Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared this week that Congress’s popularity “rivals that of Ebola,” and the reason for that is “the American people recognize that the people in this body aren’t telling them the truth.”
Cruz made that assertion Wednesday on the Senate floor in a heated debate with two Democrats over his efforts to gut President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – a 2012 executive order that grants many young illegal immigrants temporary protection from deportation. Cruz contends the program is tantamount to “amnesty” and encouraged tens of thousands of young children from Central America to swarm across the southwest border in recent years.
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A potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate and one of the Capitol’s preeminent political mischief-makers, Cruz fulminated over a Democratic maneuver that blocked his attempt to call up and vote on a House-passed bill that would kill the DACA executive action. It would prevent Obama from extending that protection to as many as five million other undocumented immigrants after the Nov. 4 election.
Cruz was trying to put a handful of politically endangered Senate Democrats from Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina and elsewhere on the spot before the election by having to uphold Obama’s unpopular “amnesty” policy.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) blasted Cruz for grandstanding and playing politics with the lives of millions of illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in this country for decades, as well as the many children and young mothers who have crossed the border more recently. Durbin accused Cruz and his Republican colleagues in the House of “glorying in the possibility that you can deport these children.”
It was just another day at the office for Cruz, who has become a master at probing for Democratic weaknesses that can be turned to the GOP’s advantage in this critical election year -- a mid-term election that will determine whether the Republicans can regain control of the Senate and retain their sizable majority in the House.
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As for Cruz’s characterization of the contempt that Americans feel for many of his fellow lawmakers, Congress actually outpolled the deadly Ebola virus in popularity, 47 percent to 28 percent in an October 2013 survey by Public Policy Polling. The firebrand Texas Republican would have been more accurate saying that Congress is less popular than hemorrhoids, dog poop, toenail fungus and cockroaches – all findings confirmed by that same poll.
If polling is to be believed, Americans are even more disgusted with perpetual congressional partisan gridlock that among other things led to a 16-day government shutdown last fall, helped in no small measure by Cruz in a budget battle over Obamacare. The 113th Congress is well on its way to producing less substantive legislation than just about any other Congress in modern times, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
With less than two months to go before the election, just 14 percent of Americans say they approve of how Congress is handling its job, according to Gallup. This rating is one of the lowest the polling organization has recorded in the fall before a mid-term election since 1974.
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Meanwhile, In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, 51 percent of Americans said that they disapprove of the way their own representative in Congress is “handling his or her job.” This was “the first time in 25 years that the number of Americans who disapprove of their own Congress member has risen to more than 50 percent,” according to the Post.
Both parties play political games and exploit Senate and House rules to the hilt, but few are as good at hogging the spotlight in doing so as the freshman Republican from Texas. And many in both parties have been furious over his antics.
“I think Ted Cruz’s act is wearing pretty thin,” William Galston, a government policy expert with the Brookings Institute and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, told The Fiscal Times Thursday. “Colleagues were not amused last fall when he led them into and then down a cul de sac, and I think they are even less pleased now. He’s grandstanding for personal political advantage. I think his colleagues know it. He’s trying to become the national leader of the ‘Hell No’ caucus of the Republican Party.”
Related: GOP Completely Unleashes on Ted Cruz
After failing to force a vote on Obama’s immigration executive order on Wednesday, Cruz quickly pivoted and sought to exploit the House Republican leadership’s decision to postpone a vote on a new continuing resolution until next week, to address Obama’s request for spending authority to arm and train Syrian Free Army rebels.
The must-pass stopgap-spending bill is designed to fund the government through Dec. 11, in order to give members of Congress time to return and complete work on appropriations legislation after the Nov. 4 election. Cruz “publicly lobbied House Republicans to rewrite their spending bill” so that it expires during the next Congress rather than the lame duck, according to Politico.
Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) also sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) vowing to object to swift consideration of “any non-emergency, substantial and controversial legislation, nominations, or treaties.”
Related: Decoding Cruz: 21 Things You Don’t Know About Him
“Americans cannot trust politicians they can no longer hold accountable at the ballot box,” Cruz said in a statement, Politico said. “The continuing resolution should, at a minimum, fund government operations until after the new Congress is sworn in next year; House and Senate Republicans should both insist on this basic principle.
To his credit, Cruz is not afraid to roil the waters with conservatives as well as liberal Democrats. He capped Wednesday night by walking off the stage mid-speech and leaving an event sponsored by a Christian organization after being booed for praising Israel.
According to media reports, Cruz was a keynote speaker at a Washington summit hosted by In Defense of Christians, a group described as focusing on persecuted Christian and minority communities in the Middle East. Cruz reportedly angered many at the gathering by offering strong support for Israel, saying at one point: “Christians have no greater ally than Israel” — a comment that drew boos.
“I told the attendees that those who hate Israel also hate America,” Cruz told Breitbart News. “That those who hate Jews also hate Christians. And that anyone who hates Israel and the Jewish people is not following the teachings of Christ. These statements were met with angry boos.”
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