It’s deja vu all over again. Texas Republicans once again are asking the rest of the nation for help after a winter storm and extremely cold weather knocked out the power grid. The same cry for help went out after Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on Texas in 2017.
But those of us in the Northeast, particularly in New York and New Jersey, remember that in early 2013, Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn,along with 23 of the 24 Texas Republicans in the House voted against the $50.5 billion aid bill for victims of Superstorm Sandy.
For additional background, there is a Guardian story about how Flyin’ Ted Cruz opposed the Sandy aid package.
Cruz and his fellow Texas Republicans refused to back the relief package because they felt it was full of pork-barrel spending.
Here is what Cancun Cruz said in early 2013 in explaining his opposition to the Superstorm Sandy relief package.
“Hurricane Sandy inflicted devastating damage on the East Coast, and Congress appropriately responded with hurricane relief. Unfortunately, cynical politicians in Washington could not resist loading up this relief bill with billions in new spending utterly unrelated to Sandy."
After Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, Democratic and Republican representatives alike in New York agreed that they wouldn’t abandon Texas in its hour of need despite the opposition of Cruz and Texas Republicans to the 2013 relief package.
King even went so far as to call for a halt to donations by New Yorkers and New Jerseyans to Texas Republicans who opposed rescuing sister states.
Even New Jersey’s then-Republican Gov. Chris Christie said, “The congressional members in Texas are hypocrites.”
But even some of the most outspoken Democratic members of the NY/NJ congressional delegation like Rep. Bill Pascrell supported the Harvey relief package.
Of course, Cruz was unrepentant back then as he is now, telling Fox News that he was the victim of “political sniping” and would not have changed his vote in 2013.
“What I said then and still believe now is that it’s not right for politicians to exploit a disaster when people are hurting to pay for their own political wish list,” Cruz told MSNBC at the time.
In the end, Democratic lawmakers, including those from the Northeast, overwhelmingly supported the Hurricane Harvey relief package.
And President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats will once again do the right thing in helping Texas residents and businesses destroyed by the deep freeze. And that’s despite the fact that this disaster was largely man-made due to conservative ideology that encouraged profiteering, lax regulation of energy companies and climate change denial.
But like Col. William Travis did at the Alamo, according to legend, Democrats should draw a line in the sand (or should we say snow), and insist that not one penny of tax payers’ money should go to help bail out Texas energy companies or the consumers who received staggeringly high utility bills as a result of policy decisions unique to Texas. That’s a problem for Texas’ governor and legislature to solve.