According to the American Conservative Union’s 2014 ratings, only two members of the Senate — Texas Republican Ted Cruz and Utah Republican Mike Lee — have perfect conservative voting records. Most of the time they vote the same way. But in the May 22 vote to grant President Obama authority to “Fast Track” trade deals (Trade Promotion Authority, or TPA), Cruz voted yes, while Lee voted no.
Lee’s vote required a little explanation. In a statement, he explained that he voted against TPA only because it was coupled with the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which Lee strongly opposed. “I am a big believer in free trade,” Lee said in a statement. “But I have been very clear from the beginning of this debate that I could not vote for Trade Promotion Authority if the wasteful and ineffectual Trade Adjustment Assistance program was attached … I hope to have the chance to give my full and unreserved support to the TPA, as a standalone bill, in the near future.”
Cruz was even more supportive of TPA. On April 21, he co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed with Rep. Paul Ryan — perhaps the most enthusiastic TPA advocate on Capitol Hill — touting the benefits of passing “Fast Track” authority. “Promoting American trade will create more opportunity in the country, and so we strongly urge our colleagues in Congress to vote for trade-promotion authority,” Cruz and the Wisconsin Republican wrote.
So both Cruz and Lee supported TPA, although Lee insisted that it be separated from the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.
Fast forward to Tuesday morning. The Senate held a vote on TPA by itself, with no Trade Adjustment Assistance program attached. As it turned out, Lee wasn’t there; his two sons have just returned from their Mormon missionary travels, and Lee, not having seen them in a long time, was spending the week with family in Utah. But it seems reasonable to assume Lee would have voted “yes” this time; everything Lee said at the time of the original vote suggested he would support TPA in a standalone bill. So his “no” vote from April would likely have been a “yes” vote in June, for reasons he set out at the time of the original vote.
Cruz, on the other hand, had been fine with voting for TPA combined with the Trade Adjustment Assistance program. But on Tuesday he abruptly changed his vote to “no.” Just hours before the vote, Cruz posted another op-ed, this one on Breitbart News, explaining that two developments since he voted “yes” in May had caused him to change his vote. One was a leak of material that Cruz said indicated coming trade deals could involve changes in immigration law, and the other was what Cruz said was a secret deal by Senate leadership to hold a vote on reauthorizing the soon-to-expire Export-Import bank.
Leadership was surprised by Cruz’s flip. “Learned about this morning, when most everyone else did,” said a senior Senate leadership aide Tuesday. Leadership also denied that there was any Ex-Im deal.
Other Senate GOP offices noted that they had gotten a large number of phone calls demanding lawmakers vote against TPA. While Republican elites are united in supporting trade authority, a significant part of the GOP base is concerned about it for a variety of reasons, from its likely effects on American jobs to Republicans’ basic distrust of Obama. The short version is, there has been a lot of political heat directed at Republicans, and Cruz, a GOP presidential candidate, was undoubtedly feeling it. “He was just getting hammered,” notes one Republican Hill aide. “Our office is getting calls, all against TPA, all the time. I’m sure his is, too.”
Nevertheless, none of Cruz’s Republican colleagues changed his or her vote from May to June. Lee excepted, the Republicans who voted “no” in May — Sens. Susan Collins, Rand Paul, Jeff Sessions, and Richard Shelby — voted “no” in June. The majority who voted “yes” all voted “yes” again.
In addition, looking at the top ten most conservative senators from the American Conservative Union list — in addition to Cruz and Lee, they are Sens. Tim Scott, Ron Johnson, Sessions, Marco Rubio, Paul, James Inhofe, John Cornyn, and Jeff Flake — none changed his vote. Whatever concerns existed about immigration and the Export-Import Bank were not enough to change any other Republican’s mind.
The bottom line is, in a matter of weeks, Cruz changed his vote on one of the biggest issues of the year for reasons that did not move even his most conservative colleagues one way or the other.
Capitol Hill Republicans on both sides of the issue view Cruz’s change as a massive flip-flop, obviously motivated by his political concerns. They frankly do not understand why Cruz put himself in such a position — why write that op-ed with Ryan? — and now foresee Cruz buying himself a lot of trouble in the coming Republican presidential debates.
