{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cruz.senate.gov?p=press_release&id=2029", "ICYMI: Sen. Cruz: I'm Not Trying to Play the Washington Rules, I'm Trying to Change the Rules", "2014-12-16", "2014", "2014-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Ted Cruz", "C001098", "www.cruz.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today spoke with Fox News\u2019 Bret Baier to discuss his constitutional point of order to defund President Obama\u2019s illegal executive amnesty.  \u00a0   Regarding Sen. Cruz\u2019s effort to secure a Senate vote to defund President Obama\u2019s illegal executive amnesty:  \u00a0  \u201cWhat the president did is unconstitutional. We\u2019re facing a constitutional crisis and in my view it was critical. This Saturday after the fight we had, we had the very first vote on President Obama\u2019s unconstitutional amnesty. That\u2019s what I was pressing for, that\u2019s what others were pressing for. And I think it mattered to honor our commitment to the voters, to force that vote.\u201d  \u00a0  Regarding the $1.1 trillion spending bill just passed by Congress:  \u00a0  \u201cYou look at this omnibus that just passed Congress. It\u2019s 1.1 trillion dollars of every payoff for special interest, for lobbyists, for K street, all of them got taken care of, it was the perfect example of Washington corruption. But you know the people who were not taken care of is the working men and women, the millions of conservatives, grassroots activists, who showed up and gave Republicans the majority.\u201d   \u00a0  Regarding the divide between Washington and the American people, and Sen. Cruz\u2019s efforts to fix it:  \u00a0  \u201cLet me be very clear, Washington doesn\u2019t like change. So I wouldn\u2019t necessarily disagree with you when you speak about people in Washington. Listen, I\u2019ve said a long time the biggest divide we\u2019ve got in this country politically, is not between Democrats and Republicans, it is between career politicians in Washington in both parties and the American people. So yes it is not a surprise that Washington fights hard against anyone trying to change the culture in Washington. But I can tell you outside of Washington, people are frustrated, they\u2019re frustrated with the corruption, they\u2019re frustrated with politicians that say one thing and do another.\u201d  \u00a0  \u201cI am not trying to play the rules of Washington, because I think Washington's broken, I think it's profoundly broken. And I think the only answer is to change Washington. Let me give you a tech example. In the tech world, you have disruptive apps that come in and disrupt the means of distributing a good or service. Let's take for example, Uber coming in or Lyft coming into a city\u2026 The taxi commissions have done everything they can to kill Uber and Lyft. What we're trying to do in the political world is very much the same thing, which is change the means of decision making, take it out of the smoke-filled rooms, where decision making is done in Washington between career politicians and lobbyists and instead empower the people. In my view, the only way we can turn this country around is if the American people rise up and hold every one of us accountable. So I'm not trying to play the Washington rules, I'm trying to change the rules and make elected officials, myself included, accountable to the people who elected us.\u201d\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cruz.senate.gov?p=press_release&id=2029"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8770220447331667, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}