The race for the Texas Senate seat currently held by odious religious extremist Ted Cruz is heating up as upstart Democrat challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke closes in and Cruz’s support collapses among independents, with recent polls indicating the two are neck and neck just three months away from the election.
O’Rourke’s sudden surge has forced the repulsive Republican to stoop to some truly shameful — not to mention infuriatingly hypocritical — tricks to try to discredit his opponent.
Cruz’s campaign has just released a video attacking O’Rourke for voting against an emergency tax relief bill for those in Texas who were affected by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, implying that he didn’t do his part to help the state in its time of need.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t tell the whole story in a disgraceful attempt to make it look like O’Rourke doesn’t care about the people of Texas.
See our new ad about Beto O'Rourke's "completely ridiculous" vote here –> https://t.co/Z1rJhu2gXH
Help #KeepTexasRed by committing to #ChooseCruz on Tuesday, November 6: https://t.co/rzQF953OZx #TXSen pic.twitter.com/YdENoStcoS
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 28, 2018
Cruz conveniently fails to mention that O’Rourke voted for four Hurricane Harvey relief bills, three of which became law.
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While it’s true that O’Rourke did vote against Cruz’s bill that would have provided tax relief for coastal property owners, he only did so in order to use the bill to try to force Republicans to pass an extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which they had let lapse and didn’t bother to deal with for four months.
CHIP helps provide health insurance for 394,000 Texan kids and prenatal care for Texan 36,000 mothers — mothers and children O’Rourke went to bat for while “pro-life” Cruz was happy to leave them out in the cold.
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While Cruz’s ad highlights all of his photo-op visits to Hurricane Harvey-affected areas, his voting record tells a very different story.
While he did indeed put his name on a tax-relief bill, the tax breaks were not the critical relief and recovery package that Texas really needed.
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When it came time to fight with the White House for money for their state, which only offered a paltry $41 billion, Texas Senator John Cornyn was on the front lines. Cruz, on the other hand, was “nowhere to be found,” writes the Houston Chronicle’s editorial board.
“Where was Cruz?
On the day before Congress rolled out its $81 billion Harvey bill, Texas’ junior senator was on Twitter arguing about net neutrality with Star Wars actor Mark Hamill.
Cruz shut down the Senate in a futile attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2013, but years later, he couldn’t harness similar passion to help Texas rebuild from Harvey.
Since he was first elected, Cruz has demonstrated a willingness to use every tool available in pursuit of his policy agenda. It just so happens to be an agenda that doesn’t include hurricane recovery funds.
‘When the hurricane hit, you stood up for Texas,’ the ad’s narrator tells viewers. ‘And Ted Cruz stood up for you.’
But when it came to the hard work of bringing home billions to rebuild Texas, Cruz sat that one out.”
This isn’t even the first time Cruz has turned his back on the victims of natural disasters. When Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast, Cruz had the gall to vote against the package because he argued that there was “too much unrelated pork.”
While Cruz likes to pretend that he’s a ruggedly independent and principled conservative who isn’t afraid to clash with his colleagues, the truth is he’s a ruthless and cynical manipulator whose first priority is his own ambition and his second priority is his radical Christian agenda of anti-LGBT and misogynist bigotry.
It’s time to that Texas elected a Senator who will fight for his state at every moment, not just when it’s politically convenient for him; for a Senator who will protect all of its citizens, not just the rich ones or the white ones or the Christian ones. It’s time for Texas to elect Beto O’Rourke.
You can help push O’Rourke over the edge by donating to his campaign here.
