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Sen. Ted Cruz

Senator for Texas

pronounced ted // krooz

Cruz is the junior senator from Texas and is a Republican. He has served since Jan 3, 2013. Cruz is next up for reelection in 2024 and serves until Jan 3, 2025. He is 53 years old.

Photo of Sen. Ted Cruz [R-TX]
Elections must be decided by counting votes

Our work to hold Congress accountable only matters if elections are decided by counting votes. President Trump, his senior government advisors, and Republican legislators collaborated to have the 2020 presidential election decided by themselves rather than by voters. Their attempts to suppress state-certified vote counts without adjudication in the courts and by using lies and fraudulent documents was a months-long, multifarious attempted coup.

Cruz was among the Republican legislators who participated in the attempted coup. In the days leading up to January 6, 2021’s congressional certification of the election by counting electors, Cruz announced his intent to object to the inclusion of some states’ electors in the count, which would disenfranchise millions of voters without due process and amplifying lies, conspiracy theories, and preposterous legal theories about purported outcome-determining fraud which did not occur. On January 6, 2021 in the hours after the violent insurrection at the Capitol, Cruz voted to omit Arizona and/or Pennsylvania from the counting of presidential electors, which could have altered the outcome of the election in Trump’s favor.
The January 6, 2021 violent insurrection at the Capitol, led on the front lines by militant white supremacy groups, attempted to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office by disrupting Congress’s count of electors. In 2023, Trump advisors and associates pleaded guilty to or were convicted of submitting fraudulent slates of electors to Congress (which Trump was briefed on), abetting lies, assaulting police officers at the Capitol, tampering with voting machines after the election, and contempt of Congress for withholding documents during its investigation, and Trump faces criminal charges for soliciting the Vice President to subvert Congress’s certification of the election, his role in the fraudulent slates of electors, and the insurrection at the Capitol.

Analysis

Legislative Metrics

Read our 2022 Report Card for Cruz.

Ideology–Leadership Chart

Cruz is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot is a member of the Senate positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).

The chart is based on the bills Cruz has sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 3, 2019 to Mar 23, 2024. See full analysis methodology.

Committee Membership

Ted Cruz sits on the following committees:

Enacted Legislation

Cruz was the primary sponsor of 17 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:

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Does 17 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.

We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).

Bills Sponsored

Issue Areas

Cruz sponsors bills primarily in these issue areas:

International Affairs (30%) Taxation (16%) Health (15%) Government Operations and Politics (10%) Finance and Financial Sector (9%) Education (7%) Transportation and Public Works (7%) Immigration (7%)

Recently Introduced Bills

Cruz recently introduced the following legislation:

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Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.

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Voting Record

Key Votes

Cruz voted Nay

Cruz voted Nay

Conference Report Agreed to 83/16 on Feb 14, 2019.
This bill, in its final form, funded the parts of the federal government whose funding was to lapse on February 15, 2019. On December 22, …

Cruz voted Nay

Bill Passed 72/26 on Sep 28, 2016.
The Continuing Appropriations and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017, and Zika Response and Preparedness Act (H.R. 5325) is an appropriations …

Cruz voted Nay

Joint Resolution Passed 78/22 on Sep 18, 2014.

Missed Votes

From Jan 2013 to Apr 2024, Cruz missed 375 of 3,882 roll call votes, which is 9.7%. This is much worse than the median of 2.8% among the lifetime records of senators currently serving. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including: