Many Republicans are furious at Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) for demanding a vote related to the president’s unilateral action on immigration and allegedly aiding lame duck Senate Democrats with their agenda, but Senate Conservatives Fund President Ken Cuccinelli calls such criticism a “canard” and lauds the senators for standing up for the Constitution.
Cuccinelli served as Virginia attorney general from 2010-2014 and was defeated for governor in 2013. Senate Conservatives Fund is loathed by most mainstream Republicans, since the group has recruited and endorsed conservative challengers to GOP incumbents in recent cycles.
On Friday, the Senate was going through a series of motions to set up debate on the so-called “cromnibus” spending bill that funds most areas of government through September 2015 but forces a debate over money for Homeland Security in February. Sen. Lee unexpectedly objected, forcing senators back to Washington for weekend debate and a setting up a vote on the constitutionality of Obama’s immigration policy sponsored by Sen. Cruz.
In response, Reid not only called the Senate into a rare weekend session, but also adjusted the rest of the schedule for the lame duck session to focus on confirming controversial Obama nominees. Many Republicans are livid at Lee and Cruz for demanding a vote they say the GOP cannot win in a Democratic Senate and for giving Reid motivation to approve nominees who would not have been confirmed.
“That’s a canard and the people making it know it,” said Cuccinelli. “The notion that one shouldn’t fight to protect the Constitution in the acts of Congress is pretty appalling and God forbid we make them do it on a Saturday and stay late. That was really childish and sort of disgusting to watch.”
However, the actions taken by many in the GOP last weekend was far worse than the rhetoric aimed at their conservative colleagues.
“What was even more disgusting is the 20 Republicans who didn’t vote with Ted Cruz to declare the president’s executive amnesty unconstitutional, even though in the last six weeks they’ve all said it is. Heritage Action has done a good job of compiling their statements to that effect and yet they voted the other way, probably because they were upset about being dragged in on a Saturday,” said Cuccinelli.
After a very dramatic effort to pass the “cromnibus” and avoid a government shutdown in the House two days earlier, Senate leaders in both parties were eager to avoid another funding cliffhanger. Cuccinelli sees that as another GOP failure and says his group will remember this vote when it evaluates Senate races in the future.
“For those of us who care about the Constitution, that vote looms large. For people who just cared about whether the bill passed or not, it was a speed bump on the way,” said Cuccinelli.
Cuccinelli is also fighting back against the assertion that the vote on the Cruz point of order was meaningless because it couldn’t pass. He says if Republicans had put principle over expediency, the vote could have put Democrats in a very awkward political position.
“The Republicans didn’t band together to force the Democrats to actually vote on the underlying issue and that is the funding of the president’s executive amnesty. A lot of people said there’s no way Republicans could win that. I don’t believe that. If Democrats actually had to go on the board on that issue exclusively, a lot of Democrats would have been in very difficult political territory,” said Cuccinelli.
More Obama nominees have been confirmed over the past few days, including Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was confirmed as Surgeon General despite his activism on gun control issues. However, Cuccinelli rejects the accusation that Cruz and Lee are responsible for Murthy and other questionable nominees getting through.
“(Majority Leader Harry) Reid had every intention of pushing the nominees that he moved forward because he had to fill the clock this week. Literally right now, at this moment while you and I are talking, was the original plan for Reid. That wasn’t going anywhere and that didn’t change. He just changed where on the schedule he did that,” said Cuccinelli.
The actions by Cruz and Lee followed on the heels of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) trying to rally opposition to the “cromnibus” because of changes to the Dodd-Frank laws. Cuccinelli says Warren received the same response from her leadership and Cruz and Lee did from theirs because establishment instincts run deep in both parties.
“There is, unfortunately, in this country, a cabal of the leadership of both parties that doesn’t really care about the little guy, doesn’t care about the middle class,” said Cuccinelli.
“You know it was interesting to watch Elizabeth Warren fight over a banking provision, where the taxpayers are now on the hook for derivative trades with big banks. Nobody who cares about individual taxpayers and individual Americans should actually disagree with Elizabeth Warren. She was right. But it’s more of the corporatist mentality in the establishment leadership of both parties that brushed aside concerns like that,” he said.
In the four years since Republicans won control of the House of Representatives but Democrats maintained a majority in the Senate, GOP leaders repeatedly stated there was only so much the party could do with a Democrat in the White House and Reid running the Senate. However, they promised big changes if Republicans were to control the Senate. That will happen come January and Cuccinelli says Senate Conservatives Fund will be looking for a very early sign that leadership plans to pursue conservative policies.
“They’re at least going to have to deliver to the president a complete repeal of Obamacare, which they all campaigned on, and watch what the president does. The notion that we’re going to do the president’s bidding for him (and) we’re not going to send him bills he doesn’t like because he might veto them is ludicrous. It literally abandons one’s own voice in the process. If that’s the case, what did we vote for on November 4?” said Cuccinelli.
While legislative business will happen under GOP control across Capitol Hill next year, the work in Washington will soon be overshadowed by the 2016 presidential race. Candidates are already jockeying for position even though no one has formally entered the race. Cuccinelli expects a spirited GOP primary, but urges Republican voters to choose a conservative nominee if they want to be celebrating come November 2016.
“In my lifetime, and I was born after Barry Goldwater, 100 percent of Republican nominees for president who ran as conservatives won. One hundred percent. And a hundred percent of Republican nominees for president who ran as not conservatives lost, a hundred percent. The most electable candidate is a movement conservative,” said Cuccinelli.
