www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/13/ted-cruz-wants-more-racists-in-senate/
"Cruz praised Jesse Helms, a Southern senator famously known for his bigotry against homosexuals and his racism towards the African-American community. As Senator from North Carolina, Helms filibustered a bill in 1983 making Martin Luther King’s birthday a federal holiday, claimed that gay people were “weak, morally sick wretches,” opposed voting rights for black people, and tried to force the first African-American female Senator to cry by singing ‘Dixie’ in her face in an elevator among many other things.
Despite this, Cruz thinks “we need 100 more like Jesse Helms in the US Senate.”
The Texas Republican apparently idolized Helms when he was growing up, claiming that he donated money to the hateful senator when he was only 10-years-old because he believed “it wasn’t right” when his opponents attacked him for being a racist."
