Ted Cruz
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Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Texas. He is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election.
Cruz graduated from Princeton University in 1992, and from Harvard Law School in 1995. Between 1999 and 2003, he was the Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, and domestic policy advisor to George W. Bush on the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign. He served as Solicitor General of Texas, from 2003 to 2008, appointed by Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott. He was the first Hispanic, and the longest-serving, Solicitor General in Texas history. From 2004 to 2009, Cruz was also an adjunct professor at theUniversity of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation.
Cruz ran for the Senate seat vacated by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, and in July 2012, defeated Lieutenant GovernorDavid Dewhurst, during the Republican primary runoff, 57%–43%. Cruz then defeated former state Representative Paul Sadler in the November 2012 general election, winning 56%–41%. He is the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. senator representing Texas, and is one of three senators of Cuban descent. He chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Activities and is also the chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. In November 2012, he was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican senatorial committee.
Cruz began campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in March 2015. During the primary campaign, his base of support has mainly been among social conservatives, though he has had crossover appeal to other factions within his party, including libertarian conservatives. His victory in the February 2016 Iowa caucuses marked the first time a Hispanic person won a presidential caucus or primary.
Contents[hide]Early life and family
Cruz was born on December 22, 1970,[3][4] at Foothills General Hospital[5][6] in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to parents Eleanor Elizabeth (Darragh) Wilson and Rafael Bienvenido Cruz.[7][8][9] At the time of his birth, Cruz's parents had lived in Calgary for three years and were working in the oil business as owners of a seismic-data processing firm for oildrilling.[8][10][11][12][13] Cruz has said, "I'm the son of two mathematicians/computer programmers."[14] In 1974, his father left the family and moved to Texas.[15] Later that year, his parents reconciled and relocated to Houston.[5]
Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, was born in Cuba. His paternal grandfather, Rafael, immigrated to Cuba as an infant with his parents from the Spanish Canary Islands.[16] His mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and is three quarters of Irish descent and one quarter of Italian descent.[17][18] His father left Cuba in 1957 to attend the University of Texas at Austin and obtained political asylum in the United States after his four-year student visa expired.[19] Rafael Cruz earned Canadian citizenship in 1973[5] and became a naturalizedU.S. citizen in 2005.[8][20][21][22] His mother earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.[23] Eleanor and Rafael Cruz divorced in 1997.[24]
Cruz had two older half-sisters, Miriam Ceferina Cruz and Roxana Lourdes Cruz, from his father's first marriage. Miriam died in 2011.[24][25][26]
Education
Cruz attended two private high schools: Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas;[27] and Second Baptist High School in Houston, from which he graduated as valedictorian in 1988.[20][28][29] During high school, Cruz participated in a Houston-based group known at the time as the Free Market Education Foundation, a program that taught high school students the philosophies of economists such as Milton Friedman and Frédéric Bastiat.[13][30]
Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy[31] from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.[3][32]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.[33] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year, and with his debate partner David Panton, also Team of the Year from the American Parliamentary Debate Association.[33] Cruz and Panton would later represent Harvard Law School at the 1995 World Debating Championship, losing in the semi-finals to a team from Australia.[34][35][36] Princeton's debate team named their annual novice championship after Cruz.[36]
Cruz's senior thesis at Princeton investigated the separation of powers; its title, Clipping the Wings of Angels, draws its inspiration from a passage attributed to US PresidentJames 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 the rights of their constituents, and that the last two items in the Bill of Rights offer an explicit stop against an all-powerful state.[23][37]
After graduating from Princeton, Cruz attended Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995 with a Juris Doctor degree.[3][38] While at Harvard Law, he was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[32]Referring to Cruz's time as a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, "Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant".[39][40][41][42] At Harvard Law, Cruz was a John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics.[43]
Cruz serves on the Board of Advisors of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.[44]
Legal careerClerkships
Cruz served as a law clerk to J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1995[43][45] and William Rehnquist,Chief Justice of the United States in 1996.[3] Cruz was the first Hispanic to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.[46]
Private practice
After Cruz finished his clerkships, he took a position with Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal, now known as Cooper & Kirk, LLC, from 1997 to 1998.[47]While with the firm, Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association, and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.[48] Cruz also served as private counsel for Congressman John Boehner during Boehner's lawsuit against Congressman Jim McDermott for releasing a tape recording of a Boehner telephone conversation.[49]
Bush administration
Cruz joined the George W. Bush presidential campaign in 1999 as a domestic policy adviser, advising then-Governor George W. Bush on a wide range of policy and legal matters, including civil justice, criminal justice, constitutional law, immigration, and government reform.[47]
Cruz assisted in assembling the Bush legal team, devising strategy, and drafting pleadings for filing with the Supreme Court of Florida and U.S. Supreme Court, in the case Bush v. Gore, during the 2000 Florida presidential recounts, leading to two wins for the Bush team.[43][50] Cruz recruited future Chief Justice John Roberts and noted attorney Mike Carvin to the Bush legal team.[48]
After Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department[3][50] and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.[3][39][50]
Texas Solicitor General
Appointed to the office of Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott,[45][51] Cruz served in that position from 2003 to 2008.[30][43] The office had been 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 ofstrict constructionism." As Solicitor General, Cruz argued before the Supreme Court of the United States nine times, winning five cases and losing four.[48]
Cruz has authored 70 U.S. Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.[39][45][52] Cruz's record of having argued before the Supreme Court nine times is more than any practicing lawyer in Texas or any current member of Congress.[53] Cruz has commented on his nine cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court: "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."[53]
In 2003, while Cruz was Texas Solicitor General, the Texas Attorney General's office declined to defend Texas' sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas, where the U.S. Supreme Court decided that state laws banning homosexual sex as illegal sodomy were unconstitutional.[54]
In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the Washington, D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.[52][55] Cruz 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.[52][56]
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.[39][43][52]
In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow,[39][43] in which he wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states which argued that the plaintiff, a non-custodial parent, did not have standing to file suit on behalf of his daughter.[57] The Supreme Court upheld the position of Cruz’s brief.[58]
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.[43][59]
Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt to re-open the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and were on death row.[39][43][45][52] 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.[48][60] 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.[61] 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.[48][60]
Michael Wayne Haley was arrested for stealing a calculator from Walmart in 1997.[62] Because Haley had two prior convictions for theft, as well as prior felony convictions for delivery of a controlled substance and attempted robbery, he was sentenced as a habitual offender under Texas law to sixteen and a half years in prison. It later came to light that Haley's robbery offense occurred three days before his conviction on the controlled substance charge was finalized, so the habitual offender statute might not have applied. The habitual offender issue was discovered after Haley had exhausted his appeals. As Solicitor General, Cruz declined to vacate the sentence saying "I think justice is being done because he had a full and fair trial and an opportunity to raise his errors."[63] 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.[63] After remand, Haley was re-sentenced to "time served".[64]
Cruz was named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America in 2008,[51][65] by The National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America also in 2008,[66][67] and in October 2010 by Texas Lawyer as one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.[68][69]
Return to private practice
After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008, Cruz worked in a private law firm in Houston, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, often representing corporate clients, until he was sworn in as U.S. senator from Texas in 2013.[23][43][70] At Morgan Lewis, he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.[70] In 2009 and 2010, he formed and then abandoned a bid for state attorney general when the incumbent Attorney General Greg Abbott, who hired Cruz as Solicitor General, decided to run for re-election.[20]
While at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Cruz represented Pfizer in a lawsuit brought by a group of public hospitals and community health centers who accused the drug manufacturer of overcharging. The Supreme Court eventually threw the case out.[71] Shandong Linglong Rubber Company was found guilty of marketing versions of tires that were based on blueprints stolen by a former employee of a Florida businessman and ordered to pay $26 million to the Floridian. Cruz worked on the Chinese company's appellant brief. The appeals court denied the appeal and affirmed the jury's award.[72] Cruz represented drug manufacturer B. Braun Medical Inc. in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit after the company was found guilty of wrongfully discharging a former employee. Cruz asserted that she had failed to prove that B. Braun had directed her to violate the law and that she had not presented sufficient evidence that her refusal to violate the law was why she had been fired. The appeals court rejected Cruz's argument and affirmed the $880,000 award.[72] Cruz represented Toyota in an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court in an statute of limitations case, where a judge wanted to investigate Toyota forcontempt after a former Toyota in-house lawyer accused Toyota of unlawfully withholding documents in a product liability case.[73] Cruz unsuccessfully argued the judge's jurisdiction expired thirty days after the case was dismissed following an out-of-court settlement, but later won on a second appeal using the same argument.[74]
Cruz defended two record-setting $54-million personal injury awards in New Mexico at the appellate level, including one which had been thrown out by a lower court.[75] Cruz represented a mentally disabled man who was allegedly raped by an employee of the facility where he lived. And in the other case Cruz represented the family of a 78-year-old resident of an Albuquerque nursing home who died of internal bleeding.[75][76] The settlements were sealed in both cases.[75][76]
U.S. Senate2012 election
Main article: United States Senate election in Texas, 2012
Cruz's victory in the Republican primary was described by the Washington Post as "the biggest upset of 2012 ... a true grassroots victory against very long odds."[77] On January 19, 2011, after U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she would not seek reelection, Cruz announced his candidacy via a blogger conference call.[78] In the Republican senatorial primary, Cruz ran against sitting Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Cruz was endorsed first by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin[79] and then by the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative political action committee;[80] Erick Erickson, former editor of prominent conservative blog RedState;[81] the FreedomWorksfor America super PAC;[82] nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin;[83] Tea Party Express;[84] Young Conservatives of Texas;[85] and U.S. Senators Tom Coburn,[86] Jim DeMint,[87] Mike Lee,[88] Rand Paul[89] and Pat Toomey.[90] He was also endorsed by former Texas Congressman Ron Paul,[91] George P. Bush,[50] and former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.[92] Former Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese served as national chairman of Cruz's campaign.[50]
Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination with a 14-point margin over Dewhurst.[93] Cruz defeated Dewhurst despite being outspent by Dewhurst who held a statewide elected office.[94] Dewhurst spent $19 million and Cruz only spent $7 million.[94] Dewhurst raised over $30 million and outspent Cruz at a ratio of nearly 3-to-1.[95]
In the November 6 general election, Cruz faced Democratic candidate Paul Sadler, an attorney and a former state representative fromHenderson, in east Texas. Cruz won with 4.5 million votes (56.4%) to Sadler's 3.2 million (40.6%). Two minor candidates garnered the remaining 3% of the vote.[96] According to a poll by Cruz's pollster Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research, Cruz received 40% of the Hispanic vote, vs. 60% for Sadler, outperforming Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney with the Hispanic vote in Texas.[97][98]
After Time magazine reported on a potential violation of ethics rules by failing to publicly disclose his financial relationship with Caribbean Equity Partners Investment Holdings during the 2012 campaign, Cruz called his failure to disclose these connections an inadvertent omission.[99]
In January 2016, The New York Times reported that Cruz and his wife had taken out low-interest loans from Goldman Sachs (where she worked) and Citibank, and failed to report the nearly $1 million in loans on Federal Election Commission disclosure statements as required by law.[100] Cruz disclosed the loans on his Senate financial disclosure forms in July 2012, but not on the Federal Election Commission form.[101] There is no indication that Cruz's wife had any role in providing any of the loans, or that the banks did anything wrong.[101] The loans were largely repaid by later campaign fundraising. A spokesperson for Cruz said his failure to report the loans to the FEC was "inadvertent" and said he would be filing supplementary paperwork.[100]
Legislation
Cruz has sponsored 25 bills of his own, including:[102]
Senate bill 2195
Main article: Public Law 113-100
On April 1, 2014, Cruz introduced Senate bill 2195, a bill that would allow the President of the United States to deny visas to any ambassador to the United Nations who has been found to have been engaged in espionage activities or a terrorist activity against the United States or its allies and may pose a threat to U.S. national security interests.[103] The bill was written in response to Iran's choice of Hamid Aboutalebi as their ambassador.[104] Aboutalebi was involved in the Iran hostage crisis, in which of a number of American diplomats from the US embassy in Tehran were held captive in 1979.[104][105][106]
Under the headline "A bipartisan message to Iran", Cruz thanked President Barack Obama for signing S 2195 into law. The letter, published in the magazine Politico on April 18, 2014, starts with "Thanks to President Obama for joining a unanimous Congress and signing S 2195 into law". Cruz also thanked senators from both political parties for "swiftly passing this legislation and sending it to the White House."[107][108][109]
Committee assignments
According to transcripts as reported by Politico, in his first two years in the Senate, Cruz attended 17 of 50 public Armed Services Committee hearings, 3 of 25 Commerce Committee hearings, 4 of the 12 Judiciary Committee hearings, and missed 21 of 135 roll call votes during the first three months of 2015.[110]
Comments on President Obama
In a November 2014 Senate speech, Cruz accused the president of being "openly desirous to destroy the Constitution and this Republic."[111] In the same speech, Cruz invoked the speeches of the ancient Roman senator Cicero against Catiline to denounce Obama's planned executive actions on immigration reform.[111] Classics professor Jesse Weiner, writing in The Atlantic, said that Cruz's analogy was "deeply disquieting" because "in casting Obama in the role of Catiline, Cruz unsubtly suggests that the sitting president was not lawfully elected and is the perpetrator of a violent insurrection to overthrow the government...In effect, he accuses the president of high treason. Regardless of one’s views on immigration reform and the Obama administration at large, this is dangerous rhetoric."[111]
Cruz has repeatedly said that the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran "will make the Obama administration the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism."[112] In response, Obama called Cruz's statements an example of "outrageous attacks" from Republican critics that crossed the line of responsible discourse: "We've had a sitting senator, who also happens to be running for president, suggest that I'm the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it's not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now."[112] Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney also criticized Cruz for his remarks, writing that although he, too, was opposed to the Iran agreement, Cruz's statement connecting Obama to terrorism was "way over the line" and "hurts the cause."[113][114]
After the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Cruz expressed his view that the winner of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, rather than President Obama, should appoint a new Justice.[115]
Relationship with Republican members of Congress
Cruz has used harsh rhetoric against fellow Republican politicians, and his relationships with various Republican members of Congress have been strained.[116][117] In 2013, Cruz referred to Republicans who he thought were insufficiently resistant to the proposals of President Obama as a "surrender caucus."[116] Cruz also called fellow Republicans out as "squishes" on gun-control issues during a Tea Party rally.[116] Cruz's role in the United States federal government shutdown of 2013 in particular attracted criticism from a number of Republican colleagues.[117] Republican Senator John McCain is reported to particularly dislike Cruz; in a Senate floor speech in 2013, McCain denounced Cruz's reference to Nazis when discussing the Affordable Care Act.[117] In March 2013, McCain also called Cruz and others "wacko birds" whose beliefs are not "reflective of the views of the majority of Republicans."[117]
In a heated Senate floor speech in July 2015, Cruz accused Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of telling "a flat-out lie" over his intentions to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which Cruz opposes. "What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over and over again was a simple lie," Cruz said of Senate Republican Leader McConnell.[118] Cruz's "incendiary outburst" was "unusual in the cordial atmosphere of the Senate", according to Reuters.[118][119] In the same speech, Cruz assailed the "Republican majority in both houses of Congresses" for what Cruz termed an insufficiently conservative record.[119] Cruz's speech, and especially his accusation against McConnell, was condemned by various senior Republican senators, with John McCain saying that the speech was "outside the realm of Senate behavior" and "a very wrong thing to do."[120] Orrin Hatch expressed a similar opinion: “I don’t condone the use of that kind of language against another senator unless they can show definitive proof that there was a lie....And I know the leader didn’t lie.”[121] Cruz had alleged that McConnell scheduled a vote on the Ex-Im Bank as part of a deal to persuade Democrats like Maria Cantwell to stop blocking a trade bill, whereas McConnell denied there was any "deal", and that denial is what Cruz termed a "lie"; Hatch says McConnell did pledge to help Cantwell get a vote on the Ex-Im Bank.[122]
Among Cruz's few close allies in the Senate is Mike Lee of Utah.[123][124] Cruz has expressed pride in his reputation for having few allies, saying in June 2015 that he has been vilified for fighting "the Washington cartel."[125]
When Boehner announced in September 2015 that he would step down and resign from the House, Cruz expressed his concern that before resigning Boehner may have "cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of its tenure".[126] The following month, the budget agreement passed in the House by a vote of 266 to 187, with unanimous support from Democrats and from Boehner, lifting the debt ceiling through March 2017, and Cruz called the agreement “complete and utter surrender”.[127]
Presidential campaign
Main article: Ted Cruz presidential campaign, 2016
Further information: United States presidential election, 2016
As early as 2013, Cruz was widely expected to run for the presidency in 2016.[128][129][130] On March 14, 2013, he gave the keynote speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC.[131] He tied for 7th place in the 2013 CPAC straw poll on March 16, winning 4% of the votes cast.[132] In October 2013, Cruz won the Values Voter Summit presidential straw poll with 42% of the vote.[133] Cruz finished first in two presidential straw polls conducted in 2014 with 30.33% of the vote at the Republican Leadership Conference[134] and 43% of the vote at the Republican Party of Texas state convention.[135]
Cruz did speaking events in mid-2013 across Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, early primary states, leading to speculation that he was laying the groundwork for a run for President in 2016.[136] Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin described Cruz as the first potential presidential candidate to emphasize originalism as a major national issue.[48]
On April 12, 2014, Cruz spoke at the Freedom Summit, an event organized by Americans for Prosperity, and Citizens United.[137] The event was attended by several potential presidential candidates.[138] In his speech, Cruz mentioned that Latinos, young people and single mothers are the people most affected by the recession, and that the Republican Party should make outreach efforts to these constituents. He also said that the words, "growth and opportunity" should be tattooed on the hands of every Republican politician.[137]
On March 23, 2015, Cruz announced his 2016 presidential candidacy for the GOP primaries and caucuses, in a morning speech delivered at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.[139] Also, at the same hour, posted on his Twitter page: "I'm running for President and I hope to earn your support!"[140] He was the first announced major Republican presidential candidate for the 2016 campaign.[141][142] During the primary campaign, his base of support has been mainly among social conservatives, though he has had crossover appeal to other factions within his party, including in particular libertarian conservatives.[143][144]
HarperCollins published Cruz's book A Time for Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America on June 30, 2015.[145] The book reached the bestseller list of several organizations in its first week of release.[146][147]
Results
On February 1, 2016, Cruz won the Iowa caucuses.[148] The Iowa win made him the first Hispanic to win either a presidential primary election or caucus.[149][148][150] Cruz received 28% of the vote.[150] On February 10, 2016, Cruz placed third in the New Hampshire primary, with about 12% of the vote.[151] On February 21, 2016 he placed third in the South Carolina Republican primary with about 22.3% of the vote.[152]
On March 1, 2016, Super Tuesday primary day, Cruz won Texas by 17%, along with Alaska and Oklahoma, providing him with four state primary victories total.[153] In the Texasprimary, Cruz received the most votes in all but six of the state's 254 counties.[154] On March 5, 2016, Cruz won the Kansas and Maine caucuses, giving him six statewide wins.[155][156][157]
Cruz won his widest margin up to that point in Kansas, where he beat Trump by 25 points.[158] With his victories over Trump in Texas, Kansas, and Maine, Cruz established himself as the candidate with the best opportunity to defeat Trump, the leading contender for the nomination.[159][160]
On March 8, 2016, Cruz won the Idaho primary with 45% of vote—defeating Trump by 17% and earning his seventh statewide victory.[161] He placed second in Michigan,Mississippi, and Hawaii.[161] On March 12, 2016, Cruz won the Wyoming caucuses with 67% of the vote, giving him his eighth statewide win.[162]
On March 22, 2016, Cruz won the Utah Caucus with 69.2% of the vote, versus John Kasich with 16.8% and Donald Trump with 14%.[163] Because Cruz surpassed the 50% winner-take-all threshold, he won all 40 of Utah's delegates.
Citizenship
Main article: Ted Cruz presidential campaign, 2016 § Eligibility
Further information: Natural-born-citizen clause
Cruz has stated that when he was a child, his mother told him that she would have to make an affirmative act to claim Canadian citizenship for him, so his family assumed that he did not hold Canadian citizenship.[166] In August 2013, after the Dallas Morning News pointed out that Cruz had dual Canadian-American citizenship,[167][168] he applied to formally renounce his Canadian citizenship and ceased being a citizen of Canada on May 14, 2014.[166][169]
Several lawsuits and ballot challenges asserting that Cruz is ineligible have been filed.[170][171][172][173][174][175][176] No lawsuit or challenge has been successful, and in February 2016, the Illinois Board of Elections ruled in Cruz's favor, stating, "The candidate is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in Canada to his mother who was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth."[177]
Political positions
Main article: Political positions of Ted Cruz
Domestic affairs
On abortion, Cruz is "strongly pro-life" and "would allow the procedure only when a pregnancy endangers the mother's life."[178][179]
Cruz opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions.[180] He believes that marriage should be legally defined as only "between one man and one woman,"[181] but believes that the legality of same-sex marriage should be left to each state to decide.[182]
In 2015, Cruz voted in favor of the USA Freedom Act, which reauthorized the USA Patriot Act but reformed some of its provisions.[183][184]
Cruz is a proponent of school choice[185] and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative.[186] Cruz is a strong critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act(the ACA or "Obamacare"). He has sponsored legislation that would repeal the health care reform law and its amendments in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
Cruz is a gun-rights supporter.[187] Cruz adopted a "hard-line stance" on immigration issues during the 2014 border crisis[188] and is an opponent of comprehensive immigration reform.[48][188] Cruz advocates for an increase from 65,000 to 325,000 annually in skilled foreign workers entering the United States using H-1B visas.[189]
Cruz opposes the legalization of marijuana, but believes it should be decided at the state level.[190]
Cruz opposes net neutrality, arguing that the Internet economy has flourished in the United States simply because it has remained largely free from government regulation.[191]
Crime
Cruz has called for an end to "overcriminalization, harsh mandatory minimum sentences, and the demise of jury trials."[192] He supports the death penalty. In his 2012 Senate campaign, Cruz frequently mentioned his role as counsel for the State of Texas in Medellín v. Texas, a 2008 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Texas has the legal right to ignore an order from the International Court of Justice directing the U.S. to review the convictions and sentences of dozens of Mexican nationals on death row.[193] Cruz has referred to Medellín as the most important case of his tenure as Texas solicitor general.[193]
In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt discussing the attack that killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Cruz said that "the simple and undeniable fact is the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats", and that the reason Democrats are soft on crime, is that convicted felons tend to vote Democratic.[194]
In August 2015, in the wake of the ambush death of a Texas police officer who was gunned down while filling up at a gas station, Cruz said that police are "feeling the assault from the President, from the top on down, as we see — whether it’s in Ferguson or Baltimore, the response from senior officials, the President or the Attorney General, is to vilify law enforcement. That’s wrong. It’s fundamentally wrong. It’s endangering all of our safety and security."[195]
Economy
Cruz has been described by the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies as a "free trader"[196] and as a "free-trade advocate" by the Wall Street Journal.[197]
In 2013, Cruz proposed the abolition of the IRS and the implementation of a flat tax "where the average American can fill out taxes on a postcard."[198] Cruz is "adamantly opposed to a higher minimum wage."[199]
Cruz wants to decrease the size of the government significantly. In addition to eliminating the IRS as described above, Cruz has promised to eliminate four other cabinet-level agencies. Cruz proposes to eliminate the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, Department of Commerce, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.[200]
Environment
Cruz is a supporter of TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline,[201] and along with every other Republican senator was a cosponsor of legislation in support of the pipeline.[202]
Cruz rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[203][204] He has said that "the scientific evidence doesn't support global warming."[205] He has stated: "They call anyone who questions the science who even points to the satellite data – they call you a, quote, 'denier.' Denier is not the language of science. Denier is the language of religion. It is heretic. You are a blasphemer. It's treated as a theology. But it's about power and money. At the end of the day, it's not complicated. This is liberal politicians who want government power."[205] In March 2015, he said that some people are "global warming alarmists" and, citing satellite temperature measurements, said that there had been no significant warming in 18 years.[205][206][204]
Cruz voted against the Water Resources Development Act of 2013, that would have created the National Endowment for the Oceans and authorized more than $26 billion in projects to be built by the Army Corps of Engineers, at least $16 billion of which would have come from federal taxpayers.[207][208] Cruz voted against the bill because it neglected "to reduce a substantial backlog of projects, to the detriment of projects with national implications, such as the Sabine–Neches Waterway".[209] Cruz stated that the Corps' responsibilities were expanded without providing adequate measures for state participation.[209] Proponents of the bill argued that it would provide steady funding to support research and restoration projects, funded primarily by dedicating 12.5% of revenues from offshore energy development, including oil, gas, and renewable energy, through offshore lease sales and production based royalty payments, distributed through a competitive grant program.[210]
Foreign affairs
Cruz has been an adamant opponent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the U.S. and other world powers, calling it "catastrophic" and "disastrous."[211][212]
Cruz is a critic of the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, saying on Fox News in December 2014 that the thaw in relations was a "manifestation of the failures of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy" that "will be remembered as a tragic mistake."[213]
In 2013, Cruz stated that America had no "dog in the fight" during the Syrian Civil War and stated that America's armed forces should not serve as "al-Qaeda's air force".[214] In 2014, Cruz criticized the Obama administration: "The president's foreign policy team utterly missed the threat of ISIS, indeed, was working to arm Syrian rebels that were fighting side by side with ISIS", calling ISIS "the face of evil".[215] In a statement opposing US intervention for regime change in Syria, Cruz said, "If President Obama and Hillary Clinton and Sen. Rubio succeed in toppling (Syrian President Bashar) Assad, the result will be the radical Islamic terrorists will take over Syria, that Syria will be controlled by ISIS, and that is materially worse for U.S. national security interests."[216]
Personal life
Cruz married Heidi Nelson in 2001.[217] The couple have two daughters:[218] Caroline (born 2008) and Catherine (born 2011). Cruz met his wife while working on the George W. Bush presidential campaign of 2000. She is currently taking leave from her position as head of the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker.[219]
Cruz has said, "I'm Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist."[2]
Accolades
Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government named Cruz "2013 Person of the Year" in an op-ed in The Hill, citing the unsuccessful efforts of Cruz and fellow Republican freshman senator Mike Lee to defund the Affordable Care Act.[220]
Cruz was also named "2013 Man of the Year" by conservative publications TheBlaze,[221] FrontPage Magazine[222] and The American Spectator.[223] He was named "2013 Conservative of the Year" by Townhall.com,[224] and "2013 Statesman of the Year" by the Republican Party ofSarasota County, Florida.[225][226] He was a finalist for "2013 Texan of the Year" by The Dallas Morning News[227] and a finalist for Timemagazine's "Person of the Year" in 2013.[228]
Electoral history
Main article: United States Senate election in Texas, 2012
Bernie Sanders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician and the junior United States senator from Vermont. He is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election. A member of the Democratic Party since 2015,[2] Sanders had been the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history, though his caucusing with the Democrats entitled him to committee assignments and at times gave Democrats a majority. Sanders became the ranking minority member on the Senate Budget Committee in January 2015; he had previously served for two years as chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1964. While a student he was an active civil rights protest organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. After settling in Vermont in 1968, Sanders ran unsuccessful third-party campaigns for governor and U.S. senator in the early to mid-1970s. As an independent, he was elected mayor of Burlington—Vermont's most populous city—in 1981, where he was reelected three times. In 1990 he was elected to represent Vermont's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1991 Sanders co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected with 71% of the popular vote.
Sanders rose to national prominence following his 2010 filibuster against the proposed extension of the Bush tax cuts. He favors policies similar to those of social democratic parties in Europe, particularly those instituted by the Nordic countries, and has built a reputation as a leading progressive voice on issues such as campaign finance reform, corporate welfare, global warming, income inequality, LGBT rights, parental leave, and universal healthcare. Sanders has long been critical of U.S. foreign policy and was an early and outspoken opponent of the Iraq War. He is also outspoken on civil liberties and civil rights, particularly criticizing racial discrimination in the criminal justice system as well as advocating for privacy rights against mass surveillance policies such as theUSA PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance programs.
Contents[hide]Early life
Bernard Sanders was born on September 8, 1941, in Brooklyn, one of New York City's five boroughs.[3][4][5][6] His father, Elias Sanders, was born in Słopnice, Poland (then in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia),[7][8] on September 14, 1904[9] to a Jewishfamily; in 1921 he immigrated to the United States at the age of 17.[7][10][11] His mother, Dorothy Sanders (née Glassberg), was born in New York City on October 2, 1912,[12][13] to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland and Russia.[14][15] Many of Elias's relatives who remained in Poland were killed in the Holocaust.[13][16][17]
Sanders has said that he became interested in politics at an early age: "A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932. He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including 6 million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important."[18][19][20][nb 1]
Sanders lived on East 26th Street in Midwood, Brooklyn.[23] He attended elementary school at P.S. 197 in Brooklyn, where he won a borough championship on the basketball team.[24][25] He attended Hebrew school in the afternoons, and celebrated his bar mitzvahin 1954.[26] Bernie's older brother, Larry, said that during Bernie's childhood, the family never lacked for food or clothing, but major purchases, "like curtains or a rug," were difficult to afford.[27]
Sanders attended James Madison High School, also in Brooklyn, where he was captain of the track team and took third place in the New York City indoor one-mile race.[24] In high school, Sanders lost his first election, finishing last out of three candidates for the student body presidency. Shortly after his high school graduation, his mother died in June 1959 at the age of 46;[17] his father died three years later on August 4, 1962, at the age of 57.[8]
Sanders studied at Brooklyn College for a year in 1959–60[28] before transferring to the University of Chicago and graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1964.[28] He then became a graduate student at the New School for Social Research in New York.[29] He has described himself as a mediocre college student because the classroom was "boring and irrelevant," while the community provided his most significant learning.[30]
Early career
Main article: Electoral history of Bernie Sanders
Early political activism
While at the University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People's Socialist League (the youth affiliate of the Socialist Party of America),[32] and was active in the Civil Rights Movement as a student organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and theStudent Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.[16][33] Under Sanders's chairmanship, the university chapter of CORE merged with the university chapter of SNCC.[34] In January 1962, Sanders led a rally at the University of Chicago administration building to protest university president George Wells Beadle's segregated campus housing policy. "We feel it is an intolerable situation when Negro and white students of the university cannot live together in university-owned apartments," Sanders said at the protest. Sanders and 32 other students then entered the building and camped outside the president's office, performing the first civil rights sit-in in Chicago history.[35][36]After weeks of sit-ins, Beadle and the university formed a commission to investigate discrimination.[37] Sanders once spent a day putting up fliers protesting against police brutality, only to eventually notice that a Chicago police car was shadowing him and taking them all down.[38]
Sanders attended the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.[16][38][39] That summer, he was convicted of resisting arrest during a demonstration against segregation in Chicago's public schools and was fined $25.[31][40]
In addition to his civil rights activism during the 1960s and 1970s,[41] Sanders was active in several peace and antiwar movements. He was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Student Peace Union while attending the University of Chicago. Sanders applied for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War; his application was eventually turned down, by which point he was too old to be drafted. Although he opposed the war, Sanders never criticized those who fought and has been a strong supporter of veterans' benefits.[42][43]
Private careers
After graduating from college, Sanders returned to New York City, where he initially worked in a variety of jobs, including Head Start teacher, psychiatric aide, and carpenter.[30] In 1968, Sanders moved to Vermont because he had been "captivated by rural life." After his arrival there he worked as a carpenter, filmmaker, and writer[44] who created and sold "radical film strips" and other educational materials to schools.[45]
Liberty Union campaigns
Sanders began his electoral political career in 1971 as a member of the Liberty Union Party, which originated in the anti-war movement and the People's Party. He ran as the Liberty Union candidate for governor of Vermont in 1972 and 1976 and as a candidate for U.S. senator in 1972 and 1974.[46] In the 1974 senatorial race, Sanders finished third (5,901 votes; 4.1%), behind 33-year-old Chittenden County State's Attorney Patrick Leahy (D, VI; 70,629 votes; 49.4%) and two-term incumbent U.S. Representative Dick Mallary(R; 66,223 votes; 46.3%).[47][48]
The 1976 campaign proved to be the zenith of Liberty Union's influence, with Sanders collecting 11,000 votes for governor and the party. This forced the races for lieutenant governor and secretary of state to be decided by the state legislature when its vote total prevented either the Republican or Democratic candidates for those offices from garnering a majority of votes.[49] The campaign drained the finances and energy of the Liberty Union, however, and in October 1977—less than a year after the conclusion of the 1976 campaign—Sanders and the Liberty Union candidate for attorney general, Nancy Kaufman, announced their retirement from the party.[50]
Following his resignation from Liberty Union, Sanders worked as a writer and the director of the nonprofit American People's Historical Society (APHS).[51] While with the APHS, he made a 30-minute documentary about American Socialist leader and presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs.[32][52]
Mayor of Burlington
In 1980, at the suggestion of his close friend and political confidante Richard Sugarman, a professor of religion at the University of Vermont, Sanders ran for mayor of Burlington, Vermont. The 39-year-old Sanders ran against incumbent Democratic mayor Gordon "Gordie" Paquette, a five-term mayor who had served as a member of the Burlington City Council for 13 years before that, building extensive community ties and a willingness to cooperate with Republican leaders in controlling appointments to various commissions.[53] Republicans had found Paquette so unobjectionable that they failed to field a candidate in the March 1981 race against him, leaving Sanders as his principal opponent.[54]
Sanders' effort was further aided by the decision of the candidate of the Citizens Party, Greg Guma, to exit the race so as not to split the progressive vote.[55] Two other candidates in the race, independents Richard Bove and Joe McGrath, proved to be essentially non-factors in the campaign, with the battle coming down to Paquette and Sanders.[56]
Sanders castigated the pro-development incumbent as an ally of prominent shopping center developer Antonio Pomerleau, while Paquette warned of ruin for Burlington if Sanders was elected.[57] The Sanders campaign was bolstered by a wave of optimistic volunteers as well as by a series of endorsements from university professors, social welfare agencies, and the police union.[58] The final result came as a shock to the local political establishment, with the maverick Sanders winning by just 10 votes.[59]
Sanders was reelected three times, defeating both Democratic and Republican candidates. He received 53% of the vote in 1983 and 55% in 1985.[60] In his final run for mayor in 1987, Sanders defeated Paul Lafayette, a Democrat endorsed by both major parties.[61]
During his mayoralty, Sanders called himself a socialist and was so described in the press.[62][63] During his first term, his supporters, including the first Citizens Party City Councilor Terry Bouricius, formed the Progressive Coalition, the forerunner of the Vermont Progressive Party.[64] The Progressives never held more than six seats on the 13-member city council, but they had enough to keep the council from overriding Sanders's vetoes. Under Sanders, Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing.[65]
During the 1980s, Sanders was a staunch critic of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.[66] In 1985, Burlington City Hall hosted a foreign policy speech by Noam Chomsky. In his introduction, Sanders praised Chomsky as "a very vocal and important voice in the wilderness of intellectual life in America" and said he was "delighted to welcome a person who I think we're all very proud of."[67][68]
Sanders' administration balanced the city budget and drew a minor league baseball team, the Vermont Reds, then the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, to Burlington.[13]Under his leadership, Burlington sued the local television cable franchise, winning reduced rates for customers.[13]
As mayor, Sanders led extensive downtown revitalization projects. One of his signature achievements was the improvement of Burlington's Lake Champlain waterfront.[13] In 1981, Sanders campaigned against the unpopular plans by Burlington developer Tony Pomerleau to convert the then-industrial[69] waterfront property owned by the Central Vermont Railway into expensive condominiums, hotels, and offices.[70] Sanders ran under the slogan "Burlington is not for sale" and successfully supported a plan that redeveloped the waterfront area into a mixed-use district featuring housing, parks, and public space.[70] Today, the waterfront area includes many parks and miles of public beach and bike paths, a boathouse, and a science center.[70]
Sanders hosted and produced a public-access television program, Bernie Speaks with the Community, from 1986 to 1988.[71][72] He collaborated with 30 Vermont musicians to record a folk album, We Shall Overcome, in 1987.[73][74]
In 1986, Sanders unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Governor Madeleine Kunin (D) in her run for reelection. Running as an Independent, Sanders finished in 3rd place with 14.4% of the vote. Kunin won with 47%, followed by Lt. Governor Peter P. Smith (R) with 38%.
In 1987, U.S. News & World Report ranked Sanders as one of America's best mayors.[75] As of 2013, Burlington was regarded as one of the most livable cities in the nation.[76][77]
After serving four two-year terms, Sanders chose not to seek reelection in 1989. He briefly taught political science at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government that year and at Hamilton College in 1991.[78]
U.S. House of Representatives
See also: Electoral history of Bernie Sanders
Sanders' 1990 victory was heralded by The Washington Post and others as the "First Socialist Elected" to the United States House of Representatives in decades.[79][80] Sanders served in the House from 1991 until he became a senator in 2007.
Elections
In 1988, incumbent Republican Congressman Jim Jeffords decided to run for the U.S. Senate, vacating the House seat representing Vermont's at-large congressional district. Former Lieutenant Governor Peter P. Smith (R) won the House election with a plurality, securing 41% of the vote. Sanders, who ran as an independent, placed second with 38% of the vote, while Democratic State Representative Paul N. Poirier placed third with 19% of the vote.[81] Two years later, Sanders ran for the seat again and defeated the incumbent Smith by a margin of 56% to 39%.[82]
Sanders was the first independent elected to the U.S. House of Representatives since Frazier Reams' election to represent Ohio 40 years earlier.[80] He served as a representative for 16 years, winning reelection by large margins except during the 1994 Republican Revolution, when he won by 3.3%, with 49.8% of the vote.[83]
Tenure
During his first year in the House, Sanders often alienated allies and colleagues with his criticism of both political parties as working primarily on behalf of the wealthy. In 1991, Sanders co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of mostly liberal Democrats that Sanders chaired for its first eight years.[13]
In 1993, Sanders voted against the Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks and imposed a waiting period on firearm purchasers in the United States; the bill passed by a vote of 238–187.[84][85] In 1994, Sanders voted in favor of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, declaring on the floor of the House that "clearly, there are some people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them".[86][87] Sanders also said he voted for the bill "because it included the Violence Against Women Act and the ban on certain assault weapons."[88] In 2005, he voted for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.[89] The act's purpose was to prevent firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable for negligence when crimes have been committed with their products. In 2015, Sanders defended his vote, saying: "If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and the murderer kills somebody with a gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer."[90]
Sanders voted against the resolutions authorizing the use of force against Iraq in 1991 and 2002, and opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He voted for the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists[91] that has been cited as the legal justification for controversial military actions since the September 11 attacks.[92] Sanders voted for a non-binding resolution expressing support for troops at the outset of the invasion of Iraq, but gave a floor speech criticizing the partisan nature of the vote and the George W. Bush administration's actions in the run-up to the war. Regarding the investigation of what turned out to be a leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity by a State Department official, Sanders stated: "The revelation that the President authorized the release of classified information in order to discredit an Iraq war critic should tell every member of Congress that the time is now for a serious investigation of how we got into the war in Iraq and why Congress can no longer act as a rubber stamp for the President."[93]
Sanders was a consistent critic of the Patriot Act.[94] As a member of Congress, he voted against the original Patriot Act legislation.[95] After its 357-to-66 passage in the House, Sanders sponsored and voted for several subsequent amendments and acts attempting to curtail its effects,[96] and voted against each re-authorization.[97] In June 2005, Sanders proposed an amendment to limit Patriot Act provisions that allow the government to obtain individuals' library and book-buying records. The amendment passed the House by a bipartisan majority but was removed on November 4 of that year in House-Senate negotiations and never became law.[98]
In March 2006, after a series of resolutions passed in various Vermont towns calling for him to bring articles of impeachment against George W. Bush, Sanders stated that it would be "impractical to talk about impeachment" with Republicans in control of the House and Senate.[99] Still, Sanders made no secret of his opposition to the Bush Administration, which he regularly criticized for its cuts to social programs.[100][101][102]
Sanders was a vocal critic of Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan; in June 2003, during a question-and-answer discussion with the then-Chairman, Sanders told Greenspan that he was concerned that Greenspan was "way out of touch" and "that you see your major function in your position as the need to represent the wealthy and large corporations".[103][104] In October 2008, after Sanders had been elected to the Senate, Greenspan admitted to Congress that his economic ideology regarding risky mortgage loans was flawed.[105][106] In 1998, Sanders voted and advocated against rolling back the Glass–Steagall Legislation provisions that kept investment banks and commercial banks separate entities.[107]
On November 2, 2005, Sanders voted against the Online Freedom of Speech Act, which would have exempted the Internet from the campaign finance restrictions of the McCain–Feingold Bill.[108]
U.S. SenateElections
Main articles: United States Senate election in Vermont, 2006 and United States Senate election in Vermont, 2012
Sanders entered the race for the U.S. Senate on April 21, 2005, after Senator Jim Jeffords announced that he would not seek a fourth term. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, endorsed Sanders, a critical move as it meant that no Democrat running against Sanders could expect to receive financial help from the party. Sanders was also endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic National Committee chairman and former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Dean said in May 2005 that he considered Sanders an ally who "votes with the Democrats 98% of the time".[109] Then-Senator Barack Obamaalso campaigned for Sanders in Vermont in March 2006.[110] Sanders entered into an agreement with the Democratic Party, much as he had as a congressman, to be listed in their primary but to decline the nomination should he win, which he did.[111][112]
In the most expensive political campaign in Vermont's history,[113] Sanders defeated businessman Rich Tarrant by an approximately 2-to-1 margin. Many national media outlets projected Sanders as the winner just after the polls closed, before any returns came in. He was reelected in 2012 with 71% of the vote.[114]
Sanders was only the third senator from Vermont to caucus with the Democrats, after Jeffords and Leahy. His caucusing with the Democrats gave them a 51–49 majority in the Senate during the 110th Congress in 2007–08. The Democrats needed 51 seats to control the Senate because Vice President Dick Cheney would have broken any tie in favor of the Republicans.[115] When he officially announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president, Sanders set himself on a path to become only the second Democrat to represent Vermont in the Senate, the other being Leahy.[citation needed]
Tenure
Polling conducted in August 2011 by Public Policy Polling found that Sanders's approval rating was 67% and his disapproval rating 28%, making him then the third-most popular senator in the country.[116] Both the NAACP and the NHLA have given Sanders 100% voting scores during his tenure in the Senate.[117] In 2015 Sanders was named one of the Top 5 of The Forward 50.[118] In a November 2015 Morning Consult poll, Sanders had an approval rating of 83% among his constituents, making him the most popular senator in the country.[119]
As an independent, Sanders worked out a deal with the Senate Democratic leadership in which he agreed to vote with the Democrats on all procedural matters, except with permission from Democratic whip Dick Durbin (a request that is rarely made or granted). In return, he was allowed to keep his seniority and received the committee seats that would have been available to him as a Democrat; in 2013–14, he was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs (during the Veterans Health Administration scandal).[120][121] Sanders was free to vote as he pleased on policy matters, but almost always voted with the Democrats.[citation needed]
Budget
On September 24, 2008, Sanders posted an open letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson decrying the initial bank bailout proposal; it drew more than 8,000 citizen cosigners in 24 hours.[122] On January 26, 2009, Sanders and Democrats Robert Byrd, Russ Feingold, andTom Harkin were the sole majority members to vote against confirming Timothy Geithner as United States Secretary of the Treasury.[123]
On December 10, 2010, Sanders delivered an 81⁄2-hour speech against the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the proposed extension of the Bush-era tax rates that eventually became law, saying "Enough is enough! ... How many homes can you own?"[124][124][125][126] In response to the speech, hundreds of people signed online petitions urging Sanders to run in the 2012 presidential election, and pollsters began measuring his support in key primary states.[127] Progressive activists such as Rabbi Michael Lerner and economist David Korten publicly voiced their support for a prospective Sanders run against President Barack Obama.[127]
Sanders's speech was published in February 2011 by Nation Books as The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class, with authorial proceeds going to Vermont nonprofit charitable organizations.[128]
Senate Budget Committee
In January 2015, Sanders became the ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee.[121] He appointed economics professor Stephanie Kelton, a modern monetary theory scholar and self-described "deficit owl", as the chief economic adviser for the committee's Democratic minority[129] and presented a report aimed at helping "rebuild the disappearing middle class", which included proposals to raise the minimum wage, boost infrastructure spending, and increase Social Security payments.[130]
Committee assignments
2016 presidential campaign
Main article: Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, 2016
Sanders announced his intention to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president on April 30, 2015, in an address on the Capitollawn.[131][132][133] His campaign was officially launched on May 26, 2015, in Burlington.[132]
In his announcement, Sanders said, "I don't believe that the men and women who defended American democracy fought to create a situation where billionaires own the political process," and made this a central idea throughout his campaign.[131][132] Senator Elizabeth Warren welcomed Sanders's entry into the race, saying, "I'm glad to see him get out there and give his version of what leadership in this country should be."[134] On June 19, 2015, the "Ready For Warren" organization, which had unsuccessfully tried to draft Warren to run for president, endorsed Sanders and re-branded itself "Ready to Fight".[135]
Sanders stated that he would not pursue funding through a "Super PAC", instead focusing on small individual donations.[136] His presidential campaign raised $1.5 million within 24 hours of his official announcement.[137] At year's end the campaign had raised a total of $73 million from more than one million people making 2.5 million donations, with an average donation of $27.16.[138] The campaign reached 3.25 million donations by the end of January 2016, raising $20 million in that month alone.[139]
Sanders has used social media to help his campaign gain momentum.[140] He posts content to online platforms such as Twitter andFacebook, and has answered questions on Reddit. Sanders has also gained a large grassroots organizational following online. A July 29 meetup organized online brought 100,000 supporters to more than 3,500 simultaneous events nationwide.[141] Sanders has received over one million individual online donations. He has credited this to his "organic" approach to social media, and to writing his campaign's online postings himself.[142]
Sanders' campaign events in June 2015 drew overflow crowds around the country, to his surprise.[143][144][145] When Hillary Clinton and Sanders made public appearances within days of each other in Des Moines, Iowa, Sanders drew larger crowds, even though he had already made numerous stops around the state and Clinton's visit was her first in 2015.[146] On July 1, 2015, Sanders's campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, drew the largest crowd of any 2016 presidential candidate to that date, with an estimated turnout of 10,000.[147][148]Over the following weeks he gained even larger crowds of 11,000 in Arizona,[149] 15,000 in Seattle,[150] and 28,000 in Portland.[151]
On December 4, 2015, Sanders won Time's 2015 Person of the Year readers' poll with 10.2% of the vote[152][153] but did not receive the editorial board's award.[154]
In December 2015, the Democratic National Committee suspended the campaign's access to its voter data after a campaign staffer viewed data from Hillary Clinton's campaign during a firewall failure. The staffer denied accessing the data but the DNC confirmed it and Sanders apologized.[155] The Sanders campaign criticized the DNC's reaction as excessive and threatened possible legal action unless the Committee restored its access.[156]The campaign claimed it had warned the DNC about glitches in the voter file program months before.[157][158] On December 18, 2015, the campaign filed a lawsuit, stating the Committee had unfairly suspended its access.[159] Former Obama adviser David Axelrod contended on Twitter that the DNC was "putting a finger on the scale" for Clinton.[160]The DNC and the Sanders campaign struck a deal the same day that restored the campaign's access to voter data.[161]
Sanders narrowly lost the 2016 Iowa Democratic caucuses by 0.25% of the vote.[162] On February 9, Sanders won the 2016 New Hampshire Democratic primary by a margin of more than 20%,[163] one of the largest in decades.[164][165][166] He swept nearly every demographic with the exception of those over the age of 65 and those making over $200,000 annually.[167] Sanders became the first self-described democratic socialist and as a Jewish candidate, the first non-Christian to win a U.S. presidential primary of a major party.[164][168][169]
In February 2016, Sanders pushed back against the Democratic National Committee's reversal of President Obama's 2008 decision to ban political contributions from lobbyists and political action committees, calling it "an unfortunate step backward," and asked Hillary Clinton to do the same.[170]
On March 8, Sanders pulled off an upset in the Michigan Democratic primary. Polls favored Hillary Clinton by significant margins.[171][172]
Democratic Party presidential debates
Main article: Democratic Party presidential debates, 2016
The 2016 Democratic Party presidential debates occur among candidates in the campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination for the President of the United States in the2016 presidential election. The DNC announced on May 5, 2015, that there would be six debates, much fewer than the 26 debates and forums during the 2008 Democratic primary.[173] Critics, including the Sanders campaign, have alleged that the debate schedule is part of the DNC's deliberate attempt to protect the front-runner, Hillary Clinton.[174][175] Clinton has expressed willingness to hold more debates.[176]
Party affiliation since 2015
In November 2015, Sanders announced that he would be a Democrat from then on, and will run in any future elections as a Democrat.[177][178][179] On February 4, 2016, Sanders said, "Of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination."[180] In 2016, many additional sources, such as PBS,[181] The Wall Street Journal,[182] and CBS News[183] described Sanders as a Democrat.
The United States Senate website includes pages that refer to Sanders as an Independent[184] as well as pages that refer to him as a Democrat. Some of the pages calling him a Democrat are dated before 2015, possibly in error or in reference to his caucusing with the Democrats, not his later-declared affiliation.[185] In 2016, his official Senate press releases still referred to him as an Independent,[186][187] or omitted party affiliation.[188]
Political positions
Main article: Political positions of Bernie Sanders
Sanders is a self-described socialist,[189][190] democratic socialist,[195] and progressive who admires the Nordic model of social democracyand is a proponent of workplace democracy.[196][192][197] In November 2015, Sanders gave a speech at Georgetown University about his view of democratic socialism, including its place in the policies of presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.[198][199] In defining what democratic socialism means to him, Sanders said: "I don’t believe government should take over the grocery store down the street or own the means of production, but I do believe that the middle class and the working families who produce the wealth of America deserve a decent standard of living and that their incomes should go up, not down. I do believe in private companies that thrive and invest and grow in America, companies that create jobs here, rather than companies that are shutting down in America and increasing their profits by exploiting low-wage labor abroad."[198] Noam Chomsky described Sanders as "basically a New Dealer,"[200][201] and many journalists have likened his policies to the New Deal.
Many commentators have noted the consistency of Sanders's views throughout his political career.[202][203] Calling international trade agreements a "disaster for the American worker", Sanders voted against and has spoken for years against NAFTA, CAFTA, and PNTR with China, saying that they have resulted in American corporations moving abroad. He also strongly opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he says was "written by corporate America and the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street."[204][205]
Sanders focuses on economic issues such as income and wealth inequality,[191][206] raising the minimum wage,[207] universal healthcare,[208] reducing the burden of student debt,[209] making public colleges and universities tuition-free by taxing financial transactions,[210] and expanding Social Security benefits by eliminating the cap on the payroll tax on all incomes above $250,000.[211][212] He has become a prominent supporter of laws requiring companies to give their workers parental leave, sick leave, and vacation time, noting that such laws have been adopted by nearly all other developed countries.[213] He also supports legislation that would make it easier for workers to join or form aunion.[214][215]
Sanders has advocated for greater democratic participation by citizens, campaign finance reform, and the overturn of Citizens United v. FEC.[216][217][218] He also advocates comprehensive financial reforms,[219] such as breaking up "too big to fail" financial institutions, restoring Glass–Steagall legislation, reforming the Federal Reserve Bank and allowing the Post Office to offer basic financial services in economically marginalized communities.[224] Sanders strongly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and has criticized a number of policies instituted during the War on Terror, particularly mass surveillance and the USA PATRIOT Act.[225][226][227]
Sanders has liberal stances on social issues, having advocated for LGBT rights and against the Defense of Marriage Act.[228] Sanders considers himself a feminist.[229] He is alsopro-choice regarding abortion, and opposes the de-funding of Planned Parenthood.[230] He has denounced institutional racism and called for criminal justice reform to reduce thenumber of people in prison,[231] advocates a crackdown on police brutality, and supports abolishing private, for-profit prisons[232][233][234] and the death penalty.[235] Sanders supports legalizing marijuana at the federal level.[236] On November 15, 2015, in response to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)'s attacks in Paris, Sanders cautioned against "Islamophobia" and said, "We gotta be tough, not stupid" in the war against ISIL, further stating that the U.S. should continue to welcome Syrian refugees.[237]
Sanders advocates bold action to reverse global warming and substantial investment in infrastructure, with "energy efficiency and sustainability" and job creation as prominent goals.[238][239] Sanders considers climate change as the greatest threat to national security.[240][241]
Personal life
In 1963, Sanders and Deborah Shiling, whom he met in college, volunteered for several months on the Israeli kibbutz Sha'ar HaAmakim. They married in 1964 and bought a summer home in Vermont; they had no children and divorced in 1966.[32][242][243] Sanders's son, Levi Sanders, was born in 1969 to girlfriend Susan Campbell Mott.[30] In 1988, Sanders married Jane O’Meara Driscoll (née Mary Jane O'Meara), who later became president of Burlington College, in Burlington, Vermont.[244] With her he has three stepchildren—Dave Driscoll, Carina Driscoll, and Heather Titus (née Driscoll)—whom he considers to be his own children.[32][245] He also has seven grandchildren.[246]
In December 1987, during his tenure as mayor, Sanders recorded a folk album titled We Shall Overcome with 30 Vermont musicians. As Sanders was not skilled at singing, he performed his vocals in a talking blues style.[247][248] Sanders appeared in a cameo role in the 1988 comedy-drama film Sweet Hearts Dance, playing a man who distributes candy to young trick-or-treaters.[249] In 1999, he acted in the filmMy X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception, playing the role of Rabbi Manny Shevitz. In this role he mourned the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles, reflecting Sanders's own upbringing in Brooklyn.[250] On February 6, 2016, Sanders was a guest star alongside Larry David on Saturday Night Live, playing a Polish immigrant on a steamship that was sinking near the Statue of Liberty.[251]
Sanders's elder brother, Larry, lives in England.[252] He was a Green Party county councillor, representing the East Oxford division on Oxfordshire County Council, until he retired from the Council in 2013.[253][254] Larry ran as a Green Party candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon in the 2015 British general election and came in fifth.[255][256] Bernie told CNN, "I owe my brother an enormous amount. It was my brother who actually introduced me to a lot of my ideas."[256]
Religion and heritage
Sanders had a typical upbringing for his generation of American Jews: his father generally attended synagogue only on Yom Kippur; he attended public schools while his mother "chafed" at his yeshiva Sunday schooling at a Hebrew school; and their religious observances were mostly limited to Passover seders with their neighbors. Larry Sanders said, "They were very pleased to be Jews, but didn’t have a strong belief in God."[257] Bernie had a bar mitzvah ceremony[258] at the historic Kingsway Jewish Center in Midwood, Brooklyn, where he grew up.[257]
In 1963, in cooperation with the Labor Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, Sanders and his first wife volunteered at Sha’ar HaAmakim, a kibbutz in northern Israel.[259][260][261][262] His motivation for the trip was as much socialistic as it was Zionistic.[257]
As mayor of Burlington, Sanders allowed a Chabad public menorah to be placed at city hall, an action contested by the local ACLU chapter. He publicly inaugurated the Hanukkahmenorah and performed the Jewish religious ritual of blessing Hanukkah candles.[257] His early and strong support played a significant role in the now widespread public menorahcelebrations around the globe.[263][264][265][266] When asked about his Jewish heritage, Sanders has said he is "proud to be Jewish".[19][262]
Sanders has rarely spoken about religion and has avoided directly answering or downplayed questions about it.[258] He has stated he is "not particularly religious"[19] and "not actively involved" with organized religion.[258] He has been described as a "secular Jew who does not practice any religion"[267] and a "secular Jew" who lacks "God talk",[268] and he has called himself a "secular Jew without strong ties to organized religion".[269] A press package issued by his office states, without elaboration, "Religion: Jewish",[270] while the Washington Post describes him as potentially "one of the few modern presidents to present himself as not religious." He has said he believes in God, though not necessarily in a traditional manner: "I think everyone believes in God in their own ways," he said. "To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together."[258][271] Larry has described Bernie as "quite substantially not religious".[258] In October 2015, on the late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel asked Bernie, "You say you are culturally Jewish and you don't feel religious; do you believe in God and do you think that's important to the people of the United States?" Bernie replied:[272]
In 2016, he stated he had "very strong religious and spiritual feelings" and explained, "My spirituality is that we are all in this together and that when children go hungry, when veterans sleep out on the street, it impacts me."[273]
Sanders does not regularly attend any synagogue, and works on Rosh Hashanah, a day when Jews typically take a holiday from work. He has attended yahrzeit observances in memory of the deceased, for the father of a friend, and attended a Tashlikh, an atonement ceremony, with the mayor of Lynchburg on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah in 2015.[257] According to Sanders's close friend Richard Sugarman, a professor of religious studies at the University of Vermont, Sanders's Jewish identity is "certainly more ethnic and cultural than religious".[274] Deborah Dash Moore, a Judaic scholar at the University of Michigan, has said that Sanders has a particular type of "ethnic Jewishness" that is somewhat old-fashioned.[275] Sanders's wife is Roman Catholic, and he has frequently expressed admiration for Pope Francis, saying that "the leader of the Catholic Church is raising profound issues. It is important that we listen to what he has said." Sanders has said he feels "very close" to Francis' economic teachings, describing him as "incredibly smart and brave".[12][276][277]
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Presents, a Life with a Plan. My name is Karen Anastasia Placek, I am the author of this Google Blog. This is the story of my journey, a quest to understanding more than myself. The title of this blog, "The Secret of the Universe is Choice!; know decision" will be the next global slogan. Placed on T-shirts, Jackets, Sweatshirts, it really doesn't matter, 'cause a picture with my slogan is worth more than a thousand words, it's worth??.......Know Conversation!!!
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
For Immediate Release:How to Address a United States Senator:April 5th, 2016 ~ Time Stamp 2:39 AM confirmation laptop of Karen A. Placek; made by acer, running Windows 7 Active. Cue Card For Review?? Know Honor & Respect of The Protocol School of Washington And Robert Hickey
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