Cornyn’s Last Stand
The Blanche nomination was a bargaining chip - it worked
It’s a crisis for American governance when even the most seasoned and respected politicians feel free to vote their conscience only when they are on their way out. But that’s what’s happening with Senator John Cornyn’s late stand against President Donald Trump.
Some say that Cornyn blocked Todd Blanche’s DOJ nomination out of spite for Trump’s endorsement of his rival Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. This much seems obvious.
But might it also be obvious that a $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund is a bad idea? The fund, which Blanche formally rescinded only yesterday, would have been administered by the DOJ. It would have provided tax immunity to the billionaire president and his family while potentially conscripting Americans into paying off the Jan. 6 rioters who threatened to execute the vice president and House speaker. That is precisely the kind of executive overreach that the Senate was designed to counter.
The tragedy is that Cornyn likely wouldn’t have taken this stand if he weren’t facing the end of his term. After all, Cornyn’s re-campaign centered first and foremost on him having spent “99% of the time standing with Trump.” That doesn’t leave much room for independent (or even conservative) thinking.
This is not how the US Senate was designed to function. For the Founders, the upper chamber was created to cool the passions of the House and check executive ambition — to bridle power, not turbocharge it. This - along with a tribute to Big John - is the topic of my column of my Bloomberg Opinion column this week.
“I admit that perhaps I’m still smarting over Cornyn’s primary loss. He’d edged out Paxton in the March election only to be beaten in the May runoff. What did someone say to me recently about Paxton? “He’s a flawed candidate.” That really sweeps things under the rug, doesn’t it? It puts embezzlement scandals and impeachment votes on the same scale as being awkward on the campaign trail. But there will be little daylight between him and Trump, should Paxton best Democrat James Talarico. That’s bad news for the republic.” - Abby McCloskey