Regardless, Cruz should be expelled from senate and barred from holding any public office. Let's focus on the important stuff.
Based on what legal principle?
I'm going to be fair here. If someone wanted to say Ted Cruz walked right up to the line because he wanted to secure Trump's core base for a 2024 POTUS run and bolster his already sizeable stranglehold on delegate votes, I'd agree. If someone wanted to say Ted Cruz is a straight up grifter like every other politician on the face of the planet ( there is a reason the profession draws sociopaths, narcissists, psychopaths, etc, etc and this is well documented and heavily studied and researched throughout time) and there are major elements of personal gain in his actions, I'd agree. If someone said Ted Cruz ethically as an American citizen can no longer call himself a morally neutral actor in the Capitol riots, I'd agree.
However to expel Cruz from the Senate would require him to be presented before the Senate Ethics Committee and get 16 Republicans to flip sides and want him gone. Good luck with that. The reason?
1)
Did Ted Cruz commit sedition? First, it would be impossible to prove, at this point, that he actually conspired with anyone else. ( The major clue that the DNC has nothing is it sent it's Texas delegation to the press to demand Cruz resign, if they had anything concrete, they'd go after him right now) Second, it's not like Ted Cruz stood there at the doors of the Capitol with an AK47 in his hands. Legally speaking, there is a very narrow pathway to go after Cruz. The closest thing ( and it's not close at all), for anyone foolish enough to want to get into a legal war with Ted Cruz, would
be delaying the execution of American laws. Good luck showing that in court. What happened in the Capitol was unacceptable for those who stormed into the building and those who committed violence. But under the current standards of the actual law, you aren't getting Cruz for sedition. I'll even go so far as to say AG Ken Paxton using the word "seditious" in his lawsuit about the election, that 17 other AG's supported, was over the line. Even Biden, and those words on his teleprompter are CAREFULLY CURATED could only go so far as to say
"...borderline...on ( the act of)... sedition..."
2)
Did Ted Cruz take part in any insurrection? Was he inside storming the building himself? Was he handing out weapons? Key cards to locked doors? But under the current standards of the actual law, you aren't getting Cruz for insurrection.
3)
Did Ted Cruz commit treason? Was he waging war against America? Did he offer aid and support America's current enemies abroad in context of the Capitol riots? He did not. But under the current standards of the actual law, you aren't getting Cruz for treason.
What exactly will the Senate vote on here? Without a conviction on any of these, what kind of rope could they manufacture to hang Cruz? They could put a vote to censure Cruz and Hawley but it would require an actual majority ( won't happen, would never happen, no one in politics who would expect to hold onto their job would assert that was even remotely possible).
What were the previous precedents of Senatorial expulsion in the US? Most happened during the Civil War. If you line up what Ted Cruz is accused of doing to the handful of those outside of the Civil War purge, people would start to see how far fetched this all becomes.
Do you think the DNC wants Cruz to bring up Wilmington? Because he would. Because the last thing the DNC and Biden/Harris wants is a reference to riots based on racial divide that asks ugly questions about the burning and looting and destruction all year long in major Big Blue cities. The media optics on Cruz laying into Wilmington against the backdrop of BLM protests and related riots would be politically lethal. Even the left leaning MSM could not drive that out of the daily media cycles for months.
Do you think the DNC wants Cruz to bring up Kamala Harris, on video and on social media, calling for protesters/rioters/looters to be bailed out and her "rhetoric" that could be seen as supporting the year of violence, riots, looting, destruction and racial divide?
Direct Headline: Changes to absentee/mail-in voting procedures in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020
https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_absentee/mail-in_voting_procedures_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020
This election had more voters than any in US history, had more absentee ballots issued and submitted than any election in US history, had the pandemic and had a voting system in place that ranking DNC bigshots like Warren and Klobuchar denounced as a threat to democracy in 2019 and in the primaries. FORTY FOUR states in the union had legal fights over absentee ballots.
If the DNC wants to pursue a hunt of Ted Cruz, he points out Obama appointee Amy Totenberg ruled to drive in Dominion systems against her own Georgia legislature. That Stacey Abrams is under investigation for barnstorming 850K new voter registrations and that SOS Raffensperger did not follow Georgia election law regarding risk limiting audits.
And this is just ONE STATE.
Ted Cruz could spend all day long, weeks even, legally wrangling as to why he objected to the results of this election. ( Was he the first in Congressional history to object or to say he would object, I think not) How many in Congress have Cruz's legal pedigree? They would be fighting on his battleground. Good luck with all that. You don't have to agree, the DNC doesn't have to agree, but just because people don't like Cruz doesn't mean he fails to have an actual point here.
Going after Ted Cruz goes nowhere legally.
What it would do is open up a Pandora's Box of media narratives that the DNC could no longer control and would cost them badly in 2022, where they are already projected to lose the HOR and risk the 2024 POTUS cycle. The DNC would lose in the court of law and in the court of public opinion. And for what overall gain?
If the DNC could wipe out GOP contenders for 2024 today, you don't think they'd jump on that if they could? That they aren't doing anything more than media posturing should tell everyone something about the actual legal reality of the situation.