WASHINGTON — Sen. John Cornyn has been on the job nearly a dozen years, and he’s asking voters for another term Tuesday. But he’s candid and unapologetic in saying that he can’t point to many huge accomplishments from the last six years.
“Honestly, during President Obama’s term in office, since we’ve been in the minority, most of my time has been spent playing defense,” he said, “trying to protect the state and Texans from an overreaching federal government.”
The legislative accomplishments have been modest, though Cornyn points to efforts to improve access to public records and to provide funds for processing a nationwide backlog of rape kits that could clear up unsolved crimes.
By contrast, the Senate rebuffed Cornyn’s effort to reshape last year’s bipartisan immigration bill, which he opposed, by beefing up border security elements.
“We’ve gotten some singles and maybe an occasional double,” he said. “My hope is that after this election that will change.”
Cornyn, who faces Dallas investor David Alameel on Tuesday, will become the second-most powerful senator if Republicans win the majority. He reflected on his tenure over the course of a half-hour conversation, envisioning a GOP-run Senate that welcomes minority input rather than shutting it out.
The Senate’s dysfunction over the last two years has been “enormously frustrating,” Cornyn said.
The former judge and Texas attorney general won his seat in 2002, replacing Sen. Phil Gramm. With his shock of white hair, courtly demeanor and a gift for projecting reasonableness where others come off as strident, Cornyn, now 62, often was described as a senator from central casting.
He rose quickly. After four years at the helm of the party’s Senate campaign arm, colleagues elevated him to deputy leader after the 2012 elections.
“We’re going to have to find ways to actually govern. And we’ll have the responsibility of doing so,” he said.
Even Democrats seeking re-election have been hard-pressed to cite legislative accomplishments. Republicans blame the gridlock on Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; Democrats accuse Republicans of obstructionism.
“The converse of what they call obstructionism, which is the minority standing up for its rights, is capitulation,” Cornyn said. “And I agree: We have not capitulated to the bullying tactics of Senator Reid and the administration.”
Cornyn’s second term has been punctuated by friction with the party’s tea party wing.
He was in the midst of tussles in 2010, when a GOP majority was within reach. But conservatives demanded ideologically pure, fire-breathing candidates, and a number of flawed nominees ended up losing contests that Cornyn and others viewed as winnable.
When Texans sent tea partier Ted Cruz to the Senate two years later to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison, Cornyn found himself with a junior partner eager to stir things up.
The government shutdown Cruz instigated a year ago in an effort to remove funding for the implementation of Obamacare was avoidable and unwise, Cornyn said.
“That was an insurgency-led effort. And it didn’t turn out well. I never believed that you’d get Senator Reid to allow a vote on repealing Obamacare,” nor that Obama would go along, Cornyn said. “It really was never going to be a successful tactic.”
He and other GOP leaders “certainly tried” to avert the episode, Cornyn said.
“Ted has learned, sure. He’s a smart guy. I haven’t seen him or any other people leading that effort doing it again,” he said. “Look, I’ve made mistakes in my time in the Senate. I’ve tried to learn from them.”
I asked for two examples. He laughed and declined.
“I’m not going to catalog my mistakes for you,” he said. “I’ve got too many and you don’t have time.”
Follow Washington Bureau Chief Todd J. Gillman on Twitter at @toddgillman.
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