Muddying waters
Cruz ad touts role during Harvey, but he was AWOL during fight for recovery funds.
When it comes to touting his conservative record, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has plenty to brag about.
He ran circles around establishment candidate David Dewhurst in the 2014 primary race for Senate, became a one-man embodiment of rightwing policy advocacy in Washington and was so successful in rallying House members to his cause that commenters talked about a “Cruz caucus.” He nearly became the most conservative Republican nominee for president since Barry Goldwater, and the list goes on.
Any other first-term Republican would gladly sell his commemorative “Win One for the Gipper” football to be able to boast those kind of rightwing credentials. So Texans might be understandably perplexed to see the first ad of Cruz’s re-election campaign stray from his clearest attributes and veer off into murky waters — namely, leadership during Hurricane Harvey.
“When disaster struck,” the narrator intones in the 30-second TV ad targeted at Southeast Texas. “Texans came together, helping each other, everyone doing their part.”
Yes, Cruz was out there, like many politicians, mucking houses and meeting with local Galveston-area officials. His name was on the Cruz-Cornyn-Rubio tax relief bill, which added tax deductions for hurricane-related expenses. But when it came to the essential, and politically risky, responsibilty of passing a robust multi-billion-dollar recovery bill, the credit belongs to Cruz’s Republican Senate colleague, John Cornyn.
Cruz was mostly AWOL in the fight for Harvey recovery dollars. Cornyn, on the other hand, put himself on the front lines to force a bill through the Senate.
Texas’ senior senator caught plenty of flack in the process.
The White House’s original $44 billion recovery bill was insultingly small; Cornyn diplomatically deemed it “inadequate.” So Cornyn put a hold on a Trump administration nominee, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, to compel the White House to pay attention to Texas’ post-Harvey needs.
Tea partiers and Trump fans weren’t exactly pleased.
Michael Quinn Sullivan of rightwing advocacy group Empower Texans attacked Cornyn on Twitter for “taking a conservative hostage until he gets cash for Texas.”
Noah Wall, vice president of advocacy at tea party group FreedomWorks, said, “Sen. John Cornyn is putting his earmarks before the fiscally conservative Trump nominee.”
No Republican wants to be attacked by the base. But when forced to choose between Team Trump and Team Texas, Cornyn was loyal to the people of the Lone Star State. Where was Cruz?
On the day before Congress rolled out its $81 billion Harvey bill, Texas’ junior senator was on Twitter arguing about net neutrality with “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill.
Cruz shut down the Senate in a futile attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2013, but years later, he couldn’t harness similar passion to help Texas rebuild from Harvey.
Then again, maybe it was for the best that Cruz wasn’t involved in recovery efforts. In the process of building his firebrand reputation, Cruz burned plenty of bridges in Washington. Politicians up and down the East Coast — a self-proclaimed Comeuppance Caucus — deemed Cruz public enemy No. 1 after he led efforts to oppose the 2013 recovery bill after Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey.
Houston’s U.S. Rep. John Culberson, on the other hand, has said his vote for the Sandy recovery bill made it easier to do his job for Texas after Harvey.
Letting Cornyn take the lead on negotiating recovery dollars may have been the best option for Cruz’s political prospects as well. A stand against the Trump administration would have angered a conservative fan base that Cruz had worked so hard to cultivate over the years — not the kind of risk Cruz is known to take.
Since he was first elected, Cruz has demonstrated a willingness to use every tool available in pursuit of his policy agenda. It just so happens to be an agenda that doesn’t include hurricane recovery funds.
“When the hurricane hit, you stood up for Texas,” the ad’s narrator tells viewers. “And Ted Cruz stood up for you.”
But when it came to the hard work of bringing home billions to rebuild Texas, Cruz sat that one out. As he runs for re-election, the junior senator can proudly tout everything he has accomplished, but there is no need to muddy the waters of Harvey history.