!!!!

With only a few weeks left before the first Caucus (primary) will be held in Iowa it is time to get serious about who you will support and vote for in the November 2016 election of the next President of the United States. There are many issues that command the attention of a voter. Among these are the economy, foreign policy, national defense, the proper size of the Federal Government, taxes, etc. For me, the most important issues in 2016 are liberty/freedom and the protection of innocent life.

Many of our most pressing problems in the area of liberty/freedom and the protection of innocent life stem from the corruption of our judicial system. This is not something new to me or to the nation. In 1978 (when capital punishment which had been prohibited by the U.S. Supreme Court as cruel and unreasonable) was allowed to be resumed, as Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsacola-Tallahassee I published a Pastoral Letter condemning capital punishment. My reason: our judicial system had become so flawed that only the poor were being executed and innocent men and women were being put to death whose innocence was later proved by improved DNA analysis. My concern was also about the corruption of our judicial system by the usurpation of our courts of the legislative function of Congress and our State Legislatures.

How important is the reform of our judicial system? Consider the harm done to the social fabric of America by these judicial decisions (from Wikipedia):

Milestone Cases in Supreme Court History

Read about landmark cases that have changed history, from Marbury v. Madison to the challenge to Obamacare { and marriage and family life in Obergefell.}

1803: Marbury v. Madison was the first instance in which a law passed by Congress was declared unconstitutional. The decision greatly expanded the power of the Court by establishing its right to overturn acts of Congress, a power not explicitly granted by the Constitution. Initially the case involved Secretary of State James Madison, who refused to seat four judicial appointees although they had been confirmed by the Senate.

1819: McCulloch v. Maryland upheld the right of Congress to create a Bank of the United States, ruling that it was a power implied but not enumerated by the Constitution. The case is significant because it advanced the doctrine of implied powers, or a loose construction of the Constitution. The Court, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, would sanction laws reflecting “the letter and spirit” of the Constitution.

1824: Gibbons v. Ogden defined broadly Congress’s right to regulate commerce. Aaron Ogden had filed suit in New York against Thomas Gibbons for operating a rival steamboat service between New York and New Jersey ports. Ogden had exclusive rights to operate steamboats in New York under a state law, while Gibbons held a federal license. Gibbons lost the case and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the decision. The Court held that the New York law was unconstitutional, since the power to regulate interstate commerce, which extended to the regulation of navigation, belonged exclusively to Congress. In the 20th century, Chief Justice John Marshall’s broad definition of commerce was used to uphold civil rights.

1857: Dred Scott v. Sandford was a highly controversial case that intensified the national debate over slavery. The case involved Dred Scott, a slave, who was taken from a slave state to a free territory. Scott filed a lawsuit claiming that because he had lived on free soil he was entitled to his freedom. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney { a Catholic } disagreed, ruling that blacks were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court. Taney further inflamed antislavery forces by declaring that Congress had no right to ban slavery from U.S. territories. { 600,000 men died on American battlefields in the Civil War to undo the damage done by Dred Scott v Sandford }

1896: Plessy v. Ferguson was the infamous case that asserted that “equal but separate accommodations” for blacks on railroad cars did not violate the “equal protection under the laws” clause of the 14th Amendment. By defending the constitutionality of racial segregation, the Court paved the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws of the South. The lone dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, protested, “The thin disguise of ‘equal’ accommodations…will not mislead anyone.”

1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka invalidated racial segregation in schools and led to the unraveling of de jure segregation in all areas of public life. In the unanimous decision spearheaded by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court invalidated the Plessy ruling, declaring “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place” and contending that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall was one of the NAACP lawyers who successfully argued the case.

1963: Gideon v. Wainwright guaranteed a defendant’s right to legal counsel. The Supreme Court overturned the Florida felony conviction of Clarence Earl Gideon, who had defended himself after having been denied a request for free counsel. The Court held that the state’s failure to provide counsel for a defendant charged with a felony violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. Gideon was given another trial, and with a court-appointed lawyer defending him, he was acquitted.

1964: New York Times v. Sullivan extended the protection offered the press by the First Amendment. L.B. Sullivan, a police commissioner in Montgomery, Ala., had filed a libel suit against the New York Times for publishing inaccurate information about certain actions taken by the Montgomery police department. In overturning a lower court’s decision, the Supreme Court held that debate on public issues would be inhibited if public officials could sue for inaccuracies that were made by mistake. The ruling made it more difficult for public officials to bring libel charges against the press, since the official had to prove that a harmful untruth was told maliciously and with reckless disregard for truth.

1965: Griswold v. Connecticut said that Connecticut’s ban on the use of contraceptives violated a couple’s “right to marital privacy,” and that the right to privacy for couples is a fundamental right. {The “Right to Privacy” invented by Supreme Court has been invoked for better and worse in subsequent decisions.}

1966: Miranda v. Arizona was another case that helped define the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. At the center of the case was Ernesto Miranda, who had confessed to a crime during police questioning without knowing he had a right to have an attorney present. Based on his confession, Miranda was convicted. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that criminal suspects must be warned of their rights before they are questioned by police. These rights are: the right to remain silent, to have an attorney present, and, if the suspect cannot afford an attorney, to have one appointed by the state. The police must also warn suspects that any statements they make can be used against them in court. Miranda was retried without the confession and convicted.

1973: Roe v. Wade legalized abortion and is at the center of the current controversy between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates. The Court ruled that a woman has the right to an abortion without interference from the government in the first trimester of pregnancy, contending that it is part of her “right to privacy.” The Court maintained that right to privacy is not absolute, however, and granted states the right to intervene in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. { 50,000,000 + innocent lives have been sacrificed on the altar of abortion-on-demand }

1976: Buckley v. Valeo; Sen. James Buckley (R-NY) and others challenged a number of the 1974 amendments to Federal Election Campaign Act, saying the spending and contribution limits on political campaigns violated free speech rights. In a per curiam decision, the Supreme Court upheld the limits on contributions from individuals, disclosure rules, and the public financing of campaigns, saying they maintain the integrity of elections and prevent corruption. However, the Court struck down spending limits imposed on candidates and individuals or groups. “It is clear that a primary effect of these expenditure limitations is to restrict the quantity of campaign speech by individuals, groups and candidates,” the Court said. “So long as persons or groups eschew expenditures that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly defined candidate, they are free to spend as much as they want to promote the candidate and his views.” The ruling opened the floodgates to issue ads that clearly endorse—or attack—a candidate but refrain from using terms such as “vote for,” “defeat,” or “elect.” { This decision has proven to be a Pandora’s Box of conflicting subsequent decisions and the morass of imperfect laws passed by Congress in an effort to regulate election campaigns. }

1978: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure that providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority. In other words, affirmative action was unfair if it lead to reverse discrimination. The case involved the University of Calif., Davis, Medical School and Allan Bakke, a white applicant who was rejected twice even though there were minority applicants admitted with significantly lower scores than his. A closely divided Court ruled that while race was a legitimate factor in school admissions, the use of rigid quotas was not permissible.

2000: Bush v. Gore the Court reversed the Florida Supreme Court decision ordering manual recount of presidential election ballots. A majority of justices (7–2) agreed that the recount violated the Constitution’s equal protection and due process guarantees, since counting standards varied among counties. The Court remanded the case to the Florida Supreme Court for remedy but, in 5-4 split, maintained that deadline for recount ended at midnight. The decision effectively ended the presidential election, handing a victory to George W. Bush.

2003: Grutter v. Bollinger upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s consideration of race and ethnicity in admissions. In her majority opinion, Justice O’Connor said that the law school used a “highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file.” Race, she said, was not used in a “mechanical way.” Therefore, the university’s program was consistent with the requirement of “individualized consideration” set in 1978’s Bakke case. “In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry, it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity,” O’Connor said. However, the court ruled that the University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions system, which awarded 20 points to black, Hispanic, and American-Indian applicants, was “nonindividualized, mechanical,” and thus unconstitutional. { Racial preferences in college admissions is still being fought in the courts }

2006: In Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, a challenge to a New Hampshire law that prohibits doctors from performing an abortion on a minor until 48 hours after a parent has been notified is heard. The Supreme Court rules that the government cannot restrict abortions when one is required during a medical emergency.

2007: In Gonzales v. Carhart, the court no longer requires that the regulation of abortion by government must protect the mother’s health.

2010: In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled, 5–4, that the government cannot restrict the spending of corporations for political campaigns, maintaining that it’s their First Amendment right to support candidates as they choose. This decision upsets two previous precedents on the free-speech rights of corporations. President Obama expressed disapproval of the decision, calling it a “victory” for Wall Street and Big Business. {We are a long way from cleaning up the mess created by the Court’s efforts to regulate campaign finances. }

2012: In National Federation of Independent Business v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, one of the most anticipated rulings in recent history, the Supreme Court upheld most of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law—the signature legislation of his first term, including the individual mandate, which requires that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a fee. The individual mandate was the centerpiece of the law. The court ruled, 5–4, that the individual mandate is constitutional under Congress’s taxing authority. “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Chief Justice John Roberts { a Catholic } wrote in the majority decision. The Court also upheld the expansion of Medicaid, the government’s health insurance program for low-income Americans, but limited the provision, saying states will not necessarily lose their funding if they choose not to expand the program. The ruling was considered a major victory for Obama in an election year.

2013: In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which established a formula for Congress to use when determining if a state or voting jurisdiction requires prior approval before changing its voting laws. Currently under Section 5 of the act nine—mostly Southern—states with a history of discrimination must get clearance from Congress before changing voting rules to make sure racial minorities are not negatively affected. While the 5–4 decision did not invalidate Section 5, it made it toothless. Chief Justice John Roberts said the formula Congress now uses, which was written in 1965, has become outdated. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” he said in the majority opinion. In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the V.R.A.” (Voting Rights Act).; In United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional. In a 5 to 4 vote, the court ruled that DOMA violated the rights of gays and lesbians. The court also ruled that the law interferes with the states’ rights to define marriage. It was the first case ever on the issue of gay marriage for the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. voted against striking it down as did Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. However, conservative-leaning Justice Anthony M. Kennedy {a Catholic} voted with his liberal colleagues to overturn DOMA.; In Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage opponents in California did not have standing to appeal the lower court ruling that overturned the state’s ban, known as Proposition 8. The ruling would most likely remove legal battles for same-sex couples wishing to marry in California. However, the ruling did not directly affect other states. { Incredibly this decision effectively cancelled the right of citizens to amend their state’s constitution }

2014: Taking on the complexities of life in a digital age in the case Riley v. California, the Supreme Court decided unanimously that police need a warrant to search a suspect’s cellphone in a unanimous decision. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “Modern cell phones, as a category, implicate privacy concerns far beyond those implicated by the search of a cigarette pack, a wallet, or a purse.”

2015: In King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, allowing subsidies on federal marketplaces in 34 states to continue. The subsidies provide tax breaks to the poor and some middle-class citizens who buy insurance in the exchanges set up by the government. The case centered on an Internal Revenue Service rule that makes some people who buy insurance on federal exchanges eligible for subsidies. The rule says that subsidies are offered in exchanges “established by the State.” The group that challenged the IRS rule said the federal subsidies are illegal because they weren’t explicitly mentioned in the law. Thirty-four states have not created their own exchanges, forcing residents to enroll through federal exchanges. About seven million people are covered under the federal exchanges. “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in the majority ruling. { The irony is that the ACA is destroying the American health care system slowly but surely. }; The Court rules in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry and that states cannot say that marriage is reserved for heterosexual couples. “Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined Kennedy in the ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr., the court’s most conservative members, dissented. {The fallout from this bad decision is happening as I write this comment. }

My concerns have grown exponentially over the past 30 years.This has been especially evident in the decisions handed down by liberal justices and judges appointed by Presidents Clinton and Obama, although even some of those appointed by Presidents Reagan and both Presidents Bush have not proven to be strict interpreters of the United States Consitution.

Bill Clinton knows the impact his judicial appointments have made on American society and recently he gave a crowd in New Hampshire another reason to get out and vote for his wife, Hillary: the winner of the 2016 election may have the opportunity to transform the Supreme Court, he said. LifeSite News reported:

Speaking at a campaign rally for his wife, the 42nd president of the United States said the High Court may be in play in the next four years.

“We need to recognize something that has received almost no attention in this election,” Clinton said approximately eight minutes into the 29-minute speech. “In all probability, the next president of the United States will make between one and three appointments to the United States Supreme Court – and I know who I want doing that.”

Four Supreme Court justices are over the age of 75 — including both the justices he appointed: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both reliable members of the Court’s liberal bloc. Conservative justice Antonin Scalia and swing vote Anthony Kennedy will both turn 80 this year.

The Susan B. Anthony List agreed that the balance of power on the Supreme Court is “one reason electing a pro-life president in 2016 is important.”

Any justice’s retirement or death could reshape the Supreme Court, which usually breaks down between evenly divided groups of liberals (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) and conservatives (Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito), with Justice Kennedy often holding final sway – for instance, on the Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

I would ask you which of the present candidates leading in the polls would be expected to make the wisest appointments to the judicial bench. To me there can be only one choice: Ted Cruz.

Of all the candidates Ted Cruz has had the greatest amount of experience working with our judicial system. In the Wikipedia article below giving Ted Cruz’s curriculum vitae you can see that in addition to his legal education he has had a legal experience no other candidate has had.

I will support Ted Cruz in his campaign, I will vote for Ted Cruz in the primary and I will vote for Ted Cruz in the general election.

I urge you to carefully consider his qualifications for the office of President of the United States with particular emphasis on his commitment to defend the constitutional separation of powers of our Federal Government and redressing the liberal domination of our courts. All of our freedoms are at stake.

*********

Ted Cruz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ Emphasis and {commentary} in red type by Abyssum ]













Personal details
Born	Rafael Edward Cruz December 22, 1970 (age 45) Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Heidi Nelson (m. 2001)
Children	2
Alma mater	Princeton University (A.B., 1992) Harvard Law School (J.D., 1995)
Religion	Protestant (Southern Baptist)^[2]
Website	Senate website Campaign website

Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is an American politician who is the junior U.S. Senator from Texas. He is a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election.

Born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban father, Cruz attended elementary and high school in and around Houston, graduated from Princeton University in 1992, and then from Harvard Law School in 1995. Between 1999 and 2003, Cruz was the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an associate deputy attorney general at the United States Department of Justice, and domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush on the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign. He served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008, appointed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He was the first Hispanic, and the longest-serving solicitor general in Texas history. Cruz was also an adjunct professor of law from 2004 to 2009 at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation.

Cruz ran for the Senate seat vacated by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, and in July 2012 defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst during the Republican primary runoff, 57%–43%. Cruz then defeated former state Representative Paul Sadler in the November 2012 general election, winning 56%–41%. He is the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. senator representing Texas, and is one of three Senators of Cuban descent. Cruz chairs the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Activities, and is also the chairman of the United States Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. In November 2012, he was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Cruz began campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in March 2015.

Early life and ancestry

Ted Cruz was born on December 22, 1970,^[3]^[4] in the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to parents Eleanor Elizabeth (Darragh) Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.^[5]^[6]^[7] At the time of his birth, Cruz’ parents were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic-data processing firm for oil drilling.^[6]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] Cruz has said, “I’m the son of two mathematicians/computer programmers.”^[12]

Rafael Cruz was born in Cuba, and his father was from the Canary Islands in Spain. Ted Cruz’s mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and is of three quarters Irish and one quarter Italian ancestry.^[13]^[14] His father left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin, obtained political asylum in the United States after his four-year student visa expired, and became a Canadian citizen during his eight-year stay in that country.^[15] He ultimately became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005.^[6]^[16]^[17]^[18] His mother earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.^[19] Eleanor and Rafael Cruz divorced in 1997.^[20]

Cruz had two older half-sisters from his father’s previous marriage, Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz. Miriam, who had several brushes with the law during the 1990s and 2000s including charges of theft and public intoxication, died of a prescription drug overdose on January 10, 2011.^[20] Roxana, who has declined media interviews, is a physician in Texas.^[20]^[21]^[22] Cruz also had a half-brother, Michael Wilson (1960–1965), from his mother’s previous marriage. He first learned of him from his mother during his teenage years.^[22]

Rafael Cruz moved his family to Texas in 1974.^[23] When he was a child, Ted Cruz’s mother told him that she would have to make an affirmative act to claim Canadian citizenship for him, so his family assumed that he did not hold Canadian citizenship.^[24] In August 2013, after the Dallas Morning News pointed out that Cruz had dual Canadian-American citizenship,^[25] he applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada on May 14, 2014.^[24]^[26]

Education

Cruz was educated at two private high schools: first at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas,^[27] and second, at Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988.^[16]^[28]^[29] During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group called the Free Market Education Foundation where he learned about free-market economic philosophers such as Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Frédéric Bastiat and Ludwig von Mises.^[30] The program was run by Rolland Storey, and Cruz entered the program at the age of 13.^[11] At the same time, he changed his nickname from “Felito” to “Ted” after being teased about it by his peers:^[31] “The problem with that name [“Felito”] was that it seemed to rhyme with every major corn chip on the market”, Cruz wrote in his 2015 autobiography, A Time for Truth. “Fritos, Cheetos, Doritos, and Tostitos—a fact that other young children were quite happy to point out.”^[32] Cruz was involved in theater during high school, though chose not to pursue an acting career. He would later say that he did not think he had the talent to succeed. Cruz later said that he regretted not serving in the military and that he respected it “immensely.”^[33]

Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy^[34] from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1992.^[35]^[3] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society‘s Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship.^[36] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year, and with his debate partner David Panton won Team of the Year.^[36] Cruz and Panton would later represent Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship, losing in the semi-finals to a team from Australia.^[37]^[38]^[39] Princeton’s debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz.^[39]

Cruz’s senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers; its title, Clipping the Wings of Angels, draws its inspiration from a passage attributed to US President James Madison: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect the rights of their constituents, and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all-powerful state.^[19]^[40]

After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree.^[3]^[41] While at Harvard Law, he was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.^[35] Referring to Cruz’s time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant”.^[42]^[43]^[44]^[45] At Harvard Law, Cruz was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.^[46]

Cruz currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.^[47]

Legal career

Clerkships

Ted Cruz speaking in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Cruz served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1995^[48]^[46] and William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States in 1996.^[3] Cruz was the first Hispanic to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.^[49]

Private practice

After Cruz finished his clerkships, he took a position with Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal, now known as Cooper & Kirk, LLC, from 1997 to 1998.^[50] While with the firm, Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association, and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.^[51] Cruz also served as private counsel for Congressman John Boehner during Boehner’s lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.^[52]

Bush administration

Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.^[50]

Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devising strategy, and drafting pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court, the specific case being Bush v. Gore, during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, leading to two successful decisions for the Bush team.^[46]^[53] Cruz recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to the Bush legal team.^[51]

After President Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department^[3]^[53] and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.^[3]^[42]^[53]

Texas Solicitor General

Appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,^[48]^[54] Cruz served in that position from 2003 to 2008.^[46]^[30] The office had been established in 1999 to handle appeals involving the state, but Abbott hired Cruz with the idea that Cruz would take a “leadership role in the United States in articulating a vision of strict construction.” As Solicitor General, Cruz argued before the Supreme Court nine times, winning five cases and losing four.^[51]

Cruz has authored 70 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.^[48]^[42]^[55] Cruz’s record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of Congress.^[56] Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court: “We ended up year after year arguing some of the biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that, but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative fights.”^[56]

In 2003, while Cruz was Texas Solicitor General, the Texas Attorney General’s office declined to defend Texas’ sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, where the U.S. Supreme Court decided that state laws banning homosexual sex as illegal sodomy were unconstitutional.^[57]

In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.^[55]^[58] Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.^[55]^[59]

Cruz at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC., 2011

In addition to his success in Heller, Cruz successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5–4 in Van Orden v. Perry.^[46]^[42]^[55]

In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow,^[46]^[42] in which he wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states which argued that the plaintiff did not have standing to file suit on behalf of his daughter.^[60] The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz’s brief.

Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was decided 5–4 in his favor in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.^[46]^[61]

Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt to re-open the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and were on death row.^[48]^[46]^[42]^[55] With the support of the George W. Bush Administration, the petitioners argued that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate.^[51]^[62] They based their case on a decision of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case which ruled that by failing to allow access to the Mexican consulate, the US had breached its obligations under the Convention.^[63] Texas won the case in a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court holding that ICJ decisions were not binding in domestic law and that the President had no power to enforce them.^[51]^[62]

Cruz has been named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,^[54]^[64] by The National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,^[65]^[66] and by Texas Lawyer as one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.^[67]^[68]

U.S. Senate

2012 election

Main article: United States Senate election in Texas, 2012

Cruz speaking to the Values Voters Summit in October 2011

Cruz’s victory in the Republican primary was described by the Washington Post as “the biggest upset of 2012 . . . a true grassroots victory against very long odds.”^[74] On January 19, 2011, after U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she would not seek reelection, Cruz announced his candidacy via a blogger conference call.^[75] In the Republican senatorial primary, Cruz ran against sitting Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Cruz was endorsed first by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin^[76] and then by the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative political action committee;^[77] Erick Erickson, editor of prominent conservative blog RedState;^[78] the FreedomWorks for America super PAC;^[79] nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin;^[80] former Attorney General Edwin Meese;^[53] Tea Party Express;^[81] Young Conservatives of Texas;^[82] and U.S. Senators Tom Coburn,^[83] Jim DeMint,^[84] Mike Lee,^[85] Rand Paul^[86] and Pat Toomey.^[87] He was also endorsed by former Texas Congressman Ron Paul,^[88] George P. Bush,^[53] and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.^[89]

Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination with a 14-point margin over Dewhurst.^[90] Cruz defeated Dewhurst despite being outspent by Dewhurst who held a statewide elected office.^[91] Dewhurst spent $19 million and Cruz only spent $7 million.^[91] Dewhurst raised over $30 million and outspent Cruz at a ratio of nearly 3-to-1.^[92]

In the November 6 general election, Cruz faced Democrat Paul Sadler, an attorney and a former state representative from Henderson, in east Texas. Cruz won with 4.5 million votes (56.4%) to Sadler’s 3.2 million (40.6%). Two minor candidates garnered the remaining 3% of the vote.^[93] According to a poll by Cruz’s pollster Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research, Cruz received 40% of the Hispanic vote, vs. 60% for Sandler, outperforming Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney with the Hispanic vote by 6 points.^[94]^[95]

After Time magazine reported on a potential violation of ethics rules by failing to publicly disclose his financial relationship with Caribbean Equity Partners Investment Holdings during the 2012 campaign, Cruz called his failure to disclose these connections an inadvertent omission.^[96]

Legislation

Cruz giving a speech to the Montgomery County Republican Party meeting held in Conroe, Texas, on August 19, 2013

Cruz has sponsored 25 bills of his own, including:^[97]

S.177, a bill to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the health-care related provisions of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, introduced January 29, 2013
S.505, a bill to prohibit the use of drones to kill citizens of the United States within the United States, introduced March 7, 2013
S.729 and S. 730, bills to investigate and prosecute felons and fugitives who illegally purchase firearms, and to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms through straw purchases and trafficking, introduced March 15, 2013
S.1336, a bill to permit States to require proof of citizenship for registering to vote in federal elections, introduced July 17, 2013
S.2170, a bill to increase coal, natural gas, and crude oil exports, to approve the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, to expand oil drilling offshore, onshore, in the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska, and in Indian reservations, to give states the sole power of regulating hydraulic fracturing, to repeal the Renewable Fuel Standard, to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases, to require the EPA to assess how new regulations will affect employment, and to earmark natural resource revenue to paying off the federal government’s debt, introduced March 27, 2014
S.2415, a bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to eliminate all limits on direct campaign contributions to candidates for public office, introduced June 3, 2014

Senate bill 2195

Main article: Public Law 113-100

On April 1, 2014, Cruz introduced Senate bill 2195, a bill that would allow the President of the United States to deny visas to any ambassador to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States or its allies and may pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.^[98] The bill was written in response to Iran‘s choice of Hamid Aboutalebi as their ambassador.^[99] Aboutalebi was involved in the Iran hostage crisis, in which of a number of American diplomats from the US embassy in Tehran were held captive in 1979.^[99]^[100]^[101]

Under the headline “A bipartisan message to Iran”, Cruz thanked President Barack Obama for signing S 2195 into law. The letter, published in the magazine Politico on April 18, 2014, starts with “Thanks to President Obama for joining a unanimous Congress and signing S 2195 into law”. Cruz also thanked senators from both political parties for “swiftly passing this legislation and sending it to the White House.”^[102]^[103]^[104]

Committee assignments

According to transcripts as reported by Politico, in his first two years in the Senate, Cruz attended 17 of 50 public Armed Services Committee hearings, 3 of 25 Commerce Committee hearings, 4 of the 12 Judiciary Committee hearings, and missed 21 of 135 roll call votes during the first three months of 2015.^[105]

Comments on President Obama

Cruz is a frequent critic of President Barack Obama, calling him “an unmitigated socialist” and his ideas “profoundly dangerous” at the “First in the Nation” summit in Nashua, New Hampshire.^[106] Cruz also made comments blaming Obama for the 2015 shooting death of a sheriff’s deputy in Harris County, Texas.^[107]

In a November 2014 Senate speech, Cruz accused the president of being “openly desirous to destroy the Constitution and this Republic.”^[108] In the same speech, Cruz invoked the speeches of the ancient Roman senator Cicero against Catiline to denounce Obama’s planned executive actions on immigration reform.^[108] Classics professor Jesse Weiner, writing in The Atlantic, said that Cruz’s analogy was “deeply disquieting” because “in casting Obama in the role of Catiline, Cruz unsubtly suggests that the sitting president was not lawfully elected and is the perpetrator of a violent insurrection to overthrow the government…In effect, he accuses the president of high treason. Regardless of one’s views on immigration reform and the Obama administration at large, this is dangerous rhetoric.”^[108]

Cruz has repeatedly claimed that the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran “will make the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism.”^[109] In response, Obama called Cruz’s statements an example of “outrageous attacks” from Republican critics that crossed the line of responsible discourse: “We’ve had a sitting senator, who also happens to be running for president, suggest that I’m the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it’s not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now.”^[109] Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also criticized Cruz for his remarks, writing that although he, too, was opposed to the Iran agreement, Cruz’s statement connecting Obama to terrorism was “way over the line” and “hurts the cause.”^[110]^[111]

Relationships with fellow Republicans

Cruz has frequently used harsh rhetoric against fellow Republican politicians, and his relationships with various Republican members of Congress have been strained.^[112]^[113] In 2013, Cruz referred to Republicans who he thought were insufficiently resistant to the proposals of President Obama as a “surrender caucus.”^[112] Cruz also called fellow Republicans out as “squishes” on gun-control issues during a tea party rally.^[112] Cruz’s role in the United States federal government shutdown of 2013 in particular attracted criticism from a number of Republican colleagues.^[113] Republican Senator John McCain is reported to particularly dislike Cruz; in a Senate floor speech in 2013, McCain denounced Cruz’s reference to Nazis when discussing the Affordable Care Act.^[113] In March 2013, McCain also called Cruz and others “wacko birds” whose beliefs are not “reflective of the views of the majority of Republicans.”^[113]

In a heated Senate floor speech in July 2015, Cruz accused Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of telling “a flat-out lie” over his intentions to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which Cruz opposes. “What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again was a simple lie,” Cruz said of Senate Republican Leader McConnell.^[114] Cruz’s “incendiary outburst” was “unusual in the cordial atmosphere of the Senate”, according to Reuters.^[114]^[115] In the same speech, Cruz assailed the “Republican majority in both houses of Congresses” for what Cruz termed an insufficiently conservative record.^[115] Cruz’s speech, and especially his accusation against McConnell, was condemned by various senior Republican senators, with John McCain saying that the speech was “outside the realm of Senate behavior” and “a very wrong thing to do.”^[116] Orrin Hatch expressed a similar opinion: “I don’t condone the use of that kind of language against another senator unless they can show definitive proof that there was a lie….And I know the leader didn’t lie.”^[117] Cruz had alleged that McConnell scheduled a vote on the Ex-Im Bank as part of a deal to persuade Democrats like Maria Cantwell to stop blocking a trade bill, whereas McConnell denied there was any “deal”, and that denial is what Cruz termed a “lie”; Senator Hatch says McConnell did pledge to help Cantwell get a vote on the Ex-Im Bank.^[118]

Among Cruz’s few close allies in the Senate is Mike Lee of Utah.^[119]^[120] Cruz has expressed pride in his reputation for having few allies, saying in June 2015 that he has been vilified for fighting “the Washington cartel.”^[121]

When Boehner announced in September 2015 that he would step down and resign from the House, Cruz expressed his concern that before resigning Boehner may have “cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of its tenure”.^[122]

Presidential campaign

Main article: Ted Cruz presidential campaign, 2016

Further information: United States presidential election, 2016

Senator Cruz speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland

As early as 2013, Cruz was widely expected to run for the presidency in 2016.^[123]^[124]^[125] On March 14, 2013, he gave the keynote speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC.^[126] He tied for 7th place in the 2013 CPAC straw poll on March 16, winning 4% of the votes cast.^[127] In October 2013, Cruz won the Values Voter Summit Presidential straw poll with 42% of the vote.^[128] Cruz finished first in two Presidential straw polls conducted in 2014 with 30.33% of the vote at the Republican Leadership Conference^[129] and 43% of the vote at the Republican Party of Texas state convention.^[130]

Cruz did speaking events in mid-2013 across Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, early primary states, leading to speculation that he was laying the groundwork for a run for President in 2016.^[131] Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin describes Cruz as the first potential Presidential candidate to emphasize originalism as a major national issue.^[51]

Since Cruz was born in Canada, commentators for the Austin American-Statesman^[132] and the Los Angeles Times^[133] speculated about Cruz’s legal status as a natural-born citizen. Because he was a U.S. citizen at birth (his mother was a U.S. citizen who lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years as outlined by the Nationality Act of 1940), many commentators believe Cruz is eligible to serve as President of the United States.^[5]^[25]^[134]^[135] Despite many legal experts opinions to the contrary, conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, Orly Taitz, one of the leading proponents of the “birther” movement during Obama’s presidency, Joseph Farah of World Net Daily, and Donald Trump, have stated that Cruz is not a natural born citizen and thus not eligible to run for president.^[136] Two lawyers, Neal Katyal and Paul Clement, who both represented presidents from both parties at the Supreme Court, wrote in the Harvard Law Review that Cruz meets the constitutional standard to run.^[137]^[138]

On April 12, 2014, Cruz spoke at the Freedom Summit, an event organized by Americans for Prosperity, and Citizens United.^[139] The event was attended by several potential presidential candidates.^[140] In his speech, Cruz mentioned that Latinos, young people and single mothers are the people most affected by the recession, and that the Republican Party should make outreach efforts to these constituents. He also said that the words, “growth and opportunity” should be tattooed on the hands of every Republican politician.^[139]

On March 23, 2015, Cruz announced on his Twitter page: “I’m running for President and I hope to earn your support!”^[141] He was the first announced major Republican presidential candidate for the 2016 campaign.^[142]^[143]

HarperCollins published Cruz’s book A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America on June 30, 2015.^[144] The book reached the bestseller list of several organizations in its first week of release.^[145]^[146]

Political positions

Main article: Political positions of Ted Cruz

Domestic affairs

On abortion, Cruz is “strongly pro-life” and “would allow the procedure only when a pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.”^[147]^[148]

Cruz opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions.^[149] He believes that marriage should be legally defined as only “between one man and one woman,”^[150] but believes that the legality of same-sex marriage should be left to each state to decide.^[151]

In 2015, Cruz voted in favor of the USA Freedom Act, which reauthorized the USA Patriot Act but reformed some of its provisions.^[152]^[153]

Cruz is a proponent of school choice^[154] and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative.^[155] Cruz is a strong critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the ACA or “Obamacare”). He has sponsored legislation that would repeal the health care reform law and its amendments in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Cruz is a gun-rights supporter.^[156] Cruz has adopted a “hard-line stance” on immigration issues during the 2014 border crisis^[157] and is an opponent of comprehensive immigration reform.^[51]^[157] Cruz advocates for a 500% increase (from 65,000 to 325,000 annually) in skilled foreign workers entering the United States using H-1B visas.^[158]

Cruz opposes the legalization of marijuana, but believes it should be decided at the state level.^[159]

Cruz opposes net neutrality arguing that the Internet economy has flourished in the United States simply because it has remained largely free from government regulation.^[160]

Crime

Cruz favors the death penalty. In his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz frequently mentioned his role as counsel for the State of Texas in Medellín v. Texas, a 2008 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Texas has the legal right to ignore an order from the International Court of Justice directing the U.S. to review the convictions and sentences of dozens of Mexican nationals on death row.^[161] Cruz has referred to Medellín as the most important case of his tenure as Texas solicitor general.^[161]

In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt discussing the attack that killed three people at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Cruz said that “the simple and undeniable fact is the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats”, and that the reason Democrats are soft on crime, is that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat.^[162]

Economy

Cruz has been described by the Cato Institute‘s Center for Trade Policy Studies as a “free trader”^[163] and as a “free-trade advocate” by the Wall Street Journal.^[164]

In 2013, Cruz proposed the abolition of the IRS and the implementation of a flat tax “where the average American can fill out taxes on a postcard.”^[165] Cruz is “adamantly opposed to a higher minimum wage.”^[166]

Environment

Cruz is a supporter of TransCanada‘s controversial Keystone XL Pipeline,^[167] and along with every other Republican senator was a cosponsor of legislation in support of the pipeline.^[168]

Cruz has said that some people are “global warming alarmists” and has said that there was no significant warming in the 17-year period between 1998 and 2005.^[169]^[170]

Cruz voted against the Water Resources Development Act of 2013, that would have created the National Endowment for the Oceans and authorize more than $26 billion in projects to be built by the Army Corps of Engineers, at least $16 billion of which would have come from federal taxpayers.^[171]^[172]

Foreign affairs

Cruz has been an adamant opponent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the U.S. and other world powers, calling it “catastrophic” and “disastrous.”^[173]^[174]

Cruz is a critic of the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, saying on Fox News in December 2014 that the thaw in relations was a “manifestation of the failures of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy” that “will be remembered as a tragic mistake.”^[175]

In 2013, Cruz stated that America had no “dog in the fight” during the Syrian Civil War and stated that America’s armed forces should not serve as “al-Qaeda‘s air force”.^[176]

Personal life

Cruz with his wife Heidi at a rally in Houston, March 2015

Cruz married Heidi Nelson in 2001.^[177] The couple has two daughters:^[178] Caroline (born 2008) and Catherine (born 2011). Cruz met his wife while working on the George W. Bush presidential campaign of 2000. She is currently taking leave from her position as head of the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker.^[179]

Cruz has said, “I’m Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist.”^[2]

Accolades

Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government named Cruz “2013 Person of the Year” in an op-ed in The Hill, citing the unsuccessful efforts of Cruz and fellow Republican freshman senator Mike Lee to defund the Affordable Care Act.^[180]

Cruz was also named “2013 Man of the Year” by conservative publications TheBlaze,^[181] FrontPage Magazine^[182] and The American Spectator.^[183] He was named “2013 Conservative of the Year” by Townhall.com,^[184] and “2013 Statesman of the Year” by the Republican Party of Sarasota County, Florida^[185]^[186] He was a finalist for “2013 Texan of the Year” by The Dallas Morning News^[187] and a finalist for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2013.^[188]

Electoral history