Veni Quid Veniat

Steve Stockman, the third most conservative member of Texas's congressional delegation, according the Heritage Foundation, has filed to challenge Texas Senator John Cornyn for his seat. It is high time Cornyn moved on to somewhere - anywhere, really - besides the Senate, and Steve Stockman might just be the man to do it.

Cornyn has been able to rack up a very conservative voting record. Unfortunately, behind the scenes and when it really counts, he betrays Texans. A far more comprehensive list of his more serious shortcomings could be compiled, but a short history of his role in the government shutdown fight earlier this year epitomizes exactly what "Big Bad John" Cornyn does when we send him to Washington.

It all began when Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the latest addition to the Texas delegation to the Senate, devised a clever - nearly diabolical, actually, from a Democrat's perspective - plan to force Democrats to vote to defund their president's most visible program. It hinged on the fact that the Senate cannot originate a spending bill, and therefore must rely on amending House bills, combined with the fact that Senate Democrats did not have the votes they needed - sixty - to amend the bill. Democrats would be forced to choose between voting to defund Obamacare and voting to defund all of government. In the first case, they would be hamstringing their president's legacy; in the second, they would take all the blame for shutting down the government (the blame Republicans actually wound up taking). Ideally - and it's not far-fetched - a few Democrats from red states would choose not to face waves of negative public opinion over an extremely unpopular program, and would vote to defund. Had Cruz's plan worked, there would have been no shutdown, and Obamacare would not have been funded.

It didn't work, though, partially because of Harry Reid's skill, but partially because Senate Republicans betrayed their base. By filing for cloture on the bill, Reid could effectively lower the number of votes needed to amend the House bill to fund Obamacare from sixty to fifty-one, allowing the bill to be amended. Of course, cloture still requires sixty votes, but Reid banked on betrayal from enough Republican senators to win the cloture vote. By allowing Republican senators to vote for cloture, ensuring that they would lose the vote to amend the bill to fund Obamacare, but then technically vote against funding Obamacare, he gave them the cover they needed to sell out their constituents. Cruz responded with his now-famous pseudo-filibuster, calling attention to the fact that Republican senators were considering voting for cloture on the bill, thus guaranteeing that Obamacare would be funded. Ultimately, enough Republican senators decided that their constituents either didn't care or would forget how they voted, and chose to derail Cruz's plan to defund Obamacare, leaving Republicans fighting without their best weapon, set up to fail and to take the blame for the shutdown.

That's where Cornyn comes in. He talked a good enough fight, claiming that he only differed with Cruz on tactics, not strategy. He wanted to defund Obamacare, so that's why he was going to vote to advance the House bill. "Big John" was standing up for Texas, and voting to pass the House bill defunding Obamacare. Texans should be proud! The trouble is, it was all a lie. Cornyn claimed that voting for cloture as voting to advance the House bill: it wasn't. Cloture is only needed to advance a bill if someone threatens to halt that bill through extended debate, and no one had threatened to do that (even Cruz's pseudo-filibuster had been carefully timed to avoid delaying the bill). In this case, all cloture on the bill did was allow Democrats to amend the bill, removing the House's provision that Obamacare not be funded. Despite his rhetoric, Cornyn's vote when he voted for cloture on the bill was a vote for funding Obamacare, and a vote to scrap the most important elements of the House bill.

That's not all he did, though. He publicly lied about the state of affairs, claiming that Cruz was advocating voting "against" the House bill, directly reversing the true state of affairs, which was that Cruz was advocating for preserving the House bill. If that wasn't enough, he joined with Mitch McConnell in gathering votes for cloture - against Cruz and for funding Obamacare - by threatening and cajoling his fellow senators. Faced with the spectre of the two most powerful Republican senators opposing their committee appointments, at best, or their reelection, at worst, many caved. Cornyn and McConnell's plan was to isolate and destroy Cruz, Lee, and Paul, the next wave of the conservative movement, before they'd even gotten started.

With his actions, Cornyn not only ensured the Obamacare would be funded, he ensured that the blame for any shutdown would fall on Republicans, not Democrats. Democrats would be able to pass any spending bill they wanted, and could blame the Republicans in the House if they didn't pass the same bill - had Cornyn and the Republican Senate leadership not betrayed their constituents, the reverse would have been true.

Cornyn didn't just vote to fund Obamacare and hand Republicans a loss in the shutdown fight, he wasn't even man enough to own up to it. He continued spouting the same drivel about advancing the House bill, even after the nonsensical nature of his reasoning was thoroughly explained. He took the cover Harry Reid handed him to betray Texas and conservatives across the nation (if he at least had the decency to admit to what he did he still wouldn't deserve to be a senator, but at least he could have made Texans proud of his courage). When it really mattered, when Republicans had a chance to accomplish something significant, against the odds, he folded.

Sadly, this is classic John Cornyn. In public, when it doesn't count, he's "Big Bad John," talking a tough talk in a ten-gallon hat. In private, though, and when the chips are down, he's just another sniveling politician, threatening, conniving, and scheming to stay in power, driven by fear of losing his reputation in the Senate, his popularity, or, worst of all, his Senate seat. Underneath the carefully crafted exterior, the man is, to borrow an old Texas saying "all hat and no cattle" when it comes to fighting with anyone but his own side. The greatest state in the nation deserves better than a wheedling Washington lawyer, a hat and boots without a Texan between them.