When the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate and Obamacare by labeling the individual mandate a tax, the U.S. Senate became that much more important and a battleground for conservatives who want to repeal Obamacare.
In the runoff for the Republican Senate nomination in Texas, which will be held on July 31, conservative Ted Cruz has signed the “Repeal Pledge” while his moderate, establishment opponent, Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst, has not signed the Repeal Pledge.
(UPDATE: The group that sponsors the “Repeal Pledge” told National Review they have no record of Dewhurst signing the repeal pledge until last night, after Cruz’s conference call. The Dewhurst campaign contends they had signed the pledge on May 26.)
“He won’t sign it, he refuses to sign it,” Cruz said during a conference call on Thursday, nothing that it is clear why: Dewhurst a “conciliator” who at every junction in his career has “failed to stand for conservative principles” and instead “reached for the easy compromise.”
Cruz said it was “a bad day for liberty” and “the Supreme Court abdicated its responsibility to uphold the Constitution.”
Cruz said the Obamacare decision was a “shameful decision” that “underscores the stakes in the Texas Senate race” because the “battleground to repeal Obamacare will be in the U.S. Senate.”
“Now is not the time for conciliation,” Cruz said. “Texas needs to be leading this fight.”
Cruz said the fight to repeal Obamacare will be an “epic battle and I intend the lead the fight to repeal every word of Obamacare.”
Cruz said Texas cannot send a Senator, like Dewhurst, who has “spent a lifetime … repeatedly” cutting deals and compromising and would go “wobbly,” “go along to get along,” and look for the “the easy middle ground and the easy compromise.”
In the past, Dewhurst has made questionable comments about how America’s health care system is worse than those of Socialist countries, leaving people to wonder if he has a soft spot for the individual mandate.
In their first debate, in which Dewhurst lied about having supported a payroll tax when his office had issued a press release bragging about the payroll tax Dewhurst backed, Cruz spoke movingly and passionately against the Kelo decision that trampled on private property rights, to which the Obamacare decision is akin.
Cruz has fought for U.S. Sovereignty against a Republican administration and president and the World Court and won and is someone conservatives can trust to stick to his conservative principles and repeal “every word” of Obamacare, which Cruz said was essential before any replacement is discussed (Cruz said once Obamacare is repealed, he would favor supporting health care policies that allowed people to buy insurance across state lines, increased health savings accounts, and de-linked health insurance from employment).
Because the Supreme Court’s decision has left now it up to the people to uphold Constitutional values, Dewhurst’s refusal to sign the Repeal Pledge should leave many conservatives in Texas and across the nation seriously concerned that Dewhurst, should he go to the Senate, will turn his back on conservatives like David Souter and John Roberts have done on the Court.
On the contrary, Cruz has spent a lifetime not only fighting the left but fighting those on the right–as he did in the case when he fought for U.S. sovereignty against a Republican administration–who are prone to going “wobbly” like Roberts and Souter.
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