Ted Cruz and Mike Lee prove there's no such thing as a 'constitutional conservative': NYT columnist

Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have revealed themselves as unprincipled phonies by trying to overturn Donald Trump's election loss, according to a columnist, and discredited their stated legal philosophy in the process.

The Republican senators are self-styled “constitutional conservatives," but they were among the senators most deeply involved in Trump's effort to subvert democracy and remain in office despite his election loss to Joe Biden -- and Cruz and Lee came much closer to pulling that off than previously realized, wrote New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

"They built their political careers on their supposed fidelity to the Constitution and the original intent of the founding fathers," Bouie wrote. "Cruz made his constitutional conservatism the centerpiece of his 2016 campaign for president, while Lee has written three books on the founding era and presents himself, to the public, as a constitutional scholar rather than a mere politician."

But new reporting shows Cruz worked directly with Trump on a plan to object to and delay the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, to give GOP state legislatures time to send new electors to Congress, while Lee was in close contact with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to cook up a flimsy but plausible legal justification to deprive Biden of his election win.

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"Cruz and Lee were not the only 'constitutional conservatives' to support Trump’s attempt to keep himself in office after losing the Electoral College vote (to say nothing of the popular vote)," Bouie wrote. "Their participation in the plot, however, tells us something important about what it actually means to be a 'constitutional conservative.'"

Instead of displaying a principled commitment to the Constitution and the democratic institutions it established, Cruz, Lee and other “constitutional conservatives” proved they cared about placating the loser's feelings and gathering power for themselves.

"[Trump] did not win, and so our 'constitutional conservatives' fought to undermine and overturn our institutions so that one man would not have to face the pain of defeat," Bouie wrote. "Which gets to the truth of what that 'constitutional conservatism' really seems to be: not a principled attempt — however flawed in conception — to live up to the values of the founding, but a thin mask for the will to power."