Sen.Ted Cruz

from Wikipedia:

Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator for the state of Texas, in office since 2013. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Cruz was Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to May 2008, appointed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He was the first Hispanic Solicitor General in Texas,[2] the youngest Solicitor General in the United States, and had the longest tenure in Texas history. He was formerly a partner at the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he led the firm’s U.S. Supreme Court and national appellate litigation practice.[3]

He previously served as the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice, and as Domestic Policy Advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. In addition, Cruz was an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation, from 2004 to 2009.

Cruz was the Republican nominee for the Senate seat which was vacated by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison.[4] On July 31, 2012, he defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in the Republican primary runoff, 57%–to-43%.[5] Cruz defeated the Democrat, former state Representative Paul Sadler, in the general election held on November 6, 2012; he prevailed with 56%-to–41% over Sadler.[5] Cruz is endorsed by the Tea Party Movement and the Republican Liberty Caucus.[6]

On November 14, 2012, Cruz was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.[7]

Contents [hide]
1 Early life and education
2 Legal career
3 U.S. Senate
3.1 2012 election
3.2 Committee assignments
4 Personal life
5 Electoral history
5.1 2012 Republican primary
5.2 2012 Republican primary runoff
5.3 2012 General Election
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Early life and educationCruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where his parents, Eleanor Darragh and Rafael Cruz, were working in the oil business.[8][9] His father was a Cuban immigrant to the United States during the Cuban Revolution.[10] His mother was born and reared in Delaware, in a family of Irish and Italian descent.[9][11] Cruz's family returned to the U.S. when he was four years old.[10]

Cruz attended high school at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas,[12] and then graduated from Second Baptist High School in Houston.

Cruz graduated cum laude from Princeton University in 1992.[13] While at Princeton, he competed for the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel and won the top speaker award at both the 1992 U.S. National Debating Championship and the 1992 North American Debating Championship.[14] In 1992, he was named U.S. National Speaker of the Year and Team of the Year (with his debate partner, David Panton).[15] Cruz was also a semi-finalist at the 1995 World Universities Debating Championship.[16]

Cruz's senior thesis on the separation of powers, titled "Clipping the Wings of Angels," draws its inspiration from a passage attributed to James Madison: "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Cruz argued that the drafters of the Constitution intended to protect the rights of their constituents, and the last two items in the Bill of Rights offered an explicit stop against an all-powerful state. Cruz wrote: "They simply do so from different directions. The Tenth stops new powers, and the Ninth fortifies all other rights, or non-powers." [17][18]

Cruz then attended the Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 1995.[19][20] While at Harvard Law, Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review, and executive editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review.[13] As a student at Harvard Law, Professor Alan Dershowitz said, “Cruz was off-the-charts brilliant.”[21]

[edit] Legal careerCruz served as a law clerk to William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, and J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.[22][2] Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.[23]

Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department and as the director of policy planning at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission under President George W. Bush.[21]

In 2003, Cruz was appointed Solicitor General of Texas by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.[2]

Cruz has authored more than 80 United States Supreme Court briefs and presented 43 oral arguments, including nine before the United States Supreme Court.[2][21][24] In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by attorneys general of 31 states, which said that the D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.[24][25] Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[24][26] Cruz did legal work during the Florida recount during the Presidential campaign of Bush/Cheney 2000.[27]

In addition to his victory in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds,[21][24] the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools[21] and the majority of the 2003 Texas redistricting plan.[28]

Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.[2][21][24]

Cruz has been named by American Lawyer magazine as one of the 50 Best Litigators under 45 in America,[29][30] by The National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,[31][32] and by Texas Lawyer as one of the 25 Greatest Texas Lawyers of the Past Quarter Century.[33][34]

[edit] U.S. Senate[edit] 2012 electionMain article: United States Senate election in Texas, 2012

Cruz speaking to the Values Voters Summit in October 2011.Cruz's election has been described by the Washington Post as “the biggest upset of 2012 . . . a true grassroots victory against very long odds.”[35] On January 19, 2011, following an announcement that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison would not seek reelection, Cruz announced via blogger conference call his candidacy for the position.[4] Cruz faced opposition from sitting Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst in the Republican senatorial primary. Cruz was endorsed by the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative political action committee;[36] Erick Erickson, editor of prominent conservative blog RedState;[37] the FreedomWorks for America super PAC;[38] nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin;[39] former Attorney General Edwin Meese;[40] Tea Party Express;[41] Young Conservatives of Texas;[42] and U.S. Senators Tom Coburn,[43] Jim DeMint,[44] Mike Lee,[45] Rand Paul,[46] and Pat Toomey.[47] He was also endorsed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and former Texas Congressman Ron Paul,[48] George P. Bush[27] and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.[49]

Cruz won the runoff for the Republican nomination with a 14-point margin over Dewhurst.[50] In the November 6 general election, Cruz faced the Democratic nominee Paul Sadler, an attorney and a former state representative from Henderson in east Texas. In the general election, Cruz prevailed with 4,469,843 ballots (56.4%) to Sadler's 3,194,927 (40.6%). Two minor candidates held the remaining 3% of the ballots cast.[5] Cruz won 35% of the Hispanic vote in the general election.[51]

[edit] Committee assignmentsCommittee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities
Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support
Subcommittee on Seapower
Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights (Ranking Member)
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security
Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
Subcommittee on Science and Space (Ranking Member)
Committee on Rules and Administration
Special Committee on Aging
[edit] Personal lifeCruz was born and spent the first four years of his life in Calgary before his parents returned to Houston. His father was jailed and tortured by the Fulgencio Batista regime and fought for Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution[52] but "didn't know Castro was a Communist" and later became a staunch critic of Castro when "the rebel leader took control and began seizing private property and suppressing dissent."[53] Rafael Cruz moved to Austin in 1957 to study at the University of Texas. He spoke no English and had $100 sewn into his underwear.[24][54] The elder Cruz worked his way through school as a dishwasher making 50 cents an hour.[21] Cruz's father today is a pastor in North Dallas and became a U.S. citizen in 2005.[17] Cruz’s mother, who was from Delaware, was the first person in her family to attend college. She earned a degree in mathematics from Rice University in Houston in the 1950s, working summers at Foley’s and Shell.[17] Cruz has said, "I'm Cuban, Irish, and Italian, and yet somehow I ended up Southern Baptist."[55]

Cruz and his wife, Heidi Cruz, have two daughters, Caroline Camille and Catherine Christiane. Cruz met his wife while working on the George W. Bush presidential campaign of 2000. Cruz's wife is currently head of the Southwest Region in the Investment Management Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and previously worked in the White House for Condoleezza Rice and in New York as an investment banker.[56]