Thread: Ted Cruz Adds to Home-State Support as Texas Primary Nears

Ted Cruz Adds to Home-State Support as Texas Primary Nears

• by Patrick Svitek
• Feb. 11, 2016

EnlargePhoto by Laura Buckman
Ted Cruz speaks during his presidential campaign rally at the Fort Worth Stockyards on Sept. 3, 2015.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is bolstering his home-field advantage with fewer than three weeks until the Texas primary, unveiling a raft of new endorsements from lawmakers in Austin and detailing his organization across the state for the March 1 nominating contest.

Cruz's presidential campaign announced Thursday that he now has the support of nearly half the Republicans in the Texas Legislature: 11 senators and 43 representatives. The newly expanded Texas Leadership Team also includes 57 chairs and co-chairs covering Texas' 36 congressional districts, as well as 462 chairs and co-chairs across the state's 254 counties.
"Conservatives in Texas have coalesced behind our campaign ahead of the March 1 Primary," Cruz said in a news release. "Our leadership team in Texas has continued to expand daily, and I’m proud of the tremendous support we’ve received from grassroots activists, elected officials, Republican women, Tea Party groups, Libertarian Republicans, and men and women from all across the Republican Party in Texas. I look forward to working together with these leaders all across the Lone Star state to be very competitive on March 1."

Cruz's campaign initially rolled out the endorsements of 41 state lawmakers in September. Since then, six more state senators and seven more state representatives have thrown their support behind Cruz. On the Senate side, the new endorsers are Charles Perry of Lubbock,Charles Schwertner of Georgetown, Paul Bettencourt of Houston, Donna Campbell of New Braunfels, Don Huffines of Dallas and Craig Estes of Wichita Falls. In the House, Cruz's latest backers are Phil King of Weatherford, Dustin Burrows of Lubbock, Ron Simmons of Carrollton, Scott Sanford of McKinney, Drew Springer of Muenster, Dwayne Bohac of Houston and Jonathan Stickland of Bedford.

Cruz's campaign is also claiming the support of almost half the members of the State Republican Executive Committee, the governing body of the Republican Party of Texas. Twenty-seven of its 61 sitting members are now backing the senator.

Cruz's Texas Leadership Team features two coalitions, one for Republican women and the other for Tea Party activists. Both have more than 100 members, with a number of prominent activists co-chairing each.

Cruz's campaign has previously announced the endorsements of seven GOP members of Texas' congressional delegation, or about a quarter of the Republicans representing the state in Washington, D.C. It has also already secured the support of four current and past statewide officials: former Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and railroad commissionersDavid Porter and Ryan Sitton.

While other GOP campaigns have been busy rolling out their own endorsements here — Marco Rubio's campaign announced its own expanded Texas Leadership Team on Thursday morning — few beside Cruz's are putting numbers to their organization at the level of counties and congressional districts. Donald Trump's campaign has said it has at least one coordinator in each congressional district and a chair in the 50-plus counties that comprise 70 to 80 percent of the primary electorate.


https://cms.texastribune.org/2016/02...primary-nears/

Sounds very Establishment.

Texas Tea Party Leader JoAnn Fleming Endorses Ted Cruz for President

Texas Tea Party Leader JoAnn Fleming Endorses Cruz for President
Fleming: "I am proud to be the Texas Tea Party Chairwoman for Cruz"

HOUSTON, Texas -- Today U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced that longtime conservative activists JoAnn Fleming will become the Texas Tea Party Chairwoman for Cruz for President.

“JoAnn is one of Texas’ most experienced activists and has a long record of leading the fight for conservative principles,” said Cruz. “She has been a supporter from the very beginning when no one thought I had a shot at even becoming a senator, and through her hard work and dedication we proved the establishment wrong. Under her leadership, I am certain we will see a groundswell of support from the grassroots in Texas, along with an army of volunteers and supporters to help us be very competitive in our home state.”

“Ted is a consistent fighter – standing strong for the rule of law, standing up for the American people, and standing against a big government that is squandering our heritage and our nation’s future,” said Fleming. “True to his word, Ted has taken on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the career politicians in both parties to return government to the people. He has stood up for conservatives on every issue that matters to us and has been a leading voice for our principles against the influence and power of the Washington Cartel. I am proud to be the Texas Tea Party Chairwoman for Cruz and look forward to making him the next President of the United States.”

JoAnn is an original member of the #CruzCrew and campaigned with Sen. Cruz when he was polling at 1% in the polls in his race for the US Senate and played a key role in his come from behind victory.

Fleming has been a leader in the constitutional conservative movement for twenty-three years and is the three-term Chair of the Texas Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee. In this unpaid role, she works directly with grassroots leaders from across the state and with legislators to develop and pass constitutionally conservative bills and to kill “big government” legislation.

She is the full-time volunteer Executive Director of Grassroots America – the largest constitutional conservative organization in East Texas and one of the largest in the state. She is a self-retired county commissioner; a sought-after public speaker, a guest political analyst for local media, and a frequent contributor to state political commentary. Fleming was a 2010 Texas Federation of Republican Women Outstanding Republican Woman and the Republican Party of Texas 2011 Volunteer of the Year from Senate District 3.

http://blog.4president.org/2016/2015...president.html

JoAnn is an original member of the #CruzCrew and campaigned with Sen. Cruz when he was polling at 1% in the polls in his race for the US Senate and played a key role in his come from behind victory.

Fleming has been a leader in the constitutional conservative movement for twenty-three years and is the three-term Chair of the Texas Legislature’s TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee. In this unpaid role, she works directly with grassroots leaders from across the state and with legislators to develop and pass constitutionally conservative bills and to kill “big government” legislation.

Has anyone told her that under the constitutional conservative view of the US Constitution, her candidate isn't eligible to run for President because he was born in Canada to a Cuban-Canadian father instead of in the US to 2 US citizens?

These people really make me laugh.

Originally Posted by Judy

Has anyone told her that under the constitutional conservative view of the US Constitution, her candidate isn't eligible to run for President because he was born in Canada to a Cuban-Canadian father instead of in the US to 2 US citizens?

These people really make me laugh.

That argument is getting old and we've had the discussion until it has become ad nauseam. IMO, it's time to move on.

You're under instructions from ALIPAC not to address me and you've already violated that numerous times. Please stop or I'll report it. Address the article, not me, not my words, no quotes. Got it?

Ted Cruz announces Dan Patrick’s endorsement

By Claire RickePublished: October 26, 2015, 7:54 am Updated: October 26, 2015, 5:17 pm


AUSTIN (KXAN) — Republican Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz is picking up the endorsement of one of the most powerful men in Texas.

The Texas Senator announced today that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick will endorse Cruz and serve as the Texas chairman of Cruz’s campaign.

Cruz is one of several Republican presidential candidates with Texas ties.

The Associated Press says in the first nine months of the year, Cruz raised more than three times as much in the state as Jeb Bush.

http://kxan.com/2015/10/26/ted-cruz-...s-endorsement/

Dan Patrick has called illegal immigration an invasion and said immigrants bring 'Third-World diseases'

By W. Gardner Selby on Friday, June 20th, 2014 at 6:00 a.m.
Jeremy Bird of Battleground Texas made his comments about Dan Patrick, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, to Bloomberg TV on June 10, 2014.

A claim about Dan Patrick by an organizer for Battleground Texas, the pro-Democratic group, rang a bell.

In a June 10, 2014, interview on Bloomberg TV, Jeremy Bird said Patrick, the Houston state senator who dusted incumbent David Dewhurst in the May 2014 primary runoff for the Republican lieutenant governor nomination, has "called immigration into Texas an invasion" and "said immigrants coming into Texas bring ‘third-world diseases.’ "

We looked into whether Patrick made these statements and, if so, whether facts backed them up.

Patrick: ‘Stop the invasion’

Patrick, championing his desire to secure the Texas-Mexico border, has often called to stop "the invasion," referring to individuals who cross the border without legal documentation.
Spokeswoman Lynda Tran of Battleground Texas noted by email, Patrickhas an undated online post in which he asks supporters to donate "if you agree we must stop the illegal invasion!"
According to a January 2014 news story in the Dallas Morning News, Patrick and another GOP aspirant blasted Dewhurst in a Jan. 27 debate for not doing more to secure the Texas border from illegal immigration. "The first question is to stop the invasion," Patrick said. "Until you secure the border, you cannot address any other issues."

It wasn’t a new cry. A Feb. 24, 2006, Texas Observer story described Patrick, then waging his first Senate campaign, as blaming illegal immigrants for a rising crime rate, overcrowded schools, an overburdened health-care system and runaway growth in the state budget. "The number one problem we are facing," the Observer quoted Patrick as saying, "is the silent invasion of the border. We are being overrun. It is imperiling our safety."

More recently, Patrick shelved such language. A June 7, 2014, Texas Tribune news story said Patrick didn’t use the "invasion" term at that week’s Republican Party of Texas convention. Instead, the story said, he called on Republicans to reach out to Hispanic voters by telling them "that we stand with them for the future of their family" and that only the GOP would work to secure their communities.

U.S. Border Patrol figures show its apprehensions of individuals crossing the country’s southern border declined 69 percent from a little over 1 million in the fiscal year running through September 2006 to nearly 328,000 five years later. But such apprehensions bumped up 27 percent, to 414,397,as of two years later, in fiscal 2013, the agency says. Since 2011, there’s been a surge in people from countries other than Mexico, including many minors from Central America.

‘They are bringing Third World diseases’

The Observer story revealed Patrick’s claims about disease along the border, saying Patrick characterized illegal immigrants as walking pathogens. "They are bringing Third World diseases with them," Patrick said, citing "tuberculosis, malaria, polio and leprosy."
But the story quoted a physician, identified as Tim Metz, the top epidemiologist at the Texas Department of State Health Services, as saying there wasn’t a known case of polio in the Western Hemisphere when Patrick spoke "and we haven't seen it in decades."

According to the Observer, Metz said malaria, a tropical disease spread by the anopheline mosquito, is easily treated and remains "a rare disease in Texas and not a huge problem." Leprosy, he said, is known today as Hansen's disease and "we have no more than 50 cases a year that are reported, but it's not on the rise." As for TB, the physician told theObserver, "we'll have 1,500 or so cases in Texas this year, which might be a slight increase, but we've got very effective TB-control programs in every local health department in the state."

For our part, we didn’t identify anyone by the name of Tim Metz. When we asked the Texas Department of State Health Services for guidance, spokesman Chris Van Deusen said by email that Tom Betz (not Tim Metz) was at one time the manager of the agency’s Infectious Disease Surveillance and Epidemiology branch.

Van Deusen didn’t directly speak to what Patrick reportedly said in 2006, but he indicated immigrants aren’t showing up as bringing most of the diseases listed by Patrick.
Polio, Van Deusen said, has been eradicated from the Western hemisphere and "we don’t generally see cases in Texas.

Van Deusen said about 100 cases of malaria are annually reported in the state. All are imported, he said, and it’s not spread person to person in Texas. "It’s generally related to travel, either people from here visiting parts of the world where malaria is endemic or people from abroad visiting the U.S., rather than immigration," he said.

Cases of Hansen’s disease -- or what has been called leprosy -- are reported, Van Deusen said, with one third related to armadillos; one third tied to "old European families that have a genetic susceptibility;" and one third "related to immigration from areas of the world where the disease is more common, irrespective of the type of immigration."

In April 2014, Patrick suggested critics distort what he said in 2006.
Patrick bridled after San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro said to him in an immigration debate aired by Univision and posted online by the Texas Tribune: "You have talked about undocumented immigrants bringing third-world diseases including leprosy and polio to Texas. You have said that we’re seeing an illegal invasion from Mexico."

Patrick shot back that his comment about disease in 2006 was based on information distributed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control indicating tuberculosis cases were up nationally and in Texas, "particularly along the Texas-Mexico border--and those cases were coming from Latin America," Patrick said.

A 2012 CDC tuberculosis fact sheet states the disease had decreased in prevalence nationally. Some 9,945 TB cases (an average of 3.2 cases per 100,000 persons) were reported, the sheet says, and the 2012 count was the lowest since national reporting of TB commenced in 1953. Still, Texas, California and Florida were among a few states with an average number of cases exceeding the national average, according to a map with the fact sheet.

Van Deusen said about half the state’s decreasing number of TB cases show up in residents born abroad. "TB often crops up in immigrant populations because of the nature of the disease where a person can be exposed to the bacteria but not develop active disease for many, many years," he wrote. "In fact, the vast majority of people who get the tuberculosis bacteria in their body will never go on to develop active TB disease because their immune systems will keep the bacteria in check."

In the Univision debate, Patrick said he’d previously mentioned leprosy because the World Health Organization reported that from 2010 to 2012, cases increased in Mexico and the U.S. An online search led us to a WHO chart indicating U.S. cases of leprosy increased from 169 in 2010 to 168 in 2011 to 173 in 2012 with cases in Mexico going from 211 in 2010 up to 216 in 2011 and down to 215 in 2012.

We asked Patrick’s campaign about Battleground Texas’s claim and the reports that Patrick described and didn’t hear back.

Our ruling

The Battleground Texas activist said Patrick has "called immigration into Texas an invasion" and Patrick has "said immigrants coming into Texas bring ‘third-world diseases.’"
This year and earlier, Patrick referred to illegal immigration as an invasion that he wants to stopper. In 2006, he was quoted as saying illegal immigrants bring third-world diseases to the state.

Both claims have weaknesses, but we're not judging Patrick's veracity here. The Democratic group's statement is True.

---

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.

http://www.politifact.com/texas/stat...ation-invasio/

Originally Posted by Judy

You're under instructions from ALIPAC not to address me and you've already violated that numerous times. Please stop or I'll report it. Address the article, not me, not my words, no quotes. Got it?

Please go ahead and report me because I never agreed to not respond to anything you said. To my knowledge this is an open forum and no one should be able to say whatever they want without expecting a response and they shouldn't be threatened against doing so. What I agreed to do is not disrespect you, which I haven't. My comment was an expression of my feelings, not an attempt to degrade or disrespect you. Furthermore, you knew very well that your response to the article I posted would provoke a response from me. I'm just hopeful that wasn't your purpose of making it.

P.S. I created a positive thread for one of the two candidates I support. Why did you feel it was necessary to bash him twice with opinion?

http://www.alipac.us/f9/tea-party-le...sident-328786/

http://www.alipac.us/f9/exclusive-go...sident-328915/