Rafael Edward Cruz is an American politician, attorney, and political commentator serving as the junior United States senator from Texas since 2013.
110 Facts About Ted Cruz
2.
In 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to serve as Solicitor General, a position he held from 2003 to 2008.
3.
In 2012, Cruz was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first Hispanic-American to serve as a US senator from Texas.
4.
Ted Cruz was reelected in a close Senate race in 2018 against Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke.
5.
On March 23,2015, Ted Cruz announced he was running for president.
6.
Rafael Edward Ted Cruz was born on December 22,1970, at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson and Rafael Ted Cruz.
7.
Ted Cruz is of three-quarters Irish and one-quarter Italian descent, and earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Rice University in the 1950s.
8.
Ted Cruz 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.
9.
Ted Cruz earned Canadian citizenship in 1973 and became a naturalized United States citizen in 2005.
10.
At the time of his birth, Ted 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 oil drilling.
11.
In 1974, Ted Cruz's father left the family and moved to Texas.
12.
For junior high school, Ted Cruz went to Awty International School in Houston.
13.
Ted Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, an executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.
14.
At the firm, Ted Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.
15.
In 1998, Cruz was briefly one of the attorneys who represented Representative John Boehner during his litigation against Representative Jim McDermott over the alleged leak of an illegal recording of a phone conversation whose participants included Boehner.
16.
In 2003, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appointed Cruz to be the solicitor general of Texas.
17.
Ted Cruz authored 70 US Supreme Court briefs and presented 34 appellate oral arguments.
18.
Ted Cruz 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.
19.
In 2004, Cruz was involved in the high-profile case surrounding a challenge to the constitutionality of public schools' requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, Elk Grove Unified School District v Newdow.
20.
Ted Cruz wrote a brief on behalf of all 50 states that argued that the plaintiff, a non-custodial parent, did not have standing to file suit on his daughter's behalf.
21.
In Medellin v Texas, Cruz successfully defended Texas against an attempt to reopen the cases of 51 Mexican nationals, all of whom were convicted of murder in the United States and on death row.
22.
Ted Cruz unsuccessfully argued the judge's jurisdiction expired 30 days after the case was dismissed following an out-of-court settlement, but later won a second appeal using the same argument.
23.
Ted Cruz defended two record-setting $54-million personal injury awards in New Mexico at the appellate level, including one that a lower court had thrown out.
24.
On January 19,2011, after US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said she would not seek reelection, Ted Cruz launched his campaign via a blogger conference call.
25.
Ted Cruz was endorsed by former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, George P Bush, and former US senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.
26.
Ted Cruz won with 4.5 million votes to Sadler's 3.2 million.
27.
Ted Cruz disclosed the loans on his Senate financial disclosure forms in July 2012, but not on the FEC form.
28.
Ted Cruz faced the Democratic nominee, US Representative Beto O'Rourke, in the general election.
29.
Ted Cruz gave a 21-hour Senate speech in an effort to hold up a federal budget bill and thereby defund the Affordable Care Act.
30.
Ted Cruz persuaded the House of Representatives and House Speaker John Boehner to include an ACA defunding provision in the bill.
31.
Ted Cruz was a finalist for Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2013.
32.
Ted Cruz has consistently denied any involvement in the 2013 government shutdown, even though he cast several votes to prolong it and was blamed by many within his own party for prompting it.
33.
Under the headline "A bipartisan message to Iran", Cruz thanked President Barack Obama for signing S 2195 into law.
34.
Ted Cruz thanked senators from both political parties for "swiftly passing this legislation and sending it to the White House".
35.
In June 2016, Ted Cruz blamed the Obama administration for the Orlando nightclub shooting, reasoning that it did not track the perpetrator Omar Mateen properly while he was on the terrorist watch-list.
36.
Ted Cruz accused the Obama administration of having a "radical anti-Israel agenda".
37.
In late January 2017, Cruz praised Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch as "brilliant and immensely talented" in a written statement.
38.
On February 23, while speaking at the 2017 CPAC, Ted Cruz showed interest in Trump's nomination of a young justice in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
39.
Ted Cruz has used harsh rhetoric against fellow Republican politicians, and his relationships with various Republican members of Congress have been strained.
40.
Ted Cruz called fellow Republicans "squishes" on gun-control issues during a Tea Party rally.
41.
Ted 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".
42.
When Boehner resigned from the House in September 2015, Ted Cruz expressed his concern that before resigning Boehner might have "cut a deal with Nancy Pelosi to fund the Obama administration for the rest of its tenure".
43.
Ted Cruz is one of the Senate Republicans in favor of the "nuclear option", "to speed up consideration of President Trump's nominees".
44.
Ted Cruz later led an effort by a group of Republican senators to refuse to count Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes, citing baseless allegations of fraud.
45.
Ted Cruz, who had previously argued nine cases before the Supreme Court, agreed to Trump's request to argue the Paxton suit should it come before the Court, though it did not.
46.
Ted Cruz said he was he was "leading the charge" to prevent Biden's certification as president.
47.
Some observers think Ted Cruz knew claims about fraud in the election were inaccurate and that this speech and his earlier statements were attempts to mislead for political gain.
48.
When Congress reconvened that evening to continue the count, Cruz voted to object to Arizona's and Pennsylvania's electoral votes.
49.
The Texas Democratic Party called on Ted Cruz to resign, saying that his efforts to block Biden's lawful victory empowered the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol.
50.
The Texas Democratic Party called on the US Department of Justice to open an official investigation into Ted Cruz for inciting sedition and treason.
51.
The San Antonio Express News called for Ted Cruz to be expelled from the Senate.
52.
President-elect Biden and Republican senator Pat Toomey both said Ted Cruz was complicit in the "big lie" of Trump's allegations of voter fraud.
53.
On May 28,2021, Cruz voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the riot.
54.
Ted Cruz left the family poodle Snowflake alone inside the house without heat; reporters saw the dog through the window of the front door of the dark and empty house.
55.
Ted Cruz initially said he was taking his daughters on a weeklong vacation from school at their request, in an attempt to be a "good dad".
56.
Ted Cruz did speaking events in mid-2013 across Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, all early primary states, leading to further speculation that he was laying the groundwork for a 2016 bid.
57.
Ted Cruz said that the words "growth and opportunity" should be tattooed on the hands of every Republican politician.
58.
Ted Cruz delivered one of many State of the Union responses in January 2015.
59.
On March 23,2015, Cruz started his 2016 presidential campaign for the Republican primaries and caucuses, in a morning speech delivered at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
60.
Ted Cruz raised nearly $92 million, a record for a Republican primary candidate, much of it from small online donors.
61.
Ted Cruz won his widest margin up to that point in Kansas, where he beat front-runner Donald Trump by 25 points.
62.
Ted Cruz received the support of the majority of the delegates.
63.
Ted Cruz won 36 of the 42 delegates available in Wisconsin.
64.
Ted Cruz has said that when he was a child, his mother told him that she would have to formally request Canadian citizenship for him, so he and his family had always assumed he was not a Canadian citizen.
65.
Several lawsuits and ballot challenges asserting that Ted Cruz was ineligible to become US president were filed at the time.
66.
Shortly after the campaign's end, Cruz indicated that he would restart the bid if successful in the Nebraska primary, which Trump later won.
67.
Ted Cruz instead told listeners to "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".
68.
On October 10, after the 2005 audio recording of Trump was released and several Republicans retracted their endorsements, Cruz reaffirmed his support, calling Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton "manifestly unfit to be president".
69.
Ted Cruz was backed by the billionaire Mercer family, including Robert and his daughter Rebekah.
70.
Ted Cruz has been characterized as staunchly conservative, "radical right", a religious conservative, and anti-establishmentarian.
71.
In July 2018, Ted Cruz spoke at the Rally for Religious Freedom in Asia.
72.
Ted Cruz has called for an end to "overcriminalization, harsh mandatory minimum sentences, and the demise of jury trials".
73.
Ted Cruz has called Medellin the most important case of his tenure as Texas solicitor general.
74.
Ted Cruz is a gun rights supporter, and opposes expanding gun control regulations.
75.
Ted Cruz opposes the legalization of marijuana, but believes it should be decided at the state level.
76.
In May 2022, after the Robb Elementary School shooting, Ted Cruz blamed mass shootings on declining church attendance, violent video games, prescription drugs, cyberbullying, social isolation, and other societal factors.
77.
Ted Cruz has been described by the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies as a "free trader" and as a "free-trade advocate" by The Wall Street Journal.
78.
Ted Cruz wants to decrease the size of the government significantly.
79.
Ted Cruz is a proponent of school choice and opposes the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
80.
Ted Cruz said the Corps' responsibilities were expanded without providing adequate measures for state participation.
81.
In 2017, Ted Cruz was one of 22 senators to sign a letter addressed to Trump urging him to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
82.
Ted Cruz is a supporter of TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline, and following the Republican senate whip, was a cosponsor of legislation in support of the pipeline.
83.
In 2015, Cruz voted for the USA Freedom Act, which reauthorized the USA Patriot Act but reformed some of its provisions.
84.
In 2013, Ted Cruz said that the US had no "dog in the fight" during the Syrian Civil War and that its armed forces should not serve as "al-Qaeda's air force".
85.
In September 2016, Ted Cruz backed the Obama administration's plan to sell more than $1.15 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia.
86.
On January 5,2017, Cruz voted in favor of a House resolution condemning UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law.
87.
Ted Cruz has called the Nord Stream II natural gas pipeline a threat to the security of Europe and the US In December 2019 he and Senator Ron Johnson wrote a letter to Edward Heerema, the owner of the offshore pipe layer Allseas, to warn him of sanctions if Allseas did not suspend its work on the pipeline, which would deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.
88.
In October 2021, Cruz posted a tweet that was critical of Australia's Northern Territory's vaccine mandates.
89.
In 2022, Ted Cruz sharply criticized the Chinese government for its detention of Houston resident Mark Swidan, who has been held for over ten years.
90.
Ted Cruz was a vocal critic of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed under President Obama in 2010.
91.
In 2013, Cruz voted against a bill to provide a package of federal aid to the Northern East Coast for recovery from Hurricane Sandy because, he said, the bill was "filled with unrelated pork" and "two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy".
92.
In 2015, in the wake of severe flooding in Texas, Cruz supported federal aid funding; and in 2017, called for federal intervention as Hurricane Harvey approached the coast of Texas.
93.
Ted Cruz took a "hard-line stance" on immigration issues during the 2014 border crisis and opposes comprehensive immigration reform.
94.
Ted Cruz has called for the repeal of the clause of the 14th amendment that grants citizenship to those born in the United States.
95.
Ted Cruz defends the Trump administration's policy of separating migrant children from their parents, blaming the migrant parents for crossing the US border to seek asylum and claiming that the Obama administration maintained a similar policy.
96.
In December 2020, Ted Cruz blocked the Hong Kong People's Freedom and Choice Act, which would give Hong Kongers refugee status, citing the threat of spying by China.
97.
Ted Cruz said the law was an attempt by Democrats "to advance their long-standing goals on changing immigration laws".
98.
In September 2020, less than two months before the next presidential election, Cruz supported an immediate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.
99.
Ted Cruz accused Democratic politicians of trying to transform "the greatest military on earth" into "pansies".
100.
Ted Cruz has claimed the military is debilitated and its "ability to project power and obtain air superiority is tragically anemic".
101.
Ted Cruz has argued that net neutrality is the "Obamacare for the internet".
102.
Ted Cruz said that the Obama-era implementation of the principle of net neutrality had the "end result" of "less broadband, less innovation, and less freedom for the American consumer".
103.
Ted Cruz pinned some of his blame on then-President Obama, saying that Obama had overseen outsourcing for the previous seven years.
104.
In 2022, Cruz voted against Bernie Sanders's proposed measure for the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which promised to fund semiconductor manufacturers amid a shortage of their products during the COVID-19 pandemic.
105.
Ted Cruz is in favor of cutting federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
106.
Ted Cruz reaffirmed his position in 2022 after comments by Justice Clarence Thomas.
107.
The couple met when Cruz was working on George W Bush's 2000 presidential campaign.
108.
Ted Cruz previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker.
109.
On March 8,2020, Cruz began self-isolation after contact with a person infected with COVID-19 at the ACU's Conservative Political Action Conference.
110.
Ted Cruz said he had been advised that the odds of contracting the virus were very low.