I really don't think that's the answer. String-pullers will still be establishment.
Didn't Cruz come in as a Tea Partier? He ended up siding with the establishment.
I think if we try to take over the republican party that once these young bucks get to DC, the old fogies will take them under their wing and give them the 'if you want to stay in this town, you gotta play ball' talk, and it's back where we were.
Really? When? He was one of the guys leading the charge on contesting the election. You are always throwing shade on Cruz. He is a rock solid constitutionalist and Reaganite. I have followed him since he first ran for Senate.
"Appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,[43][49] Cruz served in that position from 2003 to 2008.[28][41] The office was established in 1999 to handle appeals involving the state, but Abbott hired Cruz with the idea that Cruz would take a "leadership role in the United States in articulating a vision of
strict constructionism". As Solicitor General, Cruz argued before the Supreme Court of the United States nine times, winning five cases and losing four.[45]
Cruz authored 70 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments.[37][43][50] His nine appearances before the Supreme Court are the most by any practicing lawyer in Texas or current member of Congress.[51] Cruz has said, "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."[51]
In 2003, while Cruz was Texas Solicitor General, the Texas Attorney General's office declined to defend Texas's sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning homosexual sex were unconstitutional.[52]
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief
signed by the attorneys general of 31 states arguing that the Washington, D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.[50][53] He 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.[50][54]
Cruz at the Values Voters Summit in October 2011
Cruz
successfully defended the constitutionality of the 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.[37][41][50]
In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case surrounding a challenge to the constitutionality of public schools' requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (including the words "under God", legally a part of the Pledge since 1954), Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow.[37][41] He wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states that argued that the plaintiff, a non-custodial parent, did not have standing to file suit on his daughter's behalf.[55] The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz's brief.[56]
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, which was decided 5–4 in his favor in League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry.[41][57]
In Medellin v. Texas, Cruz successfully defended Texas against an attempt to reopen the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and on death row.[37][41][43][50] With the support of the George W. Bush Administration, the petitioners argued that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate.[45][58] They based their case on a decision of the International Court of Justice in the Avena case, which ruled that by failing to allow access to the Mexican consulate, the US had breached its obligations under the Convention.[59]
Texas won the case in a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court holding that ICJ decisions were not binding in domestic law and that the President had no power to enforce them.[45][58]
Michael Wayne Haley was arrested for stealing a calculator from Walmart in 1997.[60] Because of Haley's previous criminal convictions, he was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in prison under the Texas habitual offender law. After Haley had exhausted his appeals, it became known that Haley's robbery offense occurred three days before one of his other convictions was finalized; this raised a question about the applicability of the habitual offender statute in his case. As Solicitor General, Cruz declined to vacate Haley's sentence, saying "I think justice is being done because he had a full and fair trial and an opportunity to raise his errors."[61] The Supreme Court later remanded the case to lower courts based on Haley's ineffective assistance of counsel claim. During oral argument, Cruz conceded that Haley had a very strong argument for ineffective assistance of counsel since Haley's attorney failed to recognize the sentencing error and that he would not move to have Haley re-incarcerated during the appeal process.[61] After remand, Haley was re-sentenced to "time served".[62]
In 2008 American Lawyer magazine named Cruz one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,[49][63] and The National Law Journal named him one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.[64][65] In 2010 Texas Lawyer named him one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.[66][67]"
He has always been fighting for the constitution. Nobody gives 2 sh*ts about a solicitor general yet there he was fighting for our rights.
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