SAN ANTONIO – Texas Senator Ted Cruz is getting roasted online for his comments regarding the Democrats’ exodus from the state that broke quorum this week.
At least 50 elected Democrats left the Texas House of Representatives in an effort to prevent the Republican-led Legislature from having enough members present to pass legislation - something they’ve done before.
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The move didn’t sit well with Cruz who told Fox News the “stunt is going to fail.”
Cruz called the Democrats’ departure “ironic” and a “political stunt” before lambasting them for taking a private jet to Washington D.C. “in a fit.”
You can listen to his full interview in the tweet below:
The Texas Democrats who have pulled this political stunt by flying to Washington, D.C. almost surely had to show ID to get on their jet, yet they’re throwing a fit because they don’t want basic election integrity steps strengthened in Texas.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 13, 2021
🤔 pic.twitter.com/cHDQEMwqte
The issue many are taking up on social media, including former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, is that Cruz also very publicly fled the state this year.
Cruz flew to Mexico during the deadly winter storm in February saying he took this trip with his wife and two daughters because they wanted to get out of the cold weather for the weekend.
“Texas Democrats left the state to fight for voting rights. Ted Cruz left the state to sip drinks on a Cancun beach. I’d sit this one out, Ted,” Castro tweeted Tuesday.
At the time, Cruz said he started second-guessing his decision “from the moment [he] sat on the plane.” He followed up by saying “It was obviously a mistake. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Congressman Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, also took to Twitter to express his thoughts on the situation tweeting, “If it’s one thing @tedcruz knows about, it’s jet setting. Reminds you of when he abandoned his duty to the people of Texas when he left in the middle of a winter storm to go to Cancun.”
If it’s one thing @tedcruz knows about, it’s jet setting. Reminds you of when he abandoned his duty to the people of Texas when he left in the middle of a winter storm to go to Cancun. https://t.co/PVzCGaIMI6
— Rep. Hank Johnson (@RepHankJohnson) July 13, 2021
Texas Democrats left in the midst of the state Legislature’s effort to tighten restrictions on voting laws.
Cruz told Fox News that Democrats “need to get back to doing their jobs and one way or the other they will.”
He also said, " they don’t want mail-in ballots to be verified, they don’t want the signatures to be verified.”
However, a report from the Texas Tribune notes that the newly proposed ID requirements “were added behind closed doors to the final version of the failed voting legislation during the regular session and haven’t been widely debated.”
The issue is primarily the ban on the distribution of mail-in ballot applications, regulation of early voting hours, and a ban on 24-hour voting as well as drive-thru voting.