Senator Ted Cruz is rebranding — at least for now.
The Texas Republican, whose opening salvo as a freshman senator in 2013 was leading the charge to shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act, has earned a reputation in Congress as a rabble-rousing, uncompromising conservative firebrand who tends more toward obstinance and anti-establishment tirades than bipartisanship or teamwork.
But for the first time this week, Mr. Cruz, now the senior Republican on the Commerce Committee, embraced a wholly unfamiliar role: managing a major piece of legislation on the Senate floor. It came as Mr. Cruz, who is running for re-election in November, is trying to moderate his reputation in Texas and present himself as capable of bipartisanship.
As the ranking G.O.P. member of the committee of jurisdiction, Mr. Cruz this week found himself responsible for helping to deliver the five-year, multibillion-dollar reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration to improve air travel and address passenger woes at a time of intense uncertainty about the system. That involved protecting the package from the sort of legislative and procedural bombs he has lobbed proudly throughout his career.
The irony of his turnabout was not lost on his colleagues.
“I will admit that I’ve had a couple of chuckles about it,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said with a smile.
It thrust Mr. Cruz into some uncharted territory as he worked to pass the bill, which finally glided through the Senate on Thursday night just before a Friday deadline, after he worked with Democrats to bat down an array of amendments that could have complicated its path to enactment.
The Texas senator attended a G.O.P. leadership meeting on Tuesday, working with Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, for whom he has long been a thorn in the side.
He presented the legislation to his colleagues during the weekly Republican Party luncheon at the Capitol, and implored senators who were demanding votes on their various proposals to retreat, arguing that the bill already incorporated hundreds of their priorities.
He warned that tacking on policy riders or making major changes to the bill would “unravel” months of careful negotiations and muck up the legislation’s path to passage — something Mr. Cruz knows plenty about as the author of many such proposals in the past.
And he spoke repeatedly and at length to members of the press he frequently snubs or dispatches with sarcastic quips, as he made his way around the Capitol providing updates on negotiations and touting the bipartisanship and compromise that built the bill.
His colleagues noted, some with thinly veiled satisfaction, that Mr. Cruz’s entreaties to fellow senators — including members of his ideological cohort who were simply following the playbook he had honed over years — sounded a lot like the ones that others have frequently tried on him.
“It is always good for senators to have the experience of managing the bill on the Senate floor,” Ms. Collins said, “because it gives them a greater appreciation for how difficult it is when senators have non-germane amendments that they want to offer to a bill that the senators work so hard to craft in a more traditional way.”
“It’s been interesting to watch him manage other senators’ expectations on this bill,” added Ms. Collins, a legislative veteran who has managed many bills and participated in many a bipartisan compromise.
The role reversal earned Mr. Cruz a bit of ribbing from his colleagues, even as they praised his handling of the aviation legislation.
“It’s been fantastic — I love it,” Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, said of watching Mr. Cruz manage the bill. “He’s done a pretty good job as far as I can tell.”
He added, with a laugh: “So, you know, he may be making a run for majority leader next year.”
“We’ve had a little bit of fun with him,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said. “He’s taken it in good humor.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said with a smile that he was “rejoicing the fact that he rose to the occasion, got the bill across the line, did a good job.”
Mr. Cruz, for his part, has said that the legislation was rigorously developed and took into account the views of every senator, even as many of them pushed for votes on amendments they had filed, slowing down the process.
A “robust amendment process,” as he has so often demanded, was proving impossible, he said, as each package of proposals that he offered for a vote faced objections from different factions.
“The process that this bill has undergone, I think, reflects how legislation should be handled in the Senate: We went through regular order,” Mr. Cruz said. “Members across the Senate care a great deal about aviation safety, about protecting consumers, about competition, about lowering prices. And I think this is a very strong bipartisan bill that came through a process that worked the way it’s supposed to.”
Mr. Cruz, who will face the Democratic Representative Colin Allred this fall, has made no secret of his desire to be seen by voters as a more constructive player in Congress, capable of working with members of the other party. He started a “Democrats for Cruz” messaging campaign to highlight his work across the political aisle in an attempt to win over left-leaning voters.
But whether his role reversal would stick on Capitol Hill remained to be seen.
Did his colleagues think this would be an enduring rebrand?
“No,” Mr. Tillis said, before breaking into laughter. “Not at all.”
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