Madison, James
1809–1817

Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) is the founding document of American church-state separation thought, and Federalist No. 10 is the foundational warning against the spirit of faction. Cornyn earns substantial Madison credit on the church-state side — he has not signed onto state-level Ten Commandments classroom mandates, his Respect for Marriage Act vote built in the kind of religious-liberty protections Madison's framework valued, and his measured posture on religious-minority litigation lines up with the Memorial Remonstrance framework. On the anti-faction Federalist No. 10 framework, Cornyn is the cleanest fit on the 2026 Republican primary ballot: he certified the 2020 election, defended Senate norms, and refused to abandon institutional process under Trump-Paxton pressure. Talarico's church-state separation, anti-faction anti-corruption package, careful institutional restraint, and 'most vocal defender of separation of church and state' positioning align directly with Madison's documented framework. Madison would push back on the expanded federal economic policy, recognizing it as Hamiltonian centralization he and Jefferson opposed.