After Uvalde, Cruz digs in, Cornyn mulls changes
Ambitions of Texas senators influence their responses
Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz both cast themselves as staunch Second Amendment supporters. Both enjoy A+ ratings from the NRA.
But as they’ve done after other mass shootings, the Texas Republicans have taken on dramatically different roles since the Uvalde school rampage.
Cruz has come out swinging, deflecting calls for gun control after mass murder at an elementary school by demanding fewer doors at schools, and more locks, bulletproof glass and armed police.
“Their real goal is disarming America,” he asserted to the NRA three days after an 18-year-old with an AR-15 killed 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school. “Their so-called solutions wouldn’t have stopped these mass murders and they know this. That son of a bitch passed a background check.”
Cornyn, as always, has been less of a pugilist but no less adamant that curbing access to firearms for law-abiding Americans is a nonstarter.
After other mass shootings, he’s helped to craft narrow but broadly palatable measures, like addressing flaws in the database used to stop felons from buying guns. Senate GOP leader Mitch Mcconnell entrusted him to be his eyes and ears in a small bipartisan group seeking common ground — confident that Cornyn will block any significant rollbacks in gun rights.
“To do nothing would make the party look insensitive and out of touch,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist, noting that Republicans can’t afford to alienate suburban voters who support modest gun control measures, and are at least as intent on keeping children safe as protecting gun rights.
“Cornyn is smart enough to know that navigating the politics after a gun massacre is delicate, and that delay can be your friend,” he said.
But Cornyn’s ambition is to get Mcconnell’s job at some point. He’s thinking strategically about the party’s prospects.
Cruz wants to be president. He’s focused on scoring points, and “legislating is not the best way to get him to his goals. He is a political grandstander and it’s extremely lucrative for him politically. He can rile the base and that opens up wallets,” Rottinghaus said.
The two Texans are among the top recipients in the Senate of political contributions from gun rights interests. Cruz has received $749,000 since his election in 2012, according to Open Secrets, while Cornyn has gotten $306,000 since his election in 2002.
Cornyn is responsible for the most significant, albeit narrowly tailored, gun-related law in decades — the Fix NICS Act, authored after a massacre that left 26 people dead at a Sutherland Springs church on Nov. 5, 2017.
The gunman had been convicted of domestic violence while in the Air Force. But the service failed to upload his records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, used to screen gun buyers.
The law imposes new reporting requirements on federal agencies and provides incentives for states to improve their own reporting.
In less than four years, a Justice Department report found, the number of records in the three databases searched with every NICS check increased by 11.5 million —up 11.4 percent.