Hold these elected Texans accountable

Even after the insurrection, they voted in favor of objections to certifying the election.

Now and then through the years, we Texans have sent our share of buffoons, grifters, lightweights, crooks, ignoramuses and ego-obsessed asses to Washington as representatives of the people. W. Lee “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy” O’Daniel comes to mind. So does Martin Dies Jr., chairman of the witch-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee. So does Louie Gohmert.

In the wake of last week’s Capitol insurrection, add to this ignominious list the state’s junior senator, Ted Cruz, and the 16 Republican House members who voted in favor of discredited objections to certifying the presidential election results in one or more swing states. The Seditious Sixteen voted to short-circuit democracy even after a Trump mob rampaged through the Capitol, even after blood was shed in the halls of that august building.

Also add to this list Ken Paxton. Like a tongue-flapping pup hopping into the bed of his master’s pickup on a jaunt to town, our indictment-burdened, ethics-allergic attorney general headed to Washington last week for no reason other than to stand adoringly alongside President Donald Trump and echo his unhinged calls for insurrection. We called for Paxton to resign months ago because of his own legal problems, including a bloodless insurrection of sorts in Paxton’s own office, staged by whistleblowers in his senior staff alleging corruption. That’s not to mention the outlandish lawsuit he filed in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn the will of millions of American voters. After his servile pilgrimage to Washington, there’s no question regarding what he ought to do now.

A rampaging mob ransacked the Capitol, our citadel of democracy. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, are dead. Trump and his MAGA maniacs have made a mockery of our democratic institutions, as both Democrats and Republicans (including Cabinet members past and present and White House staff ) have acknowledged.

We must hold our elected officials accountable for their role in this outrage. Congress members such as Randy Weber, Brian Babin and even Troy Nehls, the former Fort Bend County sheriff who has been praised for protecting colleagues during the siege, ended the day where they began: in craven thrall to Trump and his true-believers. They must be censured, at the very least.

Cruz, whose resignation we called for Friday, was leader of this fanatic voyage. Since he first announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate back in 2012, Texans have known that he is a talented constitutional lawyer, that he’s smart (if not wise) and that he’s a facile speaker ( given to grandiloquence). He has known all along that President Trump’s bellowing accusations about election fraud were bogus. He knew they were about as likely as candidate Trump’s claim back in 2016 that Cruz’s father was in on the JFK assassination.

He knew, and yet Cruz — like his Missouri counterpart, Josh Hawley — is nothing if not calculating. And nakedly ambitious. With presidential ambitions paramount, Cruz calculated that he could ride a Trumpian wave into the White House, perhaps in 2024, by embracing the current president’s absurdist fantasies. Cynicism thy name is Cruz. And Hawley.

The assault that desecrated democracy just a few hours earlier prompted Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler and several of her GOP colleagues to reconsider their votes, acknowledging the harm of substantiating a myth of a stolen election that had already driven people to violence.

Not Cruz. With characteristic grating unctuousness, he continued to call for an “emergency audit” of the election results. By a vote of 93 to 6, his fellow senators shut him down.

Not every Texas Republican signed on. Cruz’s senior colleague, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, warned that challenging the election results would do “irreparable harm to our great democracy.”

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, whose district stretches from Austin to Houston, told the Chronicle that he voted to certify the election results because “if Congress chooses to ignore or second-guess the electoral votes cast by the states, it will set a dangerous precedent that could call into question the very institution of our democracy.”

Newly re-elected Congressman Chip Roy, whose district runs from Austin into the Hill Country, told his colleagues late Wednesday night that voting to confirm the presidential election results could be synonymous with signing his political death warrant.

“But so be it,” he said. “I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and I will not bend its words into contortions for political expediency.” Well done, sir.

U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, unable to vote because he tested positive for COVID-19, said he also would have voted to certify: “I would remain true to the conservative constitutional principles that guide me, and vote to accept the Electoral College votes as legally certified by each state.”

Here are the 16 Texans in the House who voted to flout democracy: Jodey Arrington of Lubbock; Brian Babin of Woodville; Michael Burgess of Pilot Point; John Carter of Round Rock; Michael Cloud of Victoria; Pat Fallon of Sherman; Louie Gohmert of Tyler; Lance Gooden of Terrell; Ronny Jackson of Amarillo; Troy Nehls of Richmond; August Pfluger of San Angelo; Pete Sessions of Waco; Beth Van Duyne of Irving; Randy Weber of Friendswood; Roger Williams of Austin; and Ron Wright of Arlington.

Notice that U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, the flamboyant former Navy SEAL who represents a Houston-area district, is not on the insurrectionist list.

“These people have been lied to en masse by the millions,” he said Thursday. “In the sense that they were led to believe Jan. 6 was anything but a political performance for a few opportunistic politicians to give a five-minute speech. That is all that it ever was. People were lied to.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, and yet Crenshaw is being disingenuous if he doesn’t acknowledge his role in perpetuating those lies. He was among the 126 House members who supported Paxton’s unsuccessful attempt to challenge the election results in four states. He could have been as open and honest with his constituents then as he was after the riot, and yet Crenshaw, who of all people knows that bravery comes with a cost, was unable for weeks to show that political courage.

In a Dec. 14 interview with this editorial board, Crenshaw tried to downplay the harm of joining Trump’s legal charade, arguing that it would be far more dangerous if people believed the legal process hadn’t been taken “as far as you can possibly take it.”

“You think it’s more damaging to let even the notion of a Trump win carry on,” he told the board. “… I don’t agree that that’s very damaging. I think a lot of people are upset. But they’re not going to do anything that’s harmful.”

How wrong he was. And he should acknowledge it.

We Texans need to remind ourselves that through the years we also have sent principled public servants to Congress, both Republicans and Democrats. Sam Rayburn comes to mind. So does Kay Bailey Hutchison. So does Barbara Jordan.

In this hour of crisis, Cruz and his craven colleagues need to step aside. Bigger, braver, more principled Texans must step up. Texas needs them. So does the nation.