The Special Interests of Ted Cruz
We’re all aware that special interests play a major role in Congress's agenda, but the effects can be hard to see. Often hidden through obscure wording or amendments tacked onto a bill, loopholes, tax breaks, and special carve-outs are designed to blend in or be difficult to understand.
That is why a case study can be useful in revealing the true depth of a problem. For that, we will examine Senator Ted Cruz.
You may not be aware that, leading up to his 2018 reelection campaign, Cruz led all of Congress in donations from the airline industry or that, in the current election season, Cruz is among the top seven recipients.
When the Biden administration announced new requirements forcing airlines to give prompt automatic refunds for canceled or significantly changed flights, paid services that didn’t work, and baggage fees for delayed luggage, America rejoiced. Red, blue, left, right, everyone appreciated this change to airline services.
The airlines, however, were not as enthused. They knew that this change would cost them significant money every year. When airlines control how refunds are given, they can determine how many situations are non-refundable or make customers jump through hoops to obtain even a partial refund. It would be in the airline industry's corporate interests to undo this new automatic refund requirement.
Cruz attempted to slip in a measure to the FAA Reauthorization Act that would require passengers to request a refund. He did his best to sell the change as a benefit for customers by claiming it would give them more options.
Fortunately, most of the Senate realized this would be unpopular with the public and passed an amendment to the bill, which retains the automatic refunds.
That example is relatively clear-cut. A particular industry donates to congressional campaigns, then raises its concerns over new legislation, and its biggest recipients step in to help the industry out.
Other influences of special interests become more complicated, such as when they become intertwined with how a candidate raises campaign funds.
Senator Cruz loves to promote his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz, which he claims he does for free as a “service to constituents.” While it is true that Ted Cruz doesn’t directly receive pay from the podcast, he does receive compensation in a different form.
iHeartMedia, the company that hosts Verdict, has been funneling ad revenue from the podcast to the Truth and Courage PAC, which supports Cruz’s reelection campaign. Over $630,000 has been paid to the PAC.
End Citizens United and the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC asking for an investigation into this situation, as these payments seem to violate campaign finance laws.
It also happens that Cruz is the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees communications, media, and broadcasting—the kind of business that iHeartMedia is involved with.
Several employees of iHeartMedia registered to lobby the federal government and donated to the Truth and Courage PAC. Two months after those donations, Cruz became one of the original co-sponsors of a bill that requires car manufacturers to include AM radios in all new cars sold. iHeartMedia owns more than 250 AM radio stations. In the months after co-sponsoring that bill, the same lobbyists for iHeartMedia began donating directly to Cruz’s campaign.
It is bad enough when special interests skirt campaign finance rules while directing politicians to force outdated technology into modern vehicles. It is far worse when they end up costing lives.
Cruz is a Senator from Texas. A state that has been the victim of numerous deadly mass shootings, including:
Uvalde
El Paso Walmart
Sutherland Springs Church
Fort Hood (twice)
Santa Fe High School
Allen Mall
Combined, those shootings took 100 lives and injured over another 150. Despite this, Cruz has worked hard to oppose gun regulation bills, including a bill that would have banned the type of rifles most frequently used in the most deadly mass shootings.
Why would a Senator from a state that has seen so much gun violence, with over 3,500 gun deaths every year, oppose measures that the majority of America supports? Gun lobbyists.
Cruz has been a frequent recipient of donations from gun rights lobbying and is the top recipient in Congress for the current election season.
The last area to discuss is that Cruz has received over $1,500,000 from pro-Israel lobbyists since he first ran for Senate and is the third-highest recipient of pro-Israel donations this campaign season.
Cruz is quick to label anyone who speaks out on behalf of the Palestinian people or about the high civilian death toll in Gaza as a Hamas supporter. Cruz has even gone so far as to say:
“I condemn nothing that the Israeli government is doing. The Israeli government does not target civilians, they target military targets.”
The over 35,000 dead Palestinians, the majority of which have been women and children, along with the over 75,000 people injured, say otherwise. There was even a recent strike by Israel that killed foreign aid workers when no military targets were nearby.
This narrowly focused position of praising Israel while condemning everything happening in Gaza as the fault of Hamas put Cruz in a precarious position when the recent foreign aid bill reached the Senate. It had $14 billion for Israel, but it also $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza, which Cruz described as:
“the bill spends over $9 billion in so-called humanitarian aid, much of which will go to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and is sure to be diverted to fund yet more terrorism.”
In the end, Cruz voted against the foreign aid bill but found a way to obscure his reasoning by stating:
“Finally, the decisive reason I could not support this bill is because it did nothing to secure the Texas-Mexico border.”
The problem with that statement is that Cruz had previously voted against a bipartisan bill that combined both border measures and a similar foreign aid package, making his statement simply an excuse to allow him options to spin his positions later on.
The foundation on which America’s democratic processes are built is that we are a government by the people, for the people. Citizens United opened the floodgates for corporate and special influences on top of bringing Super PACs and Dark Money into American politics. The results have been terrible for our democracy and the American people.
While efforts to overturn Citizens United may take a long time or never succeed, it is important to expose the influences that drive politicians to work against the best interests of their constituents.
Senator Ted Cruz is a great example of the damage special interests can cause.
https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/ted-cruz/summary?cid=N00033085
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/09/ted-cruz-campaign-finance-complaint-podcast/
https://www.cruz.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sen-cruz-statement-on-foreign-aid-package-vote
https://theintercept.com/2023/11/29/ted-cruz-israel-gaza/
https://www.texasdemocrats.org/media/report-the-ugly-truth-behind-ted-cruzs-super-pac-podcast
