David Fishback's Blog: Cruz will try to use Justice Scalia's death to vault himself ahead of Trump in South Carolina

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Cruz will try to use Justice Scalia's death to vault himself ahead of Trump in South Carolina

Tonight's Republican debate should be interesting. I suspect that Ted Cruz will wrap himself in the mantle of Antonin Scalia, noting his (Cruz's) clerkship on the Supreme Court and his arguments before the Supreme Court as Texas Solicitor General. Cruz will try to use Scalia's death to vault himself ahead of Trump in South Carolina.

Some useful links on Cruz and the Supreme Court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/us/politics/a-history-for-senate-candidate-ted-cruz-and-supreme-court.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/opinion/the-brutalism-of-ted-cruz.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/as-supreme-court-clerk-ted-cruz-made-death-penalty-his-cause.html

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David S. Fishback, a retired attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, is Advocacy Chair for the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). His involvement in social justice efforts began as a college student in the 1960s, when he ran a tutoring program in Washington, DC. Following a year as a VISTA volunteer at a prison in Memphis, TN, he went to Harvard Law School and worked on Democratic Party reform issues.

After graduation, he joined the Office of General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. In 1983, David went to the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, where he litigated environmental tort matters, most notably the government's successful defense against lawsuits brought by asbestos product and Agent Orange manufacturers, who were seeking to shift their tort liability to the federal taxpayers.

In 1984, David became co-president of the PTA at a magnet integration primary school in Silver Spring, MD, beginning his efforts as an education activist in Montgomery County. He began advocating for LGBTQ youth in 2002 when he was appointed to the County Board of Education's Citizens Advisory Committee on sexuality education issues. During his time as chair of that committee and later through PFLAG, he was integrally involved in the ultimately successful effort to bring intelligent discussion of LGBTQ topics into the secondary school health curriculum and guidance offices.

A past member of the Temple Emanuel of Kensington MD Board of Trustees, David and his wife Bobbi co-founded and co-chaired (from 2002 to 2019) the Temple's Kulanu Committee for LGBTQ outreach. He is also a long-time member of the Temple's Social Action Council. In 2020, David was appointed to the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism.