Cruz Goes to Cancun While Texans Freeze
We are disgusted by the excuse for leadership in Texas on any given day- but now, as millions freeze and suffer, people die and are poisoned- we are appalled but not surprised by Ted Cruz heading to Cancun to give his kids a vacation while his constituents struggle.
This is unacceptable. It is far past time for leaders to step up.
Justice is needed and due:
Sen. Ted Cruz and his family flew to Cancun, Mexico, he confirmed in a statement to CNN, as a winter disaster in his home state left millions without power or water.
Cruz, a Texas Republican, said in the statement he flew down for a night because his daughters "asked to take a trip with friends."
"With school cancelled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon," he said in the statement. "My staff and I are in constant communication with state and local leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas. We want our power back, our water on, and our homes warm. My team and I will continue using all our resources to keep Texans informed and safe."
Cruz tested negative for Covid-19 before returning, an aide told CNN.
His statement comes hours after multiple Twitter users posted photos showing Cruz and his family at Houston's airport and aboard a flight bound for Cancun, Mexico.
The trip was immediately criticized, including by Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, a Democrat representing southwest Houston, who tweeted a photo of Cruz aboard a flight, saying Cruz was flying south "while the state was freezing to death and having to boil water."
Cruz's office also requested that the Houston Police Department assist the senator during his departure from Bush Intercontinental Airport on Wednesday,Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told CNN Thursday.
The police request from Cruz's office is not unusual as members of Congress have been advised by law enforcement to seek police assistance as they travel by air.
Congress is not in session this week following the President's Day holiday.
Cruz, who was retweeting notices about electricity and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday, has been silent on social media Thursday.
As an official elected to federal office, Cruz doesn't have an on-the-ground role in the response to the storm, but natural disasters are often a time in which constituents often reach out to their elected officials for help and access to resources.
The blame for the outages has largely been placed on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Abbott said Wednesday afternoon that he spoke with both the lieutenant governor and the state speaker and that an investigation of ERCOT is slated to begin next week.
But in the meantime, millions of Texans were left without power or running water in the wake of the storm. Power is slowly being restored to homes.
Since last Thursday, 16 Texans have died due to the extreme weather, according to a CNN tally.
In politics, there are a few unwritten rules that every good politician adheres to. Don't compare any situation to Nazi Germany. Don't get out of step with your party base. And perhaps most importantly, when things go sideways for your constituents, don't go on vacation.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz broke that rule this week when he and his family were spotted hopping on a plane to the resort town of Cancun, Mexico, amid a devastating winter storm and subsequent power grid failure in his home state that has left millions in dire straits.
"I can't believe I have to say this, but: if you're an American pol whose state is enduring a crisis of Katrina-like proportions and instead of going to help your constituents in even a basic, performative sort of way you FLY TO ANOTHER COUNTRY'S BEACH TOWN, you're doing it wrong," tweeted Sonny Bunch, a conservative commentator living in Texas.
That is, of course, exactly right.
But in moments of crisis -- and there are millions of Texans in crisis right now -- people look to politicians for comfort and reassurance. And they do it even if they know that no one particular politician has the ability to help them out of their current problems. They do it because, in theory, our elected officials are leaders in our community and, therefore, are responsible for bringing the community together in moments of tragedy or catastrophe.
It's this spirit that brought Barack Obama to Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 to deliver the eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, one of the people killed in a racially motivated mass shooting. Or George W. Bush to the pile of rubble left in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City.
Obama didn't change the racial problems in this country by being in South Carolina, or the trend of mass shooting. Bush didn't vanquish terrorists or bring back those who had died at their hand in New York.
But they were there. They showed that they grieved, too. That even if they hadn't lost a family member or a close friend in these tragedies that they empathized with those who did suffer those losses because we are all Americans and all struggle and strive together.
There are those who dismiss this as purely performative politics -- empty symbolism with no purpose.
"The fact that people think Ted Cruz, a United States Senator, can do anything about a state power grid, even his own, is rather demonstrative of the ignorance of so many people who cover politics," tweeted conservative commentator Erick Erickson. "They'd rather performative drama than substance."
That badly misses the point. Just because Cruz can't fix the immediate problem facing Texans doesn't mean he shouldn't be there -- helping out at warming shelters or handing out food in water to people in crisis. Because that would show that he cares about his constituents, that he is willing to do any and everything to make this situation even a little bit better.
At the root of serving in elected office is representing the needs of the people who voted you in. Serving their needs doesn't always mean casting the right vote for them or giving a speech on the Senate floor that you believe to be in their interests. It means lending a hand or an ear when they are struggling. And it very much does not mean flying to Cancun with your family for a vacation.
(https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/18/politics/cruz-cancun-texas/index.html)
