Ted Cruz Proposes Legislation That Would Make It Harder to Photograph Lawmakers Jetting Off to Cancún While Their Constituents Freeze to Death

Remember, back in 2021, when Ted Cruz’s response to a Texas state of emergency—wherein millions of people had no heat or power and hundreds died—was to hop a plane to Cancún? Obviously, Cruz hadn’t issued a press release about his trip, which he’d clearly hoped would fly under the radar, and the only reason it came out was thanks to the work of the citizen journalists who spotted him in the airport and on the Mexico-bound plane and thought to whip out their cameras. Anyway, the whole thing made the Texas senator look really, really bad—and in the future, he’d like Congress to help make sure it never happens again.

Politico reports that three years after Cancúngate, Cruz has proposed a legislation that “would offer lawmakers a dedicated security escort at airports, along with expedited screening outside of public view.” As the outlet notes, such measure “could make it much less likely that the politicians’ comings and goings would become fodder for embarrassing news reports and late-night comedy mockery.” The special treatment would also extend to Cabinet members, federal judges, and a small number of family and staff. Cruz is trying to include the legislation as an amendment to S. 1939, an aviation policy bill.

Asked about why such an amendment is necessary, Cruz told Politico that there are “serious security threats facing public officials” and that “it’s important that we take reasonable measures to keep everyone safe.” Kevin Murphy, executive director of the Airport Law Enforcement Agencies Network, a group that represents airport police, told the outlet Cruz’s proposed amendment would be “a burden to airport police agencies,” and divert law enforcement from “crime suppression and security functions at airports, which is our fundamental duty.”

In 2021, after his little jaunt went public, Cruz or someone on his team decided it wouldn’t look great for him to remain in Mexico, and he caught one of the next flights home. As NBC News reported at the time, the senator’s office reached out to the Houston Police Department and asked it to “assist him in his arrival and movements through Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport.” Also, he tried to blame the whole thing on his daughters.

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