Ted Cruz told the truth for once when he admitted that voter suppression benefits Republicans: journalist

The Nation's Joan Walsh is among the journalists who is not shy about using the word "liar" to accurately describe Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. But in an article published on March 23, the liberal Walsh gives the far-right Republican credit for speaking the truth for once. Cruz, Walsh notes, recently admitted that making it easier to vote benefits Democrats, while making it more difficult to vote benefits Republicans.

All over the United States, Republicans in state legislatures are pushing voter suppression bills designed to make it much harder to vote. A bill in Georgia even proposed making it a crime to give food or water to someone waiting in line to vote. And Democrats, at the federal level, are fighting back with the voting rights bill House Resolution 1, a.k.a. the For the People Act — which was recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives but faces an uphill climb in the U.S. Senate.

Cruz has been railing against the For the People Act and discussed it during a recent conference call with Republican state legislators that was sponsored by American Legislative Exchange Council wingnuts. The 62-year-old Walsh, who was editor-in-chief at Salon before leaving for The Nation in 2015 and has been a pundit for CNN and MSNBC, points out that Cruz, during the conference call, falsely claimed that HR1 "says America would be better off if more murderers were voting, America would be better off if more rapists and child molesters were voting."

"Needless to say, (HR 1) says none of those things," Walsh explains. "Cruz did sound one truthful alarm: If Democrats achieve their goal of easier voter access with HR 1, they will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and of the state legislatures for the next century.' Cruz is exaggerating, but his claim is premised on fact: Republicans do worse when voting access expands, and better when they can suppress it."

Walsh adds that according to the Brennan Center, Republicans have proposed 250 voter suppression bills in 43 states since former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden. Voter suppression, Walsh notes, is a high "priority" for the Heritage Foundation, the Susan B. Anthony Fund, Freedom Works and other right-wing groups.

The journalist wraps up her article by noting another rare example of Cruz telling the truth. In 2013, Cruz said that Americans would become "addicted" to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, if it wasn't repealed.

"Cruz turned out to be prescient," Walsh writes. "Even under Trump, with Republican majorities in the House and Senate, health care advocates foiled the GOP's ACA repeal. Republicans intend to fight even harder to block HR 1 and the Democrats' entire voting rights agenda. If it passes — it's still got a tough road through the Senate because of filibuster rules — Americans will become addicted to free and fair voting, and Republicans will be as endangered as their repeal-ACA crusade. Existential threats to the GOP, if nothing else, apparently scare Cruz into telling the truth."