Ted Cruz

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Ted Cruz (2019)

Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (* 22. December 1970 in Calgary , Alberta , Canada ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . Cruz has been a member of the United States Senate for the state of Texas since 2013 . For the 2016 presidential election , he applied for his party's nomination.

Life

Youth, studies and professional career

Ted Cruz was born to a Cuban exile and a US citizen . His father was a political prisoner under Fulgencio Batista and fled to the United States in 1957, where he settled in Texas. Cruz's parents had founded a small company in Canada that specialized in seismic reflection measurements for the exploration of oil reservoirs. When Ted Cruz was three years old, his parents separated. Soon after, they returned to the United States, each settling in Houston , Texas. His originally Catholic father became a born-again Christian in 1975 , was active as a traveling preacher, is now a pastor at a Baptist church in Dallas and supported his son's presidential candidacy in 2016. Cruz is also a member of the Southern Baptists .

Cruz attended Faith West Academy in Katy , Texas, and Second Baptist High School in Houston. After graduating from the latter he studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University , where he received a 1992 bachelor of arts degree cum laude received. He then studied at the Law School of Harvard University , where he received his Juris Doctor magna cum laude in 1995 . While studying there, Cruz was one of the editors of the Harvard Law Review .

After graduation, he worked as a legal assistant ( law clerk ) in 1995 for Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig and in 1996 for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court , William H. Rehnquist . He later worked as a lawyer. At the time of his 2012 election to the United States Senate, he was a partner in the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Houston.

From 2001 to 2003, Cruz was director of the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Policy Planning . He was the Solicitor General for Texas from 2003 to 2008 . As such, he was the first Hispanic attorney general in Texas and, at the time of his appointment, the youngest attorney general in any US state. In this capacity he obtained in the case of Medellín v. Texas has the right to the execution of a death row Mexican citizen even if the International Court of Justice has ruled . He was also an adjunct professor at the Law School of the University of Texas from 2004 to 2009 .

Senator for Texas

Cruz at the Values ​​Voters Summit in October 2011

Cruz is close to the Tea Party movement and was supported by it in the 2012 Senate election . After the previous Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison announced in January 2011 that she would not stand for re-election, Cruz declared his candidacy. He prevailed against the Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in the internal party primary and won the Senate election on November 6, 2012 against the Democratic challenger Paul Sadler with 56.6 percent. He is the first Hispanic to represent the state of Texas in the United States Senate.

In spring 2013 he found out through newspaper research that, contrary to his parents' assumption due to his birth in Canada, he was also an American citizen of Canada. He renounced this because he was of the opinion: “Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American by birth and as a US senator, I believe I should be only an American” - “Nothing against Canada, but I'm an American from Birth, and as a US Senator, I believe I should only be an American ”. His resignation from Canadian citizenship took effect in May 2014.

In the 2018 Senate election , Democrat Beto O'Rourke ran against Cruz. Cruz was considered the favorite in the structurally Republican dominated Texas and won the election with 50.9 to 48.3 percent of the vote.

US presidential candidacy 2016

Cruz during a campaign event in February 2016

On March 23, 2015, Ted Cruz announced that he would run as the Republican candidate for the 2016 presidential election in the United States . After George W. Romney , who stepped up Richard Nixon as a Republican candidate in 1968 , he is only the second candidate for the presidency to be clearly born outside the United States. One of the requirements for eligibility for president is the quality of being a natural born citizen . So-called birthers interpret this in such a way that the candidate must be born in the USA. On the other hand, according to the prevailing opinion, it is sufficient to be a US citizen by virtue of the mother's nationality . Since the Supreme Court has not yet made a decision on this matter, a certain degree of uncertainty remains.

Since November 2015, the polls for Cruz for the Republican top candidate have steadily increased. One reason was considered to be a loss of approval from Ben Carson from the right-wing conservative camp of the party. Cruz used a widespread basic mood against the party leadership, which he scornfully criticized as the “Washington establishment” that only wanted “big government” , ie more centralized power. The first Caucus -Vorwahlen in Iowa on February 1, 2016 he won surprisingly with 27.7% before the previously leading in surveys real estate billionaire Donald Trump , the 24.3% was second, and the rules as a "moderate conservative" Senator from Florida , Marco Rubio , who finished third with 23.1%. Unlike most of the other candidates, the Texas senator was positive about Trump's highly controversial demands for the deportation of all illegal immigrants. Like the billionaire, Cruz called for the construction of the fortifications on the border with Mexico to go ahead.

On January 31, 2016, the spokeswoman for the conservative grass-roots movement Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund , Jenny Beth Martin, announced that her organization supported Ted Cruz's candidacy for President of the United States (“We seek a candidate who shares our values: personal freedom, economic freedom, and a debt-free future. ... On behalf of the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund and our supporters, I am proud to announce our endorsement for President of the United States: Senator Ted Cruz! ").

By April 2016, Cruz was able to prevail in eleven states. He received the second most votes after Donald Trump. Up until then it had won victories in 22 countries. After the primary in New York on April 19, in which Cruz only took third place after Trump and John Kasich , the billionaire expanded his lead in delegates to such an extent that he was the only one with the absolute majority of delegates before the party congress could unite. The nomination of Cruz would only have been possible if Trump also missed an absolute majority of delegates. This would have required a second ballot at the party congress, in which most of the delegates would no longer have been bound by the pre-election result. Even among Republicans who are not direct supporters of Donald Trump, Cruz has few supporters - but numerous prominent opponents. For example, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner , ex-presidential candidate John McCain , Senator Lindsey Graham and ex-Senator Bob Dole publicly spoke out against him as a presidential candidate. Boehner, who resigned in 2015 under pressure from the Tea Party , called Cruz a "Lucifer in the flesh" ("Lucifer in the flesh").

In the first few months of the primaries, Cruz made repeated positive comments about Donald Trump, calling him an upright man and friend. When the latter intensified his attacks on "Lying Ted" and suggested that Cruz 'father was involved in the murder of John F. Kennedy , Cruz turned against Trump, who he is now a " philanderer," before the decisive Indiana primary "And" morbid liar "called. After significant defeats to Trump in primaries in the northeastern United States and Indiana, Cruz gave up his candidacy on May 3, 2016.

On the nomination Republican convention Cruz made a speech and called the delegates to "Vote in November according to your conscience!" This was a scandal rezipiert . The end of his speech was then overshadowed by boos. When asked, Cruz named Trump's negative remarks against his father as the reason for his rejection.

Political positions

Cruz in the election campaign for the 2016 presidential election (2015)

In foreign policy, Cruz says he stands between the hardliner John McCain and the isolationist Rand Paul . Cruz spoke out against the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State . He believes the US shouldn't support anyone in the Syrian civil war . He is a staunch defender of the American Constitution and the right to gun ownership guaranteed by it . Cruz refuses abortions if the pregnancy does not endanger the mother's life. He advocates a federal definition of the concept of marriage and rejects same-sex marriage . Cruz also opposes cross-state education legislation in the United States ( common core ): states should continue to decide their education policies alone.

In immigration policy, Cruz tries to occupy a middle position. He rejected the bipartisan compromise proposal to reform immigration legislation. On the one hand, he opposes the provision of citizenship to illegal immigrants and calls for stronger guarding of the US-American border with Mexico . On the other hand, he rejects the deportation of illegal immigrants. He prefers the possibility of legal residence without citizenship for those immigrants and calls for the liberalization of legal immigration through, among other things, an increase in the annual green cards .

Cruz advocates a balanced budget. He is opposed to raising the debt limit - even after the Senate reached a compromise following the budget dispute in October 2013. On 25 September 2013 he held a 21-hour period speech in the Senate ( filibuster ) with the aim of the vote on the rejected by him health care reform by President Barack Obama to delay. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2015, Cruz declared that if he were to become president, he would abolish the federal tax authorities as well as general health insurance ("Obamacare"). He is also against government subsidies. In his opinion, companies do not need government aid. He also wants to remove aid for bio-fuel. He wants to severely limit the powers of the environmental protection authorities.

Cruz is a climate change denier and claims, contrary to the scientific facts , that there is no scientific evidence that speaks for human-caused global warming . Cruz stressed this more openly than other Republican presidential candidates during the election campaign. At the same time, Cruz receives the highest donations from companies in the fossil fuel industry . In 2015, before the 2016 presidential campaign began, he received approximately $ 25 million in donations from fossil fuel companies, which accounted for approximately 57% of his campaign budget. This was the highest proportion of any Republican presidential candidate. In 2015, a total of approximately US $ 107 million from energy companies went to Super PACs of Republican applicants.

In 2018, Cruz was the recipient of most donations from the oil and gas industry, car and aircraft manufacturers, airlines, waste management associations, homeowners and gun owners. He was ranked second among the recipients of donations from railway companies, military aircraft manufacturers, steelworks and pro-Israel associations.

Sanction threat letter from Ted Cruz to Allseas

Cruz is a longtime supporter of the US fracking industry; He is also a leader in the US sanctions against Nord Stream 2 , which significantly improved the sales opportunities for the American liquefied gas obtained from fracking in Europe. The sanctions are included in Section 7503 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 . After signing the law in December 2019, Cruz, the US Senator of the pipeline-laying company Allseas , wrote that the company - should it continue to lay the pipeline for just one day or lend or resell ships for the purpose of continuing the laying - with potentially devastating sanctions occupied and the senior staff will be denied entry to the USA.

Together with Senators Tom Cotton and Ron Johnson , he sent an even clearer letter to Harm Sievers and Fridjof Ostenberg from Mukran Port Fährhafen Sassnitz GmbH in August 2020.

Heidi and Ted Cruz in March 2015 in Houston

family

Ted Cruz met his California- born wife Heidi in 2000 on an election campaign for George W. Bush and married her in 2001.

Heidi Cruz was Director for South America in the National Security Council and then worked at Goldman Sachs, first as Vice President and later as Managing Director. The couple have two daughters.

Web links

Commons : Ted Cruz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Ted Cruz  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Senator Ted Cruz, Confronting The Threat of Radical Islam. FrontPage Magazine, May 19, 2013 (Cruz 'speech at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Las Colinas Resort in Dallas, Texas on May 3, 2013).
  2. ^ Robert Costa: The Rise of Rafael Cruz: Senator Ted Cruz's father is a conservative force. National Review , August 28, 2013.
    About Senator Cruz . Ted Cruz's website, accessed January 15, 2016.
  3. ↑ Cathy Lynn Grossman: 5 faith facts about Ted Cruz: It's all about God's work. Religion News Service, January 31, 2016 (English).
  4. ↑ Editorial: Texan of the Year finalist Ted Cruz. The Dallas Morning News , December 20, 2012 (English).
  5. ^ Sarah Pulliam Bailey: Here's what we know about the faith of Sen. Cruz, who's set to announce his 2016 bid at Liberty University. The Washington Post , March 22, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b c d R. (Ted) Edward Cruz ( Memento of May 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Morgan Lewis Law Firm website, 2010.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Ted Cruz '92 Sworn-in as US Senator from Texas. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs website , January 3, 2013.
  8. ↑ Rachel Weiner: Who is Ted Cruz? The Washington Post , August 1, 2012.
    David Stout: Justices Rule Against Bush on Death Penalty Case. The New York Times , March 25, 2008 (English).
  9. ↑ Todd J. Gillman: No, Canada: Sen. Ted Cruz has formally shed his dual citizenship . The Dallas Morning News , June 10, 2014, accessed July 21, 2016.
  10. ↑ Texas Senate Election Results: Beto O'Rourke vs. Ted Cruz. In: The New York Times , November 7, 2018.
  11. ↑ Ted Cruz wants to go to the White House . Die Welt , March 23, 2015, accessed January 15, 2015.
  12. ↑ Shaun King: KING: Conservatives who claimed Obama wasn't an American citizen have no problem with Canadian-born Ted Cruz . New York Daily News , January 11, 2016, accessed July 21, 2016.
  13. ^ Lily Rothman: What the Supreme Court Could Say About Ted Cruz's Canadian Past . Time , May 23, 2015, accessed June 10, 2015.
  14. ^ Meet some of Ted Cruz's harshest critics - Republicans. BBC News , April 29, 2016, accessed July 21, 2016 .
  15. ↑ Katie Glueck, Shane Goldmacher: Ted Cruz drops out of presidential race . Politico , May 3, 2016, accessed July 21, 2016.
  16. ↑ Tina Sfondeles: Ted Cruz snubs Donald Trump: 'Vote your conscience'. Chicago Sun-Times , July 20, 2016, accessed July 21, 2016 : “Stand and speak and vote your conscience; vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution "
  17. ↑ Veit Medick , Roland Nelles: Scandal in Cleveland: Ted Cruz implodes Trump party congress . Spiegel Online , July 21, 2016.
  18. ↑ Ted Cruz: Beyond the “Flip-Flops”: Kerry's doctrinaire liberal foreign policy. National Review , October 8, 2004, archived from the original on December 28, 2010 ; accessed on July 21, 2016 (English).
  19. ↑ America and Syria: To bomb, or not to bomb? The Economist , September 7, 2013, accessed January 15, 2016.
  20. ↑ Allahpundit: Ted Cruz: My GOP Senate colleagues yelled at me for wanting to filibuster gun control . Hot Air , April 29, 2013, accessed January 15, 2016.
  21. ^ Melissa Barnhart: Pro-Life Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to Speak at National Right to Life Convention in Dallas . The Christian Post, June 27, 2013, accessed January 15, 2016.
  22. ^ Ted Cruz on Civil Rights. On The Issues , accessed July 21, 2016 .
  23. ↑ Jay Root, Julian Aguliar: Cruz Tries to Claim the Middle Ground on Immigration . In: The New York Times , September 13, 2013.
  24. ↑ Jonathan Weisman, Ashley Parker: Republicans Back Down, Ending Crisis Over Shutdown and Debt Limit . In: The New York Times , September 16, 2013, accessed January 15, 2016.
  25. ↑ Tina Hassel : Republican speaks in the US Senate: Permanent speech against Obamacare. Tagesschau.de , September 25, 2013, archived from the original on September 27, 2013 ; accessed on July 21, 2016 .
  26. ^ Andreas Ross: Show of the most conservatives . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 27, 2015, accessed on January 15, 2016.
  27. ^ Climate Denier Ted Cruz Is Poised to Become a Lead Senator on Science . In: New Republic , November 6, 2014. Retrieved August 11, 2018.
  28. ^ Suzanne Goldenberg, Helena Bengtsson: Oil and gas industry has pumped millions into Republican campaigns . The Guardian , March 3, 2016, accessed July 21, 2016.
  29. ^ Publications - Sen. Ted Cruz - Texas . opensecrets.org, accessed August 8, 2020.
  30. ^ Ted Cruz Is Working to Give the Oil Industry What It Wants. So Why Are They Complaining? www.theatlantic.com, January 15, 2015
  31. ↑ National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 www.govtrack.us, accessed December 29, 2019
  32. ↑ DUE TO IMMEDIATE SANCTIONS: Swiss company Allseas suspends work on Nord Stream 2 www.faz.net, December 21, 2019
  33. ^ Daniel Wetzel: USA threatens German Nord Stream 2 port with economic destruction . welt.de August 5, 2020, accessed on August 8, 2020.
  34. ^ Lise Olsen: Cruz's life defies simplification . Chron, October 15, 2012, accessed July 21, 2016.
  35. ↑ Tom Cleary: Heidi Nelson Cruz, Ted's Wife: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know . Heavy, March 23, 2015, accessed July 21, 2016.
  36. ↑ Ted Cruz in the Notable Names Database (English)
    Robert T. Garrett: Senate candidate Ted Cruz aims to pick up mantle of Reagan . The Dallas Morning News , August 1, 2012, accessed July 21, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Cruz, Ted
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cruz, Rafael Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician (Republican Party)
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Calgary , Alberta , Canada