Texas Senator John Cornyn did a dramatic about-face and announced he supported nixing the Senate filibuster to pass President Donald Trump’s top priority legislation.
The GOP lawmaker has long decried the push to end the filibuster, but he wrote an op-ed supporting its termination to pass the so-called SAVE America Act, as he desperately seeks the president’s endorsement.
The four-term senator is in a nasty runoff race against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been leading him in the polls.
Trump has promised to make an endorsement in the race soon, and there were reports he would back Cornyn, but the senator does not appear to be leaving anything to chance with his latest suck-up in the form of an op-ed in the New York Post.
In the article titled “Why the SAVE Act matters more than the filibuster,” the senator argued: “After careful consideration, I support whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary for us to get the SAVE America Act and homeland security funding past the Democrats’ obstruction, through the Senate, and on the president’s desk for his signature.”
But for years, Cornyn was warned against ending the procedural rule, which requires 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate, even blasting ending the filibuster on the Senate floor when Democrats held the majority.
“You can’t just carve out one piece of legislation. Once we head down that slippery slope, the legislative filibuster is gone," he lamented on the floor of the Senate in 2022.
But as his primary challenge heated up with Paxton painting Cornyn as a sellout who has not fought hard enough for MAGA, the senator has slowly shifted his tune, first saying last year he was “open” to filibuster changes before going all in on Wednesday.
The senator even acknowledged his past stance in the op-ed, but he did not get into the eyebrow-raising timing of it, as the president demands the Senate cave to his demands to pass the GOP voting legislation ahead of the runoff on May 26.
“For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain,” Cornyn wrote. “But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt.”
Paxton lashed out at Cornyn in response to his op-ed as they go head-to-head after neither gained the necessary 50 percent of support in the primary to avoid a runoff.
“You attacked the talking filibuster as not ‘feasible’ days ago,“ he wrote on X. ”In October, you refused to help the President abolish the filibuster and said ‘it’s a nonstarter.’ Texas deserves better than someone who only does the right thing when desperately trying to save themself."
The runoff could become extremely expensive if neither candidate drops out. Party officials had been pressuring Trump to throw his support behind a candidate after the Texas race became the most expensive Senate primary ever.
The Republican Senate campaign arm has argued Cornyn has better chances against Democratic nominee James Talarico in the general election. But even if Trump backs the incumbent senator and rejects MAGA pressure, it might not be enough.
Polling this week by Texas Public Opinion Research found Paxton leading Cornyn 49 percent to 41 percent. Even if Trump did endorse the senator, it still showed Paxton leading 44 percent to 43 percent.
The day after the primary, Trump said he would make an endorsement “soon” and demanded that whoever he does not endorse exit the runoff.
The next day, Paxton said he would “consider dropping out” if the Senate leadership lifted the filibuster and passed the SAVE America Act, but he claimed Cornyn was a coward who “refused to support abolishing the filibuster to pass this bill.”
Even with Cornyn flipping his stance on the Senate rules, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been adamant that Republicans do not have the votes. Trump fired back that Thune needs to be “a leader” on Wednesday, but the path forward appears bleak.
In the meantime, Cornyn’s campaign is not backing down in the ugly race to the finish, launching its first television ad of the runoff against Paxton this week. It blasts the Texas attorney general for repeatedly violating the Ten Commandments.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery,” the narrator says, referring to the infidelity allegations made against Paxton by his wife when she filed for divorce.
