund the health care reform law. Project founder Kyle Coplen says the response from Cornyn’s Houston office has been unsatisfying so far… “They've painted John Cornyn as a master strategist who, you know, we just don't know what's good for us (but) he does,” explains Coplen. “It's really a lot of elitist talk.”

Sen. Ted Cruz refused point-blank to endorse his Texas Republican colleague Sen. John Cornyn in his upcoming reelection bid at an event here Friday. “I think it is very likely I’m going to stay out of all incumbent runs,” Cruz responded, when posed with an endorsement question at the annual Texas Tribune festival. Moderator Evan Smith, the head of the Texas Tribune, said that the junior Texas Republican’s failure to endorse Cornyn had inspired tea party activists to call for Cornyn’s head. “You could put a stop to this,” Smith said of grassroots unrest. “Endorse him right now. Will you...

Few senators in either party have the stomach to risk a government shutdown over demands to defund Obamacare. When the showdown heads to a vote Friday, the tally will be lopsided — a sharp repudiation of Sen. Ted Cruz and the tactics he advocated during his 21-hour talkathon. For Texas’ senior senator, John Cornyn, refusing to join Cruz’s crusade has invited the wrath of tea partiers. “I assure you that I try to make the decisions I make based on the merits and not based on political risk,” Cornyn said Thursday, shrugging off the potential backlash. So far, Cornyn —...

WASHINGTON — Following the epic, 21-hour speech by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, supporting the defunding of Obamacare, either voters made so many calls to establishment Republicans that their phone lines melted, or those GOP leaders took their phones off the hook. Even in this age of digital wizardry and limitless voicemail, callers could not get through at all to Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

As Ted Cruz continued to hold the Senate floor, his senior GOP colleague from Texas was calling in to local radio stations expressing general support for the effort while noting a significant tactical disagreement. “Ted’s been a great addition to the United States Senate,” Sen. John Cornyn said on KTSA. “He and I were dove hunting in Hondo this weekend together and we both agree that we need to defund and delay and defeat Obamacare to protect the American people.” But Cornyn, the Republican whip, is in the camp along with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that plans to support...

This is an urgent update on the fight to stop funding Obamacare. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) — the top two Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate — announced yesterday that they will support "cloture" on the government funding bill, giving Harry Reid and the Democrats a procedural green light to fund Obamacare with only 50 votes. Mitch McConnell and John CornynBreitbart News is reporting that McConnell and Cornyn are using their leadership positions to pressure other Republicans to oppose Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT) in their effort to defund Obamacare. According to a...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus backed Sen. Ted Cruz’s anti-Obamacare quasi-filibuster Tuesday, possibly sending a message to senior GOP leaders who are criticizing Cruz’s tactics in defunding Obamacare. Cruz is speaking against Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid’s plans to hold a vote on a stopgap continuing budget resolution Wednesday, where Reid is expected to strip out language from the House version of the budget resolution that defunds Obamacare. Cruz doesn’t want the vote to happen until Obamacare is definitively defunded — without Reid’s expected changes. “In a fight between Harry Reid and Ted Cruz, I will stand with Ted...

A conservative political action committee on Tuesday slammed two of the Senate’s top Republicans as “turncoats” who have “surrendered” on the health care fight. “Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn have surrendered to Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democrats,” charged an email blast from the Senate Conservatives Fund. “More importantly, they have surrendered to Obamacare — the biggest job killer in America.” -snip- “We knew Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn weren’t with us when they voted to fund Obamacare earlier this year,” the email continued. “But then, under pressure from grassroots, they said they supported the effort to defund it....