Yahoo! News/Daily Beast: How Ted Cruz Became a ‘Blatantly Cynical’ Election Law Troll

In the pantheon of politicians fighting for unpopular causes, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has now secured a prominent place.

Like Mitch McConnell pushing for more money in politics, Cruz has also found a niche as an election law troll.

On Monday, Cruz won a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission that had gone all the way to the Supreme Court. The six conservative justices struck down a federal law that limited the amount of campaign funds candidates can use to repay loans to their campaign.

It wasn’t organic. Cruz had engineered the case during his 2018 campaign against Beto O’Rourke, when on the last day before the election he loaned himself $260,000—a clean $10,000 above the $250,000 repayment cap. The personal loan, coming at the tail end of what was at the time the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history, was entirely unnecessary.

Cruz then sued for the right to recoup that extra $10,000 with money raised more than 20 days after the election, arguing the law infringed on his First Amendment rights. And in its first campaign finance ruling since 2014, the Court agreed.

While Cruz personally didn’t have much on the line, it was a huge win for conservative critics of campaign finance regulation, who have for years sought to shred restrictions imposed after the bipartisan passage of 2002’s McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act. …

Steve Spaulding, senior counsel at good government group Common Cause, said Cruz was the spearhead of a larger ideological campaign.

“It’s another brick along the road of the right wing’s coordinated effort to dismantle laws intended to protect our democracy, including from corruption,” Spaulding told The Daily Beast.

Campaign finance restrictions have chafed Republicans, who historically draw less from small-dollar contributors than Democrats and instead lean heavily on lump sums from wealthy megadonors.

The GOP has also leaned—reliably—on the Supreme Court, whose dominant conservative wing has taken a critical view of campaign finance regulations. This ideology manifested most famously in 2010’s Citizens United decision, which paved the way for super PACs and unlimited, untraceable political spending. But a 2014 ruling—McCutcheon v. FEC—opened up new channels to wash massive amounts of megadonor cash between campaigns, candidates, and national and state party committees. Or, as Spaulding put it, “the ruling that blew the doors off how much money individuals could contribute to parties.”

Cruz, an anti-regulation hawk, has been a thorn in the FEC’s side for years.

He has flouted fundraising caps, disclosure laws and restrictions on self-enrichment, zombie campaigns, and personal security. Most recently, he has seemingly sidestepped rules governing candidate coordination with super PACs. But along the way, Cruz also may have crossed legal lines, drawing a civil complaint last year after The Daily Beast reported that his campaign appeared to have misused campaign funds to promote—and profit from—his own book.

“Ted Cruz is perhaps the most cynical member of the Senate when it comes to this issue, perhaps only bested by Mitch McConnell,” Spaulding said. He recalled an interaction with Cruz at a 2015 Senate hearing about dark money in elections.

“Cruz came down afterwards, and actually tried to pitch me on his idea of eliminating super PACs by allowing unlimited contributions directly to candidates. He was giving that argument with a straight face,” Spaulding said. “The guy is so blatantly cynical and dangerous, but all of this really just shows you where he comes from on these issues.”