TED is a CONSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATIVE, and against amnestyhttps://www.ontheissues.org/Senate/Ted_Cruz.htmhttps://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/ted-cruz-believe-candidate-stands-10-issueshttps://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/18/us/politics/ted-cruz-conservative.htmlwww.politico.com/story/2016/01/cruz-pummels-trump-on-immigration-217948https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/12/20/jeff_sessions_without_ted_cruz_amnesty_would_have_passed_in_2013.htmlhttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/20/ted-cruz-stock-rises-trump-base-after-amnesty-betr/https://www.tedcruz.org/stop-amnesty/https://www.chron.com/politics/texas/article/Ted-Cruz-predicts-Republicans-will-lose-Congress-12616447.phpBackground:Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts in public policy[26] from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. 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.[28] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and, with his debate partner David Panton, Team of the Year by the American Parliamentary Debate Association. Cruz and Panton later represented Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship, losing in the semifinals to a team from Australia. Princeton's debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz.
Cruz's senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers; its title, Clipping the Wings of Angels, was inspired by a passage attributed to 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 their constituents' rights, and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all-powerful state.
After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree.While at Harvard Law, he was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, an 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". At Harvard Law, Cruz was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.Cruz holds degrees in public policy and law from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, respectively. From 1999 to 2003, he held various government positions, serving as Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, and as a Domestic Policy Advisor to George W. Bush during Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Cruz served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008, having been appointed by Texas Attorney General and later Governor Greg Abbott. He was the longest-serving solicitor general in Texas history and the first Hispanic American to serve in that capacity. From 2004 to 2009, Cruz was an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation.
Appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,[40][47] Cruz served in that position from 2003 to 2008. 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.[43]
Cruz authored 70 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments. His nine appearances before the Supreme Court are the most by any practicing lawyer in Texas or current member of Congress. 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."
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.
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. 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.
Cruz at the Values Voters Summit in October 2011
In addition to his success in Heller, 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.[34][38][48]
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.[34][38] 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. The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz's brief.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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.In 2012, Cruz ran for and won the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison. He is the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. Senator from Texas. In 2016, Cruz ran for President of the United States, winning Republican contests in 12 states before withdrawing from the race. He was reelected to the Senate in 2018, defeating Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke by a slim margin of 50.9% to 48.3% in the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history. Along with Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio, Cruz is one of three current U.S. Senators of Cuban descent.
Autobigoraphy: An excellent book that I read in one day/night -- I couldn't put it down. (Highly recommend)
"A Time For Truth" Reigniting the Promise of Americahttps://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/42563938-a-time-for-truth-reigniting-the-promise-of-americaCruz Interview with the Sierra Clubwww.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl9-tY1oZNwCruz Accuses McConnell of Lying on Export-Import Bankwww.youtube.com/watch?v=eu77aiLXTNQTed Cruz "Imagine Speech" - I love TED!!!!!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed27KkNlL9w
