Thread: House Republicans: Ted Cruz killed our amnesty

House Republicans: Ted Cruz killed our amnesty

posted at 6:41 pm on February 13, 2014 by Allahpundit

There’s no man or woman in red-state America these days with more power than Cruz to set a new conservative litmus test. But c’mon: How many of you need to be formally warned at this point by your favorite Republican that the House is looking to sell out border hawks on immigration reform? It’s like blaming Rand Paul for turning libertarians against the NSA. He plays a useful role in bringing attention to the issue, but those people turned on their own initiative ages ago. Same here.
Cruz won’t mind being blamed for this one, though.

House Republicans who supported the “principles” of immigration reform floated by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, late last month grumbled Tuesday that the plan was dead on arrival because Cruz blasted it as “amnesty,” spurring a blizzard of negative phone calls to House Republicans…

Later that day [on January 30th, when the House GOP released its immigration principles], while Boehner was closeted with colleagues miles from the nation’s capital, Cruz used back-to-back television appearances to invoke the politically charged word “amnesty” to characterize the legalization offered by Boehner’s plan.

By the time the GOP caucus broke up and Boehner headed back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 31, the House speaker was backtracking. Republican lawmakers so distrusted President Obama’s readiness to enforce any immigration law that GOP lawmakers would not support immigration reform before the 2014 midterm congressional elections in November, Boehner declared.

Asked about his influential remarks Tuesday, Cruz said the Boehner plan was “inconsistent with the rule of law” and “a political mistake,” adding that he was “glad to see Republicans in the House agreed.”

Would any tea-party Republicans in the House have embraced the leadership’s immigration plan if Cruz had kept quiet? It’s not pressure from big-name conservatives that keeps them in line, it’s the fact that they come from overwhelmingly red districts and know what backing amnesty would mean for their primary chances. The more interesting thought experiment is what would have happened if Cruz had shocked the world and declared that Boehner’s plan sounded promising. That might have shaken loose some conservative votes for amnesty; there’s no sturdier political cover on the right at the moment than being able to say that Ted Cruz supports your position. I wonder if he’s ever tempted to do it, if only to bigfoot rivals like Rubio and Rand Paul by showing them he can bring righties around on an immigration deal to an extent that they can’t. Or maybe he doubts that he even has that much cachet. If Rubio’s tea-party cred could be incinerated in one stroke by trying to lead on this issue, why on earth would Cruz touch it?

His next conservative venture, incidentally, is the State Marriage Defense Act, which he introduced with Mike Lee yesterday. That’s a response both to the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision last year, striking down part of DOMA, and to Holder’s announcement earlier this week that the DOJ will begin acknowledging same-sex marriages as legitimate for federal legal purposes (e.g., invoking the spousal privilege during federal trials) regardless of whether the underlying state law recognizes them or not. Cruz’s and Lee’s bill would force the feds to follow state marriage law as guidance on that. It’s going nowhere in the Senate, needless to say, but it’s a smart bit of politics in both tackling a subject of social conservative concern and proposing a federalist solution to it that centrists can live with.

Tags: amnesty, border, enforcement, immigration, Republicans, security, Ted Cruz

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http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/1...d-our-amnesty/

Ted Cruz Derails Amnesty; What’s Next?

Posted By Frank Camp on Feb 14, 2014

“Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.” – Martin Luther

Not only must man do his own believing, but he must act on that belief. So often, politicians meld into a single organism, seemingly designed to screw us all over. Additionally, they make wildly irrational decisions, not based on the will of their constituency, or the desire to uphold the rule of law, but rather based on their own fears, and selfish desires. If that is the current state of politics, what is the point of elections? What are we voting for?

This malaise and this disillusionment with politics has become so thick in our culture that we have become sadly cynical. This cynicism has allowed many bad men and women to rise to power, and stay there. We have become powerless in our own government. We have lost control of the leaders that we chose.

It is a rare thing that someone comes to power in Washington with a seemingly pure intent. Follow the will of the people. Do what your constituency wants, not what you want. Speak out against corruption, without fear of reproach. We have several (very few) like this in Washington today. Among these people are Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, and Ted Cruz. These four are some of the most outspoken people in and out of Washington, and they are being heard. The leader of the political pack is the quickly rising star, Ted Cruz. He has been responsible for keeping the Senate, and even the House, in check. A lone man has succeeded in accomplishing incredible things, including the shutdown, due in large part to standing on his principles. He often stands alone. According to Tony Lee, it is thought that it was Cruz who deflated Boehner’s amnesty plan. Shortly after the unveiling of the plan, Cruz came out against it, calling it what it was: amnesty.

“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…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.”

We have a fighter here. We have someone who actually has our interests at heart. We have a man who has power simply because he often stands alone, propped up by the words of our founders. If it is true that Cruz’s denouncement of the bill was what killed it, we owe him a debt of gratitude. Cruz seems as though he will continue to fight as long as he has the power to do so.


It’s time to regain our integrity. It’s time to take back our enthusiasm. It’s time to regain control of Washington. The only way to do that is to stop accepting slaps to the face, and actually care what happens. The only way to take our country back is to support Ted Cruz, and those like him, because, if we don’t, if we sit back in a state of complacency, and behave only as spectators, we are at fault. It is our responsibility to mold Washington to our liking.

Support Ted Cruz, support Mike Lee, and support Sarah Palin. Without our help, they can only stand in the wind for so long.

Read more at http://lastresistance.com/4749/ted-cruz-derails-amnesty-whats-next/#ZMwPdugEqYRJ22Ys.99

House Republicans who supported the “principles” of immigration reform floated by Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, late last month grumbled Tuesday that the plan was dead on arrival because Cruz blasted it as “amnesty,” spurring a blizzard of negative phone calls to House Republicans…

Doesn't mean it is stopped not one bit, and amnesty is still amnesty no matter what they will try and label it. I wouldn't trust a single one of those creepy, lying, sneaky, politicians..Those days are over for me..Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and the like are doing a good job but isn't that what their job entails, doing the people's work, protecting the Constitution and serving?????