No when it mattered. Cruz was the biggest cheer leader for TPA in the Senate when it counted and voted for TPA when it counted. He even wrote an op-ed for the WSJ urging passage of TPA. When after getting absolutely hammered on social media he flip flopped, which he does a lot. His many flip flops tell me you can not believe what he says.
1. Ted Cruz is a Reagan Republican: he believes in free trade as a powerful weapon to spread democracy and increase American influence— but he wants Congress to have a role in trade agreements. TPA has been used by every President for the past 50 years to expedite the negotiation of trade deals. Our allies, and enemies, know that the US Congress is a fickle beast that just loves to tack on poison pill amendments in order to kill a bill/treaty. TPA sets a time period and the mandate of an up or down vote— no amendments, no denial of cloture, no foot dragging. If Congress members do not like the details of the bill, they have to vote no and send it back to the drawing board. Furthermore, unlike the Constitutionally mandated treaty process, TPA allows for the House of Representatives to get a vote on a trade bill. (The Constitution says that the Senate must ratify a treaty— the House gets no vote.) Now I think we would all agree that Congressmen who have to be re-elected every 2 years are far less likely to sign onto a damaging treaty than Senators, who are only elected every 6 years— so letting the House have a vote is a good idea.
2. The TPA bill that originally hit the Senate floor was all but identical to the TPA used by the aforementioned Presidents of the past half-century. Senator Sessions was (rightly) concerned that immigration language would be added to the bill in the House, but no such language existed in the first Senate version. Conservatives were further worried that TPA would be used to re-authorize the Export-Import bank. McConnell gave assurances that the Export Import bank not only would not be added to the TPA, but that it was dead for the rest of the legislative year.
3. To end debate on any bill, that does not fall under specific budget rules, in the Senate you need unanimous consent OR 60 yes votes during what is called a cloture vote. When the cloture vote for TPA—the Senate version— was held there were 62 yes votes. Cruz did not cast the 60th, 61st, or 62nd vote. In fact, he had already voted yes to end the debate because he had been assured by House and Senate leaders that immigration codicils would not be added and that Ex/Im was dead. Then McConnell, realizing he would not get cloture (he only had 54 votes) made a deal with 8 Senators to put Ex/Im on another bill. You can read about those shenanigans here: http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/trade-promotion-authority-senate-roll-call-vote/
4. After cloture was obtained the deal McConnell made became public and Cruz was pissed as hell. To make matters worse, the House TPA bill included the very immigration language Sessions warned about. So, both Boehner and McConnell lied to conservatives (not just Cruz) in order to garner support. Because the House and Senate bills were different, they had to be combined in what is called a “Conference Committeeâ€. That bill then had to be passed by both the House and Senate.
5. It was during the vote for cloture on the newly edited joint bill, (TPA-2 if you will) that Cruz and several others rebelled and voted no. Cruz has explained that the version of TPA that was passed was not the version supported by Reagan conservatives and he could not, in good conscience, vote for it.
6. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal has been sent to Congress to vote on under the rules outlined in TPA. This means that TPP cannot be amended or filibustered. All members of Congress will have a chance to vote and must either vote yes or no.
It’s amazing to me the things that people consider flip-flops. Romney was a flip-flopper. Cruz is one of the most consistently conservative politicians in decades.
I consider it an admirable quality when a conservative politician can be reasoned with by his conservative constituents to change his position on an issue to a more conservative stance. I do not consider that flip-flopping or being untrustworthy.
We need consistently conservative leaders with whom we can reason when they are wrong. It is illogical to expect any conservative politician to be right 100% of the time. Reagan was not right 100% of the time. Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, et al. are not right 100% of the time. The important thing is that they are consistently conservative and can be reasoned with.
We’ve beaten our heads against the wall with leaders like Boehner and McConnell because they were never going to bend to more conservative positions. Cruz did. And you fault him for that?