Ron DeSantis is, once again, working with Ted Cruz, this time on term limits.
The North Florida Congressman teamed up with the former Republican presidential hopeful to pen a piece published in the Washington Post on Friday calling for President-elect Donald Trump to push congressional term limits.
“We believe that the rise of political careerism in modern Washington is a drastic departure from what the founders intended of our federal governing bodies,” Cruz and DeSantis wrote. “To effectively ‘drain the swamp,’ we believe it is past time to enact term limits for Congress.
“The American people have offered Republicans an opportunity to enact meaningful change. They have rejected the status quo and put the Washington elites on notice that they will no longer accept the old way of doing business," Cruz and DeSantis insisted. “It is well past time to put an end to the cronyism that has transformed Washington into a graveyard of good intentions. Favors for the political elite have gone on for far too long. In Washington, where corruption and collusion abound, entrenched politicians live fat and happy cutting deals and breaking promises, while those who don’t oblige are shunned. Congressional term limits are critical to stopping the ongoing abuse by D.C. insiders.
“The time is now for Congress, with the overwhelming support of the American people, to pass a constitutional amendment establishing congressional term limits and send it to the states for speedy ratification,” they concluded. “With control of a decisive majority of the states, the executive branch, the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Republican Party has the responsibility to respond to the voters’ call to action. We must, and we can, deliver.”
This isn’t the first time, Cruz and DeSantis have worked together. At the end of last year, DeSantis was the House sponsor of Cruz’s “Terrorist Refugee Infiltration Prevention Act” which aimed to stop refugees from Iraq, Syria and other countries where terrorist groups control large territories.
Of course, there’s good political reason for DeSantis to hitch his wagon to the once-and-probable-future presidential candidate from the Lone Star State. Despite his conservative positions and an impressive background, including degrees from Yale and Harvard and service as a naval officer, DeSantis did not make much of an impression when he ran for the U.S Senate earlier this year. When Marco Rubio decided to run for a second term, DeSantis ran for a third term in the House. But his political stature really didn’t improve much and a poll from St. Leo University released last week shows DeSantis in the low single digits if he launches a second Senate bid in 2018.
DeSantis is only 38. He’ll have his chances to move up the political ladder in the years to come. But, for the moment, working with Cruz is a good way to raise his profile and gain the attention of conservatives and Republicans across the state. Of course, Cruz and DeSantis generally are on the same page when it comes to the role of government, foreign policy and social issues. But, if DeSantis wants to stand out on a growing bench of ambitious Republicans aiming for higher office in Florida, working with Cruz is a good way of doing that.
