Two months into their tenure, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee also led a crusade against alternative, renewable energy programs. They successfully branded the government’s stimulus support for Solyndra, a California manufacturer of solar panels, and other clean energy firms an Obama scandal. In fact, the loan guarantee

Cornyn was rated as the second most conservative Republican in the Senate, according to the nonpartisan National Journal. But he also was, as one former aide put it, “very much a constitutionalist” who believed it was occasionally necessary in politics to compromise.