Ted Cruz is the junior U.S. Senator from Texas. Elected in
2012 as a Republican, he’s been branded a rebel since he often takes
positions that aggravate older, more senior lawmakers, (even within his
own party). His self-professed goal is to fan the flames of conservatism
lit by Ronald Reagan.
.
.
.
Rafael
Edward “Ted” Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, on December 22, 1970,
where his parents, Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson Darragh and Rafael
Bienvenido Cruz were living while working in the energy exploration
field. His parents had just launched a seismic-data processing business
supporting oil drillers.
.
Cruz’s father was born in 1939 in Matanzas, Cuba and “
suffered beatings and imprisonment for protesting the oppressive regime” of then Dictator Fulgencio Batista.
The elder Cruz says that when he was fourteen, he fought alongside
Fidel Castro’s forces to overthrow Batista, Cuba’s U.S.-backed dictator.
He was later to become a staunch critic of Castro when the rebel leader
took control and began seizing private property and suppressing
dissent, it was then that he learned that Castro was a Communist.
By 1957, spurred by his aversion to the Castro regime, the
18-year-old Cruz decided to get out of Cuba by applying to the
University of Texas. Upon being admitted, he got a four-year student
visa at the U.S. Consulate in Havana and moved to Austin, Texas to study
at the University of Texas.
“
I came to this country legally,” Cruz’s father says. “
I came here with a legal visa, and … every step of the way, I have been here legally.“
He arrived in Austin knowing no English and with only $100 sewn into
his underwear. He worked his way through college as a dishwasher, making
50 cents an hour, subsequently earning a degree in mathematics.
His younger sister fought in the counter-revolution and was tortured
by the new regime. He remained regretful for his early support of
Castro, and emphatically conveyed his feelings to young Ted over the
following years.
Today, Cruz’s father is now a pastor in Carrollton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. He became a U.S. citizen in 2005.
.
Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Darragh, the second-youngest of 17 children,
was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, in a family of Irish and
Italian descent. She was the first person in her family to attend
college. She earned a degree in mathematics from Rice University in
Houston in the 1950s, while working summers at Foley’s Department Store
and Shell Oil. She later worked in Houston as a computer programmer at
Shell.
She was four years older than Rafael Cruz when they met. He had two
daughters from a previous marriage who spent summers with the couple.
The couple moved to Canada, and co-founded a seismic-data processing
business, supporting the oil exploration that was enjoying a boom there.
Ted was born three days before Christmas in 1970 in Calgary, where his
parents’ were living at the time.
Three years later, while living in Alberta, a slump hit the price of
oil and Raphael and Darragh sold their business. They separated shortly
thereafter and Raphael moved back to Houston. Six months later, in 1974,
Darragh also returned to Houston, though they remained estranged.
Cruz was away at Princeton University when his parents’ second business foundered and they later divorced. “
The oil industry had really taken a dive and they had gone bankrupt – they lost everything when oil tanked,” Cruz said.
.
Education
As Ted was growing up, “he was very curious and very determined,” his
mother recalled. It wasn’t until Ted was well along in grade school,
though, that Darragh grasped he might be intellectually gifted.
She chauffeured him to a series of private and church-related
schools. Some were far from home. They included Montessori and Southern
Baptist institutions, as well as a school that he recalled had many
Jewish students and another, the Awty International School that his
mother said enrolled children of French diplomats.
“
I wasn’t that aware that he was precocious,” Darragh said.
“He was my only child.”
Cruz attended high school at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas, (a
small city of 15,000, about 30 miles west of Houston) and later
graduated from Second Baptist High School in Houston as valedictorian in
1988.
After high school, he enrolled in Princeton University.
Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton in 1992. While at Princeton,
he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society’s Debate Panel and
won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating
Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship. In 1992,
he was also named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and Team of the
Year (with his debate partner, David Panton). Cruz was also a
semi-finalist at the 1995 World Universities Debating Championship.
“
He’s a person of strong opinions,” said Robert P. George, a jurisprudence professor who was Cruz’s mentor at Princeton. “
But he’s a person who earns his right to his opinions by understanding the best arguments on the other side.”
Cruz’s senior thesis was on the separation of powers, titled “
Clipping the Wings of Angels” and drew its inspiration from a passage attributed to President James Madison: “
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect
the rights of their constituents, and the last two items in the Bill of
Rights offered an explicit stop against an all-powerful state. Cruz
wrote: “
They simply do so from different directions. The Tenth stops new powers, and the Ninth fortifies all other rights, or non-powers.”
After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating
magna cum laude in 1995. While at Harvard Law, Cruz was a primary editor of the
Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the
Harvard Latino Law Review.
Referring to Cruz’s time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “
Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant.” Cruz was a “
terrific student,” “
He
was always very active in class, presenting a libertarian point of
view. He didn’t strike me as a social conservative, more of a
libertarian.”
“
He had brilliant insights and he was clearly among the top students, as revealed by his class responses,” “
Without a doubt he is among the smartest
students I’ve ever had… I’ve had great students but he has to be at the
top of anyone’s short list, in terms of raw brain power.” Dershowitz added.
It’s going to be rather difficult for the left to paint Ted Cruz as
“dumb” or a “knuckle-dragger,” when a noted liberal like famed Harvard
Law School’s Alan Dershowitz has such high praise for Cruz’s brainpower.
.
After college
Cruz served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1995 and William Rehnquist,
Chief Justice of the United States in 1996. Cruz was the first Hispanic
ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.
After Cruz finished his clerkships, he took a position with Cooper,
Carvin & Rosenthal, now known as Cooper & Kirk, LLC, for a
couple of years from 1997 to 1998.
In 1998, Cruz served as private counsel for Congressman John
Boehner during Boehner’s lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for
releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.
Cruz joined the Bush-Cheney campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy
adviser, advising President George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and
legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice,
constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.
Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devise strategy, and
draft pleadings in the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts during the 2000
Florida presidential recounts, winning twice in the U.S. Supreme Court.
After President Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy
attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department and as the director of
policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
.
Cruz serves Texas
On January 9, 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz
to the office of Solicitor General of Texas. At 33 years old, he was
the youngest solicitor general in American history. Cruz served in that
position from 2003 to 2008.
The following year, Cruz accepted a teaching invitation by the
University of Texas School of Law and served as an Adjunct Professor of
Law until 2009.
Cruz has authored more than 80 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including
nine before the United States Supreme Court.
Cruz’s record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is
more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of
Congress. Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S.
Supreme Court: “
We ended up year after year arguing some of the
biggest cases in the country. There was a degree of serendipity in that,
but there was also a concerted effort to seek out and lead conservative
fights.”
In the landmark case of
District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz
drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which
said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon
the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Cruz also presented
oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to
Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In addition to his victory in
Heller, Cruz has successfully
defended the constitutionality of Ten Commandments monument on the
Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S.
Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in
Van Orden v. Perry.
Cruz authored a U.S. Supreme Court brief for all 50 states
successfully defending the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in
public schools, winning 9-0 in
Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.
Cruz served as lead counsel for the state and successfully defended
the multiple litigation challenges to the 2003 Texas congressional
redistricting plan in state and federal district courts and before the
U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5-4 in
League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.
Cruz also successfully defended, in
Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the
International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.
During his time as Solicitor General of Texas, Cruz was widely viewed
as one of the top constitutional litigators in the country, and in
2010, was named as one of the “25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past
Quarter Century” by the respected weekly newspaper Texas Lawyer. Several
other publications, namely, Chambers USA, Legal 500, and Law 360,
referred to him as one of the top appellate litigators in the country.
.
Private Practice
After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008, he worked in a
private law firm in Houston, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, often
representing corporate clients, until he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator
in 2013. At Morgan, Lewis, he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and
national appellate litigation practice.
Disclosures show Cruz has earned $1.5 million to $1.7 million
annually representing about 30 major corporations as a partner at Morgan
Lewis, specializing in so-called “high stakes” corporate appeals.
.
Ted Cruz, U.S. Senator
Cruz’s election to the U.S. Senate has been described by the
Washington Post as “
the biggest upset of 2012 . . . a true grassroots victory against very long odds.”
On January 19, 2011, after U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she
would not seek reelection, Cruz announced his candidacy.
In the Republican senatorial primary, Cruz ran against sitting
Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Cruz was endorsed by the Club for
Growth, a fiscally conservative political action committee; Erick
Erickson, editor of prominent conservative blog RedState; the
FreedomWorks for America super PAC; nationally syndicated radio host
Mark Levin; former Attorney General Edwin Meese; Tea Party Express;
Young Conservatives of Texas; and U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint,
Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Pat Toomey.
He was also endorsed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and former
Texas Congressman Ron Paul, George P. Bush and former U.S. Senator from
Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.
Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination with a 14-point
margin over Dewhurst. In the November 6 general election, Cruz faced
Democrat Paul Sadler, an attorney and a former state representative from
Henderson, in east Texas. Cruz won with 4.5 million votes (56.4%) to
Sadler’s 3.2 million (40.6%) to become Texas’ junior senator; John
Cornyn is currently the state’s senior Senator. Two minor candidates got
the remaining 3% of the vote. Cruz got 40% of the Hispanic vote.
.
Political positions
Cruz is a gun-rights supporter. On March 25, 2013, an announcement
was made by Cruz and U.S. Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee threatening
that they would filibuster any legislation that would entail gun
control, such as the Manchin-Toomey Amendment, which would require
additional background checks on sales at gun shows.
On April 17, 2013, Cruz voted against the Manchin-Toomey Amendment.
Republicans successfully filibustered the amendment by a vote of 54–46,
as 60 votes were needed for cloture.
Cruz also supports a federal definition of marriage and opposes same-sex marriage.
He favors building a border wall, boots on the ground and greater
militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. He is also opposed to the
Dream Act.
Regarding foreign policy, Cruz has stated that America had no “
dog in the fight” during the Syrian civil war.
He believes that much of federal government – including the U.S.
Dept. of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts and the IRS –
should be abolished to pay down national debt.
He is
against UN Agenda 21, a scheme Cruz says was originated
by George Soros. In case you’re unfamiliar with Agenda 21, know this:
Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Harry Reid are for it – need I say more?
Here is a link to more about
Agenda 21.
He has stated that he believes that “
Sharia law is an enormous problem” in this country.
In an interview with the
Texas Tribune Cruz labeled Social
Security a “ponzi scheme” and outlined a three-step plan to gut the
program. Cruz would raise the Social Security retirement age, cut future
benefits, and implement a George W. Bush-style plan to privatize much
of the program.
.
Selected Senate Votes
- S. 744 Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration
Modernization Act, Cruz voted “Nay” with 31 others. Cloture invoked.
- S. Amdt 1197, Required the Completion of the Fence Along the United
States-Mexico Border, Cruz voted “Yea” with 38 others. Amendment
rejected.
- S. Amdt 711, Establishes Regulations for Assault Weapons, Cruz voted “Nay” with 59 others. Amendment rejected.
- S. Amdt 714, Limits Firearm Magazine Capacity, Cruz voted “Nay” with 54 others, Amendment rejected.
- S. Amdt 715, Required Background Checks for All Firearm Purchases, Cruz voted “Nay” with 45 others. Amendment rejected.
- S. Amdt 719, Authorizes Reciprocity for the Carrying of Certain
Concealed Firearms, Cruz voted “Yea” with 42 others. Amendment rejected.
- S. Amdt 139, Prohibits the United States From Entering into the
United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, Cruz voted “Yea” with 52 others.
Amendment adopted.
- S. Con Res 8, Budget Continuing Resolution, Cruz voted “Nay” with 48 others. Joint resolution passed.
- S. Amdt 66, Temporarily Freezes the Hiring of Nonessential Federal
Employees, Cruz voted “Yea” with 53 others. Amendment rejected.
- S. Amdt 30, To Prohibit the Use of Funds to Carry Out the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act. Cruz is a sponsor of this
legislation.
A Few Cruz Quotes
Cruz said: “
We need to return to the framers’ vision of a constitutionally limited federal government,” he said. “
Unchecked government power always threatens liberty.”
He is also fond of a quote from the curriculum he studied at the Storey Free Enterprise Education Center: “
Government is never a source of goods. Everything that government gives you; it must first take from you.”
To sum up Cruz’s philosophy in one sentence, he says, “
I will go to my grave with Ronald Wilson Reagan defining what it means to be president.”
.
Is Cruz qualified to be President?
This question is already at the forefront of any discussion of Cruz
and his possible presidential aspirations. The immediate knee-jerk
reaction of those who are in the “anti-Cruz” camp is that he was born in
Canada and based on that alone, is ineligible. But that’s simply an
uninformed statement and the ineligible part isn’t true.
The Constitution defines three requirements to be President: one must
be 35 years of age, a resident within the United States for 14 years,
and a “
natural born Citizen.” Cruz fulfills the first two requirements easily.
The only questionable area is the term “natural born Citizen.”
The qualifications to be President of the United States are set out in the Constitution, at Article II, Section 1, clause 5:
“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the
United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall
be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be
eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty
five Years, and been Fourteen Years a Resident within the United
States.”
The majority of legal and historical opinion has been that Cruz
would be eligible
given that he was a U.S. citizen at birth as his mother was a U.S.
citizen who lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years. On August 19,
2013,
The most authoritative and unbiased source short of the U.S. Supreme Court, would be the
Congressional Research Service.
In case you aren’t familiar with the CRS, they are a legislative
branch agency within the Library of Congress and work exclusively for
the United States Congress. They provide policy and legal analysis to
committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party
affiliation. The CRS is well-known for analysis that is authoritative,
confidential, objective and nonpartisan.
CRS reviewed the natural-born issue in a November 14, 2011 report
based on questions relating to president Obama’s qualifications.
Coincidentally, the 53-page report also covers Cruz’s situation. It
concludes that someone born abroad to an American parent
could legally qualify to be president. You can read the full report (.pdf)
here.
Here is an excerpt from the CRS report that highlights a major
difference between the circumstances of Senator Cruz’s birth and that of
president Obama, as it relates to the natural-born qualification:
The importance to some in arguing that President Obama was born
outside of the United States is that, given that the President’s father
was not a U.S. citizen at the time of the President’s birth, the federal
laws then, in 1961, would have required for citizenship “at birth” of
one born outside of the United States to only one citizen-parent,
that such citizen-parent have resided in the United States for not less
than ten years, at least five of which were after the age of fourteen
(8 U.S.C. §1401(a)(7)) (1958 ed.), a requirement that the President’s
mother, because of her age, would not have met.
The statement that covers Cruz’s specific situation concludes:
“The weight of more recent federal cases, as well as the majority
of scholarship on the subject, also indicates that the term ‘natural
born citizen’ would most likely include, as well as native born
citizens, those born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents, at least one of
whom had previously resided in the United States, or those born abroad
to one U.S. citizen parent who, prior to the birth, had met the
requirements of federal law for physical presence in the country.”
The CRS’ findings are nonpartisan and represent a legal opinion, but they’re also
nonbinding.
It does appear, however, that Cruz is a dual citizen of both Canada
and the United States. Canada considers anyone born in Canada since 1947
a Canadian citizen and he is a citizen of the U.S. based on his mother
being a U.S. citizen.
He has said that if it is true that he also is a Canadian citizen, he will renounce his Canadian citizenship.
In order to renounce his Canadian citizenship, a simple statement is not enough. He’ll have to complete an “
Application to Renounce Canadian Citizenship”
and pay a $100 fee. The application (barring any issues), typically
takes about four months to process, after which he will be sent a “
Certificate of Renunciation.”
Cruz released his Canadian birth certificate to The Dallas Morning News on Aug. 18, 2013.
(Click to enlarge)
Ted’s Family
Cruz and his wife, Heidi Suzanne Cruz (née Nelson), have two
daughters, Caroline Camille and Catherine Christiane, ages five and two.
A live-in nanny cares for them, said Ted’s mother, Darragh. She lives
in the same condo complex in Houston, and helps out.
Cruz’s wife is a heavy-hitter in her own right.
She is the Region Head for the Southwest Region in the Investment
Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. She leads 40
professionals responsible for over $14 billion in investments for
clients throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi,
New Mexico, and Colorado.
In the 1990s, Heidi worked as an investment banker in New York,
focusing on Latin America mergers and acquisitions and structured
finance. In that capacity, Heidi was involved in advisory engagements
and capital markets transactions for some of the largest energy
companies in the Americas.
In the public sector, Heidi served in the White House as the Economic
Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council,
under then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice; as the Director
of the Latin America Office at the U.S. Treasury Department; and as
Special Policy Assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, then-U.S.
Trade Representative.
Her publications include a book chapter entitled “Expanding
Opportunity Through Free Trade,” a book chapter in EXCHANGE RATE
POLICIES FOR EMERGING MARKET ECONOMIES, and a Harvard Case Study,
“American International Group”.
Heidi received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, a Masters of
European Business from Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels,
Belgium, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics and
International Relations from Claremont McKenna College.
She is currently a member of the Texas
Business Leadership Council and serves on the board of the Greater
Houston Partnership, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts European Art
Sub-Committee, the Advancement Board of the Yes Prep Public Schools of
Houston, the Advisory Board of Living Water International, and on the
Advisory Board of the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at
Claremont McKenna College in California.
NOTE: I’ve
endeavored to verify all information contained herein, however if you
find some element that you believe to be false or misleading, please
respond with evidence showing what is claimed to be false or misleading
and if the evidence is convincing, I will update or remove the incorrect
data.
END
abyssum says: 
