Ted Cruz Calls On GOP To Answer Amnesty By Blocking All Obama Nominees

As the countdown to Barack Obama’s amnesty announcement continues, many legislators opposed to the use of executive action on the issue are planning a response. As for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, he explained in a recent Politico article that his branch has several arrows in its quiver.

He cautioned that it would be up to congressional leaders in the new GOP-controlled session to pursue a specific course of action.

“When the president usurps the legislative power and defies the limits of his authority,” Cruz wrote, “it becomes all the more imperative for Congress to act.”

Unless it takes advantage of the remedies enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, he warned, the legislative branch will “lose its authority.”

The first step, Cruz wrote, should be blocking any and all nominees Obama sends to Congress during the final two years of his presidency.

“If the president announces executive amnesty,” he said, “the new Senate majority leader who takes over in January should announce that the 114th Congress will not confirm a single nominee–executive or judicial–outside of vital national security positions, so long as the illegal amnesty persists.”

Beyond this “significant deterrent to a lawless president,” Cruz explained that legislators can also use their fiscal authority to put an end to any amnesty order Obama decides to unilaterally enact.

He wrote that “the new Congress should exercise the power of the purse by passing individual appropriations bills authorizing critical functions of government and attaching riders to strip the authority from the president to grant amnesty.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest responded to a question regarding Cruz’s call to block Obama nominees by insisting the president has learned a lesson from the recent midterm election.

He said Obama is interested in “trying to find common ground and putting the interest of the nation ahead of partisan political ambition,” adding “we hope that Democrats and Republicans do the same.”

For many who want to see a secure border and the enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, however, there is little hope for common ground. For that reason, Cruz has received significant support from conservatives across the U.S.

BCN editor’s note: This article first appeared at Western Journalism.