Thread: Ted Cruz: House GOP's Amnesty Push Will Ruin Hopes of Retaking Senate

by Matthew Boyle 30 Jan 2014, 10:43 AM PDT
breitbart.com



Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) thinks that the House GOP leadership’s renewed push this week to grant amnesty to illegal aliens would destroy the Republican Party’s chances at retaking the Senate in 2014.

Cruz questioned how establishment Republicans unilaterally caving to Democrats on everything from the farm bill to the budget to the debt ceiling and more could think amnesty is a good idea at this time.

"Right now, Republican leadership in both chambers is aggressively urging members to stand down on virtually every front: on the continuing resolution, on the budget, on the farm bill, on the debt ceiling,” Cruz said in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News on Thursday.

He continued:

"They may or may not be right, but their argument is that we should focus exclusively on Obamacare and on jobs. In that context, why on earth would the House dive into immigration right now? It makes no sense, unless you're Harry Reid. Republicans are poised for an historic election this fall--a conservative tidal wave much like 2010. The biggest thing we could do to mess that up would be if the House passed an amnesty bill--or any bill perceived as an amnesty bill--that demoralized voters going into November. Rather than responding to the big-money lobbying on K Street, we need to make sure working-class Americans show up by the millions to reject Obamacare and vote out the Democrats. Amnesty will ensure they stay home."

Cruz added that granting amnesty now--while wrong in his opinion at any time--would ensure Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remains in his position in after the 2014 elections.

"Amnesty is wrong in any circumstance, and if we are going to fix our broken immigration system--and we should--it makes much more sense to do so next year, so that we are negotiating a responsible solution with a Republican Senate majority rather than with Chuck Schumer,” Cruz said. “Anyone pushing an amnesty bill right now should go ahead and put a 'Harry Reid for Majority Leader' bumper sticker on their car, because that will be the likely effect if Republicans refuse to listen to the American people and foolishly change the subject from Obamacare to amnesty.”

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By Ed O'Keefe and Robert Costa
February 4 at 6:14 pm
The Washington Post


Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

While congressional Republican leaders may be pushing colleagues to keep focus this election year on concerns with the new health-care law and the nation's economy, Cruz said he's been concerned that House Republicans appear to be renewing their push to enact new immigration legislation, or what he described as "a massive amnesty bill."

House Republican leaders said last week for the first time that they would be open to allowing the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants to live and work legally in the United States, but they emphasized that most would not be offered a “special path” to achieve citizenship.

“Whether or not you agree with Republican leadership strategy of avoiding every fight on every topic to keep the focus on Obamacare, it makes utterly no sense to affirmatively, voluntarily change the topic to amnesty right before what is poised to be an historic election victory for Republicans," Cruz told The Post on Tuesday. "I guarantee you President Obama and Harry Reid are dancing in their offices at the desire of the Washington beltway crowd to light themselves on fire.”

Cruz said he remains eager to enact "common-sense immigration reform" that would include securing the U.S.-Mexico border and an agreement to "improve and streamline legal immigration." But, he added: "The time to do so is next year when we have a strong Republican majority in the Senate, when we're negotiating with a Republican majority and not with Chuck Schumer."

Schumer (D-N.Y.) and seven other Democratic and Republican senators wrote a bipartisan immigration reform measure that passed the Senate last year.

Cruz went further, suggesting that the GOP focus on immigration "makes utterly no sense unless your objective is to keep Harry Reid as majority leader. Anyone pushing for Congress to take up amnesty right now — which if it passed would keep millions of Americans home in November, it’s the one thing that could maintain a Democratic majority — is if Congress goes out of its way to affirmatively pass an amnesty bill. And anyone pushing that right now should go ahead and put a ‘Harry Reid for Majority Leader’ bumper sticker on their car."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...1-f0feafdd1394