“On an invitation-only call last week, Sen. Ted Cruz huddled with Republican state lawmakers to call them to battle on the issue of voting rights. Democrats are trying to expand voting rights to ‘illegal aliens’ and ‘child molesters,’ he claimed, and Republicans must do all they can to stop them. If they push through far-reaching election legislation now before the Senate, the GOP won’t win elections again for generations, he said. Asked if there was room to compromise, Cruz was blunt: ‘No.’ ‘H.R. 1′s only objective is to ensure that Democrats can never again lose another election, that they will win and maintain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and of the state legislatures for the next century,’ Cruz said told the group organized by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed, conservative group” the AP reports.

“Cruz’s statements, recorded by a person on the call and obtained by The Associated Press, capture the building intensity behind Republicans’ nationwide campaign to restrict access to the ballot. From statehouses to Washington, the fight over who can vote and how – often cast as ‘voting integrity’ – has galvanized a Republican Party in search of unifying mission in the post-Trump era. For a powerful network of conservatives, voting restrictions are now viewed as a political life-or-death debate, and the fight has all-but eclipsed traditional Republican issues like abortion, gun rights and tax cuts as an organizing tool. That potency is drawing influential figures and money from across the right, ensuring that the clash over the legislation in Washington will be partisan and expensive. ‘It kind of feels like an all-hands-on-deck moment for the conservative movement, when the movement writ large realizes the sanctity of our elections is paramount and voter distrust is at an all-time high,’ said Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action, an influential conservative advocacy group in Washington. ‘We’ve had a bit of a battle cry from the grassroots, urging us to pick this fight.'”