Saturday, June 7, 2014

In the U.S. Senate, it's Ted Cruz, Of Counsel for the right!

The Houston Chronicle ^ | June 6, 2014 | Kevin Diaz
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz recalls that the Declaration of Independence listed 28 specific legal grievances against King George III of England. His list of "particulars" against President Obama goes up to 76 - and counting. To Cruz, a Texas Republican known for his vocal opposition to the president, that is not an exercise in historical trivia. It's become a major focus of his Senate office, where he has harnessed his Harvard Law skills to further his narrative of a "lawless" presidency. Long before the congressional furor over the legality of Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap in Afghanistan, Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential contender, was compiling a legal brief questioning the Obama administration's use of executive power. Policy differences with the White House are hardly new in Washington. But Cruz has made a name for himself as a leading lawyer for the conservative movement, battling the Obama agenda on health care, crime and immigration - not by passing laws, but by challenging Obama edicts in the legal arena. Call it Ted Cruz, Of Counsel. "Senator Cruz is among the most vocal and energetic advocates for limited constitutional government in our Congress," said Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the conservative-leaning Federalist Society. "There's no one in Congress who has been more systematic in cataloguing and critiquing federal branch overreach." The former Texas solicitor general is often portrayed as an ideological bomb-thrower who shut down the federal government during a budget fight over the Obama's health care overhaul. But in his first 18 months in the Senate, Cruz, 43, also has cultivated a following in academic circles for his legal work on the limits of federal authority, a cause that has adherents on both the political left and right....
(Excerpt) Read more at houstonchronicle.com ...

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