Ted Cruz wants to be a senator again.
He’s trying to round up support for an Internet freedom bill, deferring to colleagues at press conferences and shepherding bipartisan legislation to help his hometown of Houston’s space industry. He’s even hosting fundraisers next week for Republican colleagues who publicly derided his penchant for picking what they thought were losing fights with President Obama.
Having spent most of 2015 and 2016 on the trail, Cruz is finally tasting the Senate majority and fears what Democrats would do if they reclaim control post-November. “It is unequivocal that maintaining a Republican majority is much, much preferable to what would occur under Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,” Cruz said in an interview Wednesday.
Yet Cruz can’t quite escape the pull of the presidential campaign, how his deeply personal battle with Donald Trump ended, his initial refusal to endorse the Republican nominee at the GOP convention in Cleveland and last week’s abrupt reversal to back the real estate mogul’s campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The flip-flop on Trump — who had demeaned Cruz and his family during the primary — left some questioning Cruz’s motives and his standing back home.
On Hugh Hewitt’s radio radio show Tuesday morning, Cruz fielded questions solely around Trump and his decision to back his erstwhile rival, standing by his previous statements that he was motivated mainly by Trump’s decision to list 21 legal conservatives, including Cruz’s close friend, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), as finalists for the vacant Supreme Court seat.
When he’s not being pulled back into the presidential race, Cruz appears to be doing his day job with a little less confrontation than he is normally credited with by his colleagues.
The senator disagrees with the assessment that he’s any different now than when he provoked a government shutdown in 2013 over Obamacare, a fight that enraged many of his Republican colleagues.
At times in a 30-minute discussion, Cruz made clear that some of his future fights are likely to ignite the same kind of intense feelings as his previous battles.
“The exact same principles that I was fighting for on the presidential campaign are what I’m fighting for now here in the Senate,” he said.
But some Republican colleagues — clearly not all, but some — have detected a slight change in tone, at least for now.
“I think early on Ted was more interested in standing out, exclusively,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is working with Cruz to increase military aid to Israel, said Wednesday. “Now he wants to stand out in a way consistent with his values but he also likes the fact that he can collaborate and be helpful.”
Take the Internet freedom legislation, which has become a rallying cry among libertarian conservatives. Currently the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a California-based non-profit, oversees website domains but is transitioning to a more global group that some fear would lead to control of websites by hostile governments.
Cruz has pushed to attach language blocking the ICANN transition to the funding legislation that Congress is approving this week to keep the government open. Many Democrats and Republicans feared that Cruz was going to use the issue to take another stand that could shut down the government.
Instead, Cruz has worked to gather Republican co-sponsors for his proposal, including senior GOP senators such as Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and John Thune (R-S.D.). When Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not include Cruz’s provision in the stopgap funding bill, Cruz called it “a profound disappointment” — but the legislation passed Wednesday without any roadblocks from Cruz.
“I used every tool I had to press the Senate to lead on the issue,” Cruz said. He explained that he held hearings and planned to keep working on the issue. “I have never believed delaying a vote for a day or two, if there is nothing to be accomplished, makes sense,” he said Wednesday.
That’s quite a change for a senator who led a 21-hour filibuster three years ago over Obamacare even though the procedures were set in place to guarantee a vote on a funding bill.
Some colleagues remain hesitant to embrace Cruz.
At a press conference led by Graham, pushing for Israeli aid, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) finished her remarks and immediately headed for the door just as Cruz was about to speak. That made it impossible for her to be pictured with a senator with whom she’s openly feuded with over his scorched-earth tactics.
Yet Ayotte — in a tough reelection fight this year — will be among the half-dozen Republicans who will benefit from a Cruz-led fundraiser in Texas next Thursday. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has also jousted with Cruz, is the co-host. Cornyn said it was Cruz’s idea to help out those Republicans “given the fact that the balance in the Senate is on the bubble.”
At times, Cruz sounds like someone building toward another presidential run in 2020 should Trump lose.
He easily recites how many votes he received in the GOP primary, how many states and delegates won, and knows that his finish was the best second-place showing in a GOP primary since his idol Ronald Reagan ran against President Ford in 1976.
Yet he also is keenly aware that his speech in Cleveland refusing to endorse Trump spurred talk of a primary challenge in Texas, where he is up for reelection in 2018. He said he’s been “criss-crosssing the state” to visit farmers and energy industry leaders, boasting of language in the new water resources bill to help fund port deepening in Texas — an ironic statement for a senator known for riling against the establishment.
In the meantime, Cruz might just enjoy being a senator for the next few years.
“I will keep working each and every day to deserve and earn that continued support by honoring the promises that I’ve made to the voters of Texas,” he said.
