Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz criticized Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s record on Obamacare while advocating against ending the filibuster to repeal the law on Monday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”
Cruz said, “I believe ending the legislative filibuster would ultimately undermine conservative principles, because if you look historically, there have been three major periods where you have had Democratic supermajorities. The first produced the New Deal. The second produced the Great Society. And the third produced Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. I think the legislative filibuster, the supermajority requirement in the Senate, more often than not, slows bad, liberal, radical ideas, that I think as the framers described it, the Senate serves as a saucer to cool the heat of the House. And so I think we would regret it if we got rid of the supermajority requirement in the Senate for legislation. So what does that mean for Obamacare? As I’ve said in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, the consequence of this decision is it makes 2016 a referendum on repealing Obamacare. And any Republican candidate who’s not prepared to lead that fight to repeal every word should step aside. I intend to make it a referendum.”
After Hewitt pointed to Scott Walker’s support for ending the filibuster, Cruz responded, “But you know what’s interesting, Hugh, it’s easy. Talk is cheap. I mean, I would note that when Mike Lee and I were fighting tooth and nail to stop Obamacare, that a number of politicians, including Governor Walker, were publicly criticizing us for doing that. So, when you’re campaigning for president, it’s easy to talk about what you’d do against Obamacare. But I think every one of the candidates should be asked not, ‘What would you do?’ But ‘What have you done?'”
Cruz added, “Now, we don’t need to override the filibuster to defeat Obamacare. Reid didn’t do that to pass Obamacare. He used reconciliation. What you can pass with reconciliation, you can repeal with reconciliation. The key to get it done, is it’s got to be a grassroots movement. It’s got to be a mandate from November, 2016, like the Reagan revolution.”
Hewitt then pressed Cruz about whether he would let parts of Obamacare “that will not be gotten rid of in reconciliation” stand rather than break the filibuster, Cruz initially stated that he wasn’t accepting that hypothetical, but did say, after Hewitt said that he believes in eliminating the filibuster, “if we had followed your advice, we would have cap and trade, we would have some of the most egregious left-wing legislation. Under Majority Leader Elizabeth Warren, Hugh Hewitt would be looking back going ‘Why on Earth did I remove our ability to stop radical socialist policies that are destroying this country?'”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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