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Ted Cruz’s secret past? Stimulus funds and teacher payouts
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| Parent(s) |
Candidate
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| Contributor | Brandonius Maximus |
| Last Edited | Brandonius Maximus Mar 08, 2013 11:35am |
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| Category | General |
| Author | Jason Stanford |
| News Date | Friday, March 8, 2013 05:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | ....
Cruz’s new allies say that he didn’t go to Washington to make friends, but the question remains whether his fiery rhetoric comes from personal conviction or is calibrated for the political advantage he now enjoys. CPAC attendees might want to read a brief Cruz wrote as a private attorney in 2009 before they anoint him as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. In the brief, Cruz extolled the virtues of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly known as the stimulus, and cautioned Texas against flouting federal law, two positions he’s contradicted as a politician since then.
In 2009, Texas closed a $6.6-billion budget deficit with $6.4 billion from the stimulus. The Texas House wanted to spend $155 million of the stimulus to give retired teachers one-time $500 checks. Senate Republicans who opposed the payments inserted language into the final bill requiring the Attorney General to issue a “conclusive opinion that such one-time payments are constitutionally and statutorily permissive” before the state could cut the checks.
That kicked off a months-long process during which interested parties could submit legal briefs to the Opinion Committee in the Office of the Texas Attorney General. The Texas Retired Teachers Association hired the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to lay out the legal case in favor of the extra money. Morgan, Lewis had previously represented the teachers’ pension system. Cruz worked at the firm then but, more importantly, he had been Solicitor General at the AG’s office beforehand and knew how the place worked. |
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