Salon.com > John Cornyn, R-Texas

How long will it take Republicans to demoralize their base?

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:30:00 +0000

The people desperate for Republicans to nominate someone who isn't Mitt Romney have been talking up John Thune for months, but if his performance in the ongoing omnibus spending bill debacle is any indication, he's not yet ready for the rigors of a national campaign. He's barely ready for the rigors of high school debate class.

Thune just made a classic unforced error, by requesting earmarks in the omnibus spending bill (wasteful government spending!) despite voting to voluntarily ban earmarks. He made things worse when he was utterly unable to square his requests with his opposition to the bill.

Orrin Hatch embarrassed him further, when Hatch voluntarily withdrew his earmark requests from the bill entirely, because, well, he did just vote for that earmark moratorium. Why didn't Thune do the same? "I guess I hadn't thought about doing it," he told Talking Points Memo.

Jim DeMint caves on bill-reading stunt

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:30:00 +0000

As we all know, Republicans were only delaying and obstructing action in the Senate to force a vote on the Bush tax cuts, in order to restore confidence to our nation's job-creating billionaires. Once the Senate approved the tax cut deal, Republicans immediately ... threatened to bring all Senate activity to a halt, for days, while also demanding that they not have to go to work on or after Christmas.

Sen. Jim DeMint wanted to do that thing where one senator can demand that bills be read aloud in their entirety. DeMint was going to give the New START treaty and the omnibus spending bill the bedtime story treatment, until, apparently, Mitch McConnell made him back down. (But not before Harry Reid's press secretary got in this awesome zing. Hey, Harry Reid's press secretary, you wouldn't have to just impotently insult Jim DeMint's obstructionism on Twitter if your boss hadn't spent his tenure as majority leader enabling the obstruction by refusing to change archaic Senate rules allowing endless obstructionism!)

Tea party, GOP, primed for November wins

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:11:00 +0000

In the turbulent year of the tea party, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware set out to jangle no nerves as he ran for a Senate seat long held by Vice President Joseph Biden. It's the way Republican strategists originally envisioned 2010, a roster of seasoned politicians pointing the party toward significant gains in the Senate.

"He brings our style of civility and independence to Washington and works to develop solutions," is the soothing, even quaint message on the 71-year-old lawmaker's campaign website, which shows him in a suit and tie, working alone at his desk. Experience "is hugely important," he said in an interview.

After two terms as governor and nine as the state's lone congressman, Castle appears better positioned than other veterans who faced a tea party-backed challenge this year. If he prevails over Christine O'Donnell on Sept. 14 -- he and GOP officials have launched a fierce counterattack -- he would join more than a half-dozen other veteran Republican officeholders on the ballot in Senate races.

Where is George W. Bush when America needs him?

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:50:00 +0000

For Muslims around the world, George W. Bush and his decision to invade Iraq became symbols of Western arrogance, hostility and even religious supremacy. But neither Bush’s terrible foreign policy nor his personal and political connections with the religious right -- where bigotry against Muslims runs rampant -- prevented him from speaking out for religious tolerance and freedom on many occasions, especially in the aftermath of Sept. 11. He prided himself on that record, which had roots in his family's long relationship with the Saudi monarchy.

So why is the former president silent now, when a proposed community center and mosque in lower Manhattan have called forth such vitriol and prejudice from his supporters? Still popular among Republicans and conservatives (who are already seeking to rehabilitate him) Bush could speak out firmly on behalf of the First Amendment rights he has always claimed to uphold. If he were only to issue a statement saying he agrees with President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg that Muslims enjoy the same rights as other Americans -- without exception or qualification -- then people, especially his people, would have to listen.

A flaw in Democrats’ Kagan pushback strategy?

Tue, 11 May 2010 17:15:00 +0000

My post yesterday comparing Sen. John Cornyn's reaction to Harriet Miers (who had no judicial experience) with his reaction to Elena Kagan (who has no judicial experience) got a bit of buzz in Texas and nationally -- which would seem to discourage the GOP from dwelling too heavily on that aspect of the nomination over the next few weeks.

GOP: Judicial experience matters, unless it doesn’t

Mon, 10 May 2010 17:25:00 +0000

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaking Monday on the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court:

There is no doubt that Ms. Kagan possesses a first-rate intellect, but she is a surprising choice from a president who has emphasized the importance of understanding "how the world works and how ordinary people live." Ms. Kagan has spent her entire professional career in Harvard Square, Hyde Park, and the DC Beltway. These are not places where one learns "how ordinary people live." Ms. Kagan is likewise a surprising choice because she lacks judicial experience. Most Americans believe that prior judicial experience is a necessary credential for a Supreme Court Justice.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaking Oct. 27, 2005, on the nomination of then-White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, after he was asked whether the failure of Miers' nomination showed that it would be "impossible" for people who hadn't served as judges to get onto the court:

The Republicans strike back

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Republicans have apparently settled on a new strategy for responding to the Democrats' use of Rush Limbaugh as a weapon against them: Respond in kind.

No, they're not attacking Michael Moore. They're just accusing Democrats of being partisans who are attempting to distract Americans from what they're doing by bringing up Limbaugh, and they're hitting President Obama hard, saying he's not living up to his campaign message.

In an op-ed in Thursday's Washington Post, House Minority Leader John Boehner writes:

Gimme a D for Texas

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:45:00 +0000

As Time magazine notes, when George W. Bush went back to Texas last week, he found a divided state Republican Party. Well-coifed incumbent governor Rick Perry faces an intraparty challenge from Kay Bailey Hutchison, who plans to leave the U.S. Senate before the end of her current term to battle Perry for the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nomination.

What Time does not explain, however, is that Bush has returned to a state far different from the one he left eight years ago. A rapid rise in the Latino electorate promises to turn the state purple in the foreseeable future, and the Republicans have lost seats in the state legislature in each of the last three election cycles. But more importantly, having placed all its chips on the wrong party, in 2009 the state has ceded nearly all of its national influence.

No, really, this is the Quote of the Day

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 20:22:00 +0000

CNN asked GOP Sen. John Cornyn today whether it isn't politically dangerous for the Republicans to be arguing among themselves over immigration reform in the middle of an election year. Blogger Pere Ubu caught the response: "Well, you know," Cornyn said, "that's the problem in America, we're always having elections."

Tom DeLay has friends in high places, sort of

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 14:00:00 +0000

We don't know exactly what Dick Cheney said when he appeared at a fundraiser on behalf of Tom DeLay in Houston last night -- reporters were prohibited from hearing the vice president speak -- but one partisan who was in attendance gives the Houston Chronicle the high points: "Cheney expressed deep friendship for Mr. DeLay," Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs tells the paper. "He wanted everyone to know he valued the support Mr. DeLay has shown to the president and vice president in both the good times and difficult times. He's not a fair-weather friend."

What really happened to Harriet Miers?

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 19:56:00 +0000

On CNN a few minutes ago, Texas Sen. John Cornyn insisted that Harriet Miers' nomination died as a result of pressure from "pundits" rather than from Republican senators -- and that Miers, not George W. Bush, made the decision to bail out. "The president didn't go to her and say, 'Let me withdraw your nomination,'" Cornyn said. "She went to him."

Sources tell the National Journal's Hotline that it played out a little differently. Late yesterday, the Hotline says, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told White House Chief of Staff Andy Card "in no uncertain terms that Miers would probably not be confirmed ... After that call, according to White House sources, Bush and Card met privately with Miers, and they decided jointly that preserving White House privilege on documents was too important a principle to risk. Miers officially informed Bush at 8:30 pm ET."

It’s wrong to exploit a “national tragedy” for political gain. Isn’t it?

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:32:00 +0000

On the first day of confirmation hearings for John Roberts, Republican senators spent a lot of time explaining what Democrats shouldn't be allowed to ask George W. Bush's Supreme Court nominee. As Michael Scherer puts it today in Salon, "One by one, Republican senators cited judicial ethics rules and historical precedent to explain why the American people should not expect to hear anything of substance from Roberts before he becomes the chief justice." Former Sen. and Attorney General John Ashcroft, providing commentary for CNN, said at one point Monday afternoon that there were just two things that Roberts shouldn't have to address: the future or the past.

As usual, though, it was Republican Sen. John Cornyn who dived farthest off the deep end of partisan hackery. When Democratic Sens. Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy noted in their opening statements Monday that Hurricane Katrina has reminded us that many Americans are "left out and left behind," that we "cannot continue to ignore the injustice, the inequality and the gross disparities that exist in our society," and that we need a "responsive" federal government, well, Cornyn felt the need to set things straight.

Say it isn’t so

Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:52:00 +0000

We've all heard some of the names on George W. Bush's Supreme Court short list. There's J. Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit, John Roberts Jr. of the District of Columbia Circuit, Emilio Garza of the Fifth Circuit and a handful of other judges from hither and yon.

Then there's this rather novel candidate: Texas Sen. John Cornyn. Legal Times mentioned Cornyn as a possible contender last week, and the Houston Chronicle picks up the story today. A Cornyn aide says his boss "is very happy being a senator" but wouldn't rule out the possibility of serving on the Supreme Court someday.

It's the rest of us who ought to be ruling it out.

Who is Eliza May?

Fri, 20 Aug 1999 16:00:00 +0000

George W. Bush hit his first speed bumps along the campaign trail this week. While the national media dogged him for finessing questions about possible past drug use, Bush was facing a potentially much more serious issue back home in Texas, where a simmering influence-peddling scandal continues.

"Formaldegate" -- named for the funeral-home industry at the scandal's center -- is an intriguing tale of death threats, leaky dead bodies and political cronyism. At its center is a self-styled whistle-blower who says Bush blasted her out of state government when her commission got too close to a Bush family buddy, the largest owner of funeral homes in the world. But is it a real story, or simply a political vendetta launched by a Texas Democrat to derail Bush's White House hopes?

The answer lies with the central figure in the scandal, Eliza May, a 45-year-old Austin Democrat who claims she was fired from her job as executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission for blowing the whistle one of Gov. Bush's friends and political donors.