Ted Cruz found kindred spirits at Harvard’s Federalist Society

By Tracy Jan Globe Staff April 28, 2016

WASHINGTON — Years before the government shutdown he helped engineer, and way before he became the most unpopular man in the Senate, Ted Cruz stood among friends during a visit to Harvard Law School.

It was 2007 and Cruz was the solicitor general of Texas. He returned to his alma mater in a suit and cowboy boots to participate in a moot-court session sponsored by the law school’s Federalist Society, an intellectual touchstone and source of ideological support for conservative students and Harvard Law alumni such as Cruz.

The audience that day included fans who reveled in his brand of constitutional conservatism and threw him a barbecue in appreciation.

“Ted was the person every Harvard Federalist Society member aspired to be,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, a Republican strategist who, as Federalist Society president, had invited Cruz to campus.