There were a number of things Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) wanted to do on his first day in the White House: Overturn President Obama’s executive actions on immigration and air pollution, order a Justice Department investigation into Planned Parenthood, “tear up” the nuclear safety agreement with Iran, and end the “persecution of religious liberty,” among other things.
Unfortunately for Cruz, that first day will not come next year. Following a crushing loss to Donald Trump in Indiana’s primary election on Tuesday night, Cruz — who the New York Times called “the most right-leaning candidate to even sniff the nomination in at least a half-century” — suspended his presidential campaign.
But just because Cruz is out of the presidential race doesn’t mean he’s lost his political influence. In fact, as a U.S. Senator with newfound national name recognition, he arguably holds more clout than he did before his campaign. It seems likely he’ll use that political power to push harder for the ultra-conservative agenda he has been touting across the country for more than a year.
Here are some of the ways Cruz will likely try to wreak havoc now that he can focus his full attention on the Senate.
Demonize and invalidate Obama’s climate change action plan
Even during his busy campaign, Cruz found time to hold Senate hearings about his belief that human-caused climate change is a hoax. This belief is one of the primary reasons why Cruz wants to invalidate President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a series of executive actions and regulations to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.
With Cruz’s position as the head of the Senate’s subcommittee on on Space, Science, and Competitiveness — which oversees NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy — combined with his outspoken hatred for mainstream climate science and Obama’s regulations, it seems more than likely that he’ll amp up his activity to thwart climate action once he’s back and fully committed to the Senate.
Kill criminal justice reform
Cruz also has the potential to tank a years-long, bipartisan effort to reform a criminal justice system that has made the U.S. a world leader in mass incarceration. As staunch Republicans and progressive Democrats have joined forces on major policy changes, Cruz has slammed the effort and opposed the bills aimed at reducing prison sentences for non-violent drug offenders and providing more rehabilitative services for current and former inmates.
A package of bills Senate leaders are calling “the best chance in a generation to reform our criminal drug sentencing laws” was unveiled last week. Cruz has railed against it, even though it was drafted by his sole friend and ally in the Senate, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and has the backing of powerful conservative groups like Koch Industries.
Cruz’s crusade against the bill, which includes, according to Lee, false and misleading arguments, may endanger its chances of passage. Sponsors have already watered down the criminal justice package significantly to try to get the Cruz corner on board. The current compromise restricts the number of people eligible for mandatory minimum reforms and actually includes new mandatory minimums for some drug offenses.
Block President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court
While on the campaign trail, Cruz promised that as president, he’d create the most conservative Supreme Court in American history. In front of audiences of thousands, he repeatedly proclaimed that he would “spend whatever political capital is necessary” to appoint the most reliably right-leaning justices he could find.
So, when Obama nominated known moderate U.S. Circuit Court Judge Merrick Garland to fill the current Supreme Court seat vacancy, Cruz immediately said Garland was not conservative enough. He applauded Republican Senate leadership’s vow to not hold confirmation hearings for Garland, saying firmly that no votes should be held on Supreme Court nominees until the next president is sworn into office.
Cruz may not be that next president, but he’s given no indication that his position has changed since dropping out of the race. It’s reasonable, then, to expect that Cruz will continue that crusade in his capacity as a Senator.
Keep Guantanamo open indefinitely
In his final year in office, President Obama has pushed hard to fulfill his campaign promise to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, where dozens of detainees have been held for more than a decade without charge or trial. He sent Congress a plan to shut down the facility in February, and has stepped up transfers of the prisoners who have already been cleared for release. Top military officials have warned that the prison’s continued existence is eroding the reputation of the U.S. with its allies abroad, inspiring the torture of captured U.S. citizens, and functioning as a recruiting tool for terrorist groups.
But Cruz and other Senate Republicans have vowed to do everything in their power to block these efforts. Not only is Cruz trying to block the release of any of Guantanamo’s detainees, he joined an effort to grow the prison’s population. He and other Republican Senators are demanding the U.S. send ISIS members captured in Iraq and Syria to the island prison.
The continued partisan battle over the future of Guantanamo could, among other things, hinder the ability to normalize relations with Cuba.