FTC Policy Planning Director Ted Cruz Appointed Solicitor General of Texas

R. Ted Cruz, the Director of the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Policy Planning, will be leaving the Federal Trade Commission at the end of January, after nearly two years in the position. Mr. Cruz has been appointed the Solicitor General of the State of Texas, and will be moving to Austin in early February.

"The agency's mission of promoting competition and protecting consumers is critically important to the function of our free-market economy and to consumers nationwide," said FTC Chairman Timothy J. Muris. "Ted has been instrumental in implementing that agenda. We congratulate him on his excellent work for the FTC and wish him much success in his new position."

Mr. Cruz has led the Office of Policy Planning since June of 2001. The Office assists the Commission in developing and implementing long-range policy and legal objectives, advises on cases raising novel or complex legal issues, and directs the FTC's Competition Advocacy program. In addition, Mr. Cruz has chaired the FTC's State Action Task Force, Noerr-Pennington Task Force, and Internet Task Force. He argued successfully for the agency in In re Buspirone, 185 F.Supp.2d 363 (S.D.N.Y. 2002), a major Noerr precedent that cleared the way for continued antitrust scrutiny of anticompetitive conduct that could frustrate the sale of generic pharmaceuticals to consumers. And, he organized a ground-breaking three-day public workshop at the FTC examining possible anticompetitive efforts to restrict competition on the Internet. (http://www.ftc.gov/opp/ecommerce/anticompetitive/index.htm)

Prior to his tenure at the FTC, Mr. Cruz served as Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, as Domestic Policy Advisor to President Bush on the Bush-Cheney campaign, and as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court. He was raised in Texas, is a two-time U.S. national champion debater, and is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.

"It has been a tremendous honor to serve under Chairman Muris at the FTC," Mr. Cruz said. "I look forward to the new challenges in representing the State of Texas, but I will certainly miss working with the many dedicated and principled professionals throughout the agency, whom I'm proud to call colleagues and friends."