Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Congress should not have a lame-duck session if Americans vote out Democrats on Tuesday and give Republicans control of Congress.
On Breitbart News Sunday, Cruz, who was in Alaska campaigning for GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan, told host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that he expects to see “the American people resoundingly reject the failures of the Harry Reid Senate.”
“I am optimistic both about the Senate race here in Alaska and about the Senate races across the country,” Cruz said. “Come Tuesday night Republicans are going to retake the Senate and we’re going to retire Harry Reid as Majority Leader.”
If and when that happens, Cruz said Democrats who have been defeated should not vote for bills when they are no longer accountable to their constituencies.
“I don’t think Congress should come back for a lame duck,” Cruz said. “I think the idea of having a bunch of Senators who have just been thrown out of office set any meaningful policy doesn’t make any sense.”
Lawmakers can pull a lot of shenanigans during the lame-duck session. Earlier this year, big-business executives–like the Chamber of Commerce’s Tom Donohue–said they hoped amnesty legislation could be the the “last act” of the lame-duck session.
In Alaska, Cruz said he sensed during his standing-room only rallies on behalf of Sullivan that “the men and women of Alaska are tired of having a U.S. Senator in Washington who is a rubber stamp for Barack Obama and for Harry Reid.” He said the sentiment in Alaska, which Sarah Palin refers to as Texas’s big sister state, is the same in his home state and across the country.
“People realize the path we’re on isn’t working,” he said. “The Obama economy is a disaster. Millions of Americans are hurting. Obamacare is a train wreck. And they’re tired of the federal government coming after and violating their constitutional rights. They want to get back to the commonsense principles that built this country.”
When asked if there was anything that can be done in a lame-duck session of Congress to stop President Barack Obama’s forthcoming executive amnesty, Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential contender, said there was “very little Congress can do to stop the president because Harry Reid will still be Majority Leader and he will not allow anything to be done to stop the president” or “rein in his executive amnesty” during the lame-duck session. Cruz noted Reid’s Democrats “stood with Obama in favor of his authority for amnesty when they blocked legislation he introduced to stop the implementation of Obama’s executive amnesty.” Cruz said it was his hope that if Obama follows through on his promise to illegally grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, Republicans can pass legislation to stop it next year if they control the Senate.
While Cruz has said securing the border and stopping Obama’s illegal executive amnesty should be one of the priorities of a GOP-led Senate, in addition to leading on a host of other issues from energy to fighting bipartisan crony capitalism, establishment Republicans like Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have said Republicans should pass some type of amnesty legislation if they win back Congress, even though they could do so on the backs of Americans who are fed up with Obama’s lawlessness on illegal immigration, which is the president’s worst issue before the midterms.