Colin Allred A Better Choice

 I hear independent voters as well as those who claim to be moderate Republican voters complain about border security and blame the Biden administration and Democrats for the number of migrants crossing the Mexican border into the United States. Oddly enough they seem to already have forgotten that earlier this year there was a bi-partisan border security bill written by a hard line Republican that passed the House by a significant margin and seemed as though it would pass in the Senate until Donald Trump told Republicans to kill the bill. Ted Cruz and his Republican colleagues went along with Trump and the bill failed leaving Texas and other border states without the Border Patrol agents, immigration judges, and other staff as well as facilities needed to stem the flow of people seeking asylum.

Mr. Trump’s goal was to provide himself with an issue that he could blame on President Biden, and now VP Kamala Harris. If Trump truly wanted to secure the border all he had to do was stay out of the way. If Ted Cruz was the centrist he professes to be in his most recent advertising in which he claims to work with both sides of the aisle he could have taken a leadership role and urged his colleagues to ignore Trump and pass the border security bill. The fact that Cruz didn’t step up says he doesn’t really care about border security or Texas.

Recently the American Medical Association reported that 26,000 women became pregnant after being raped in Texas and not a single one was allowed to have an abortion. Ted Cruz shares responsibility with Gov. Abbott and the Texas legislature for the fact that those 26,000 Texas women were forced to give birth to their rapist’s child since the Supreme Court overturned the right of women to choose how to care for their own bodies less than 2 years ago. Cruz was one of the senators who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused of sexual assault, to the Supreme Court and Kavanaugh is among the right wing justices who then overturned Roe v. Wade enabling Texas to prohibit abortions in nearly all instances including rape.

Among Ted Cruz’s other questionable “achievements” was the 2013 government shutdown that lasted 16 days and put 800,000 federal employees out of work. It also cost an untold number of contract workers and those employed by businesses in national parks and other federal properties out of work and those folks never recouped their losses. Speaking of national parks tens of thousands of vacationers had their long planned trips ruined when the parks were forced to close. If Cruz had caused the shutdown over some important principle his action might be seen as honorable but it was a temper tantrum over the Affordable Care Act which he compared to the oppression of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. How he got oppression out of an effort to assure that everyone who needs it can get the healthcare they need is beyond me.

In 2018 Cruz pulled out a narrow victory over Beto O’Rourke to win his second term in the senate. This term is opponent is Colin Allred, a civil rights lawyer and 3 term member of the United States House of Representatives since defeating Republican Pete Sessions in 2018. Allred has made further expanding access to healthcare a hallmark of this time in congress and vows to continue his work on the issue.

Starting on October 21 when early voting begins you have the opportunity to forcibly retire Ted Cruz by voting for Colin Allred.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 9, 2024