Paxton3 Bak

---

bak 7 25 capt

8 22

no merri

9 22 official mofo then heat death

maga mike ally

see heartbeat

see rule of law def fund

heritage // pjt 2025

see team red RAGA

see miller 3 am 1st legal

fake electors

see eastman

see clarence, alito

see rinaldi tx gop

fail pedo

~ local regs ubi

kacs judge the pill forum judge shopping

netchoice v paxton censorship // florida

---

damn

3 24

texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-gets-off-fraud-charges-by-paying-300k-and-promising-to-attend-two-days-ethics-training

---

an 10 26

A Black MAGA influencer has revealed that she was kicked out of a rally for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over the weekend. What’s more, Thelma Louise – who has a large TikTok account where she creates content advocating for President Donald Trump – caught the incident on video, in which she was quietly watching the rally before she was suddenly asked to leave.

On Sunday, she was enthusiastically documenting her experience at a rally for Paxton, who has fallen behind Democratic opponent James Talarico in the race for the Senate, when she was abruptly asked to leave without cause. As she is escorted out, she’s seen asking politely, “And there’s no one that I can talk to about this?” Once outside, Louise was visibly shocked, saying, “Wow. Oh my gosh. I cannot believe this... Someone just came up to me and said that Ken Paxton’s campaign manager wanted me to leave. I am just — my mouth is wide open right now. I really can’t believe this.”

“I was just asked to leave this event, and I did nothing wrong,” she went on. “I was told that Paxton’s campaign manager didn’t want me here. I’m not making any of this up... I have done nothing but support everyone on the Republican side, and this is how I get treated? I cannot believe the disrespect that I was just given. I left the Democratic Party two years ago, I have volunteered for President Trump’s campaign, and I have worked very hard promoting members of the Republican Party. I’m not quite sure what’s going on, but to be walked out of a room full of people and isolated as if I’d done something wrong — I cannot believe it.”

Paxton – a MAGA loyalist who has run under the endorsement of Trump – has been dragged down by a slew of corruption and personal scandals, and narrowly trails Talarico in most polls. As a result, it has been widely suggested that Texas could flip a Senate seat blue, electing a Democratic senator for the first time since 1988. This has forced the GOP to spend extraordinary amounts of money in Paxton’s favor, while the president has made repeated visits to Texas in an attempt to bolster MAGA support.

Before she was kicked out of the rally, Louise appeared to have an amiable stance on Paxton despite the scandals, saying that she traveled two hours to attend the rally. She was asked to leave anyway, despite footage that appears to show her watching respectfully, regardless of having shown the press credentials she received for Republicans midterm convention in Dallas over the summer.

---

an 10 25

Veteran Washington Post columnist George Will is among the Never Trump conservatives who believes that if far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeats incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the state's 2026 GOP U.S. Senate primary, a Democrat could win a statewide race in the Lone Star State for the first time in many years.

Cornyn, the 84-year-old Will argues, would be extremely difficult for a Democrat to beat if he's the nominee. But according to Will, Paxton has so much baggage that former Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) might be able to go the distance in the general election if he's up against Paxton.

The Texas attorney general is competitive in GOP primary polls, but one thing he doesn't have is an endorsement from President Donald Trump.

In a blistering article published on October 29, Salon's Amanda Marcotte stresses that Paxton is going to embarrassing extremes in the hope of getting Trump's endorsement — including a frivolous anti-Tylenol lawsuit.

"In an unbelievably crowded field," Marcotte argues, "the title of 'Most Wretched Republican Bootlicker' is ultimately impossible to determine. But on Tuesday morning, (October 28), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made a strong case for himself when he filed a nuisance lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue, falsely accusing the companies of concealing a link between Tylenol and autism. The word 'baseless' doesn't begin to describe the value of the lawsuit. Both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and American Academy of Pediatrics have affirmed there is no significant link between using this common painkiller during pregnancy and having an autistic child. On the contrary, there could be significant risks if women were to forgo a doctor's advice to use the drug for pain or fever."

IFrame Content

Marcotte continues, "MAGA Republicans, especially Paxton, have a long history of loathing both science and women, so they have no conscientious objections to a lawsuit that hurts women in the name of lying about medicine. Still, at first glance, Paxton's move is surprising as political strategy."

The Salon journalist notes that when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "blamed autism on pregnant women who take Tylenol," the "backlash" was "fierce."

"Even by MAGA standards," Marcotte writes, "Paxton has high levels of radiant misogyny, but it's confusing why he would want to touch this hot stove. The likeliest answer is also the most painfully stupid one: Paxton is beclowning himself in hopes of wooing Trump to endorse his primary challenge against incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn…. Many in the (Republican) Party have worried that if Paxton secures the nomination, he will lose to a Democrat. In response, Paxton has become comically thirsty for Trump's endorsement, signaling there's no limit to how low he will debase himself to get that tiny thumbs up."

*Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

---

ABBOTT PAXTON THREAT ARREST/ EXPLUSION

7 25 TEXAS GERRY GAVIN PRTIZKER ILL HOST DEM REP REFUGEE

'This is a war': Hochul joins blue-state push in brewing gerrymander arms race

David Badash

---

doing well in polls senate run 7 25

wife biblical divorce? state rep

an 7 25

'The matter is closed': NY county clerk shuts down Texas AG's attempt to punish doctor

Ailia Zehra

---

mma BEATS PAXTON MUSK

MMA

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules in Media Matters’ favor on First Amendment grounds: Angelo Carusone statement

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 05/30/25

Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone issued the following statement after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously upheld the district court’s decision last year to block Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s civil investigative demand of Media Matters on First Amendment grounds.

“Elon Musk encouraged Republican state attorneys general to use their power to harass their critics and stifle reporting about X. Ken Paxton was one of those AGs who took up the call, and his attempt to use his office as an instrument for Musk’s censorship crusade has been defeated. Today's decision is a victory for free speech.

“We are also buoyed that yet another court has seen through the fog of Musk’s ‘thermonuclear’ legal onslaught and recognized it for the meritless attack to silence a critic that it is."

Key takeaways from the ruling:

The judges ruled that “Media Matters is the target of a government campaign of retaliation” for exercising First Amendment rights, which “reflects concrete and present harm. And as the target of an arguablybad-faith investigation, Appellees are also experiencing special burdens on their newsgathering activities and operation of their media company.”

“In addition, Paxton’s contention that Appellees’ conduct is not constitutionally protected because their articles were deliberately designed to mislead consumers about X is meritless. The record is utterly devoid of evidence to support such a claim.”

“As to the first element, Appellees – a media organization and news reporter – are obviously engaged in conduct protected under the First Amendment. Indeed, the underlying incident that precipitated their claim involved their news reporting on a public figure and alleged political extremism on a popular social media platform. Their reporting on public issues are quintessential First Amendment activities."

The same day that X Corp. filed a meritless lawsuit against Media Matters for America for an accurate report on the platform’s extremism, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened a similarly specious investigation into Media Matters under Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Paxton subsequently issued an overbroad and invasive civil investigative demand – even though Media Matters has no relevant connection to Texas. The law firm Stone Hilton, led by former Paxton deputies Judd Stone and Chris Hilton, is representing X Corp. in its case against Media Matters. In April of 2024, Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Paxton.

In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California ruled that“it seems almost certain that the X entities’ decision to file multiple suits in multiple jurisdictions is designed more to bully Media Matters and inflict financial hardship upon it than to actually vindicate those entities’ rights.”

The nonpartisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which catalogs press freedom violations in the United States, recently added an incident report related to the Texas attorney general's investigation to its database.

---

an 5 25

In a Thursday, May 29 post on X, formerly Twitter, President Donald Trump's White House adviser, Stephen Miller, angrily wrote, "We are living under a judicial tyranny." Miller's post was in response to a U.S. Court of International Trade ruling that blocks — at least temporarily — most of the tariffs Trump is imposing on the United States' trading partners.

But Miller isn't the only MAGA Republican who is using the phrase "judicial tyranny" to attack federal judges who are blocking Trump's executive orders. Trump and his MAGA allies, from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to Vice President JD Vance, claim that federal courts are failing to respect the president's executive powers — and Trump's critics are responding that in fact, the courts are playing the role they are supposed to play in the United States' system of checks and balances.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 30, attorney Paul Rosenzweig — a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official — lays out the flaws and contradictions of the "judicial tyranny" arguments coming from Trump and his MAGA allies.

"Trump wants you to think that he is the victim of district court judges gone crazy enjoining his actions," Rosenzweig explains. "To make that case, he also wants you to think that what is happening to him is the same thing that happened to (former President Joe) Biden's policies — district court judges interfering with executive prerogative. But that's just not the case. And diving into the facts makes it clear that this argument really isn't about universal injunctions — cases where a district court judge grants interim equitable relief that applies across the entire country."

IFrame Content

Rosenzweig continues, " The argument is really about forum-shopping and judicial gerrymandering…. The facts on the ground are that the universal injunctions against Trump are truly universal. As of today, more than 20 different federal district court judges have issued injunctive relief in at least 180 different cases. And the number goes up with every passing day. There is no good evidence that Trump's opponents are forum-shopping — bringing cases before courts where there is the greatest expectation of having judges who will rule in their favor."

MAGA Republicans, Rosenzweig stresses, have a long history of seeking "universal injunctions" against Democratic policies they don't like — including far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"By March 2023," the former DHS official observes, "Paxton's office had filed 28 lawsuits against the Biden Administration in federal district courts in Texas; of those, 18 were filed in single-judge divisions, including Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk's division and a single-judge division held by another Trump appointee, Judge Drew Tipton…. In a world in which we could have confidence in the good faith of an administration and a presumption as to its regularity of operation, universal injunctions would be a little-used safety-valve check on executive authority. But today, we live in a different world — one where MAGA gamesmanship and judicial forum-shopping were instrumental in frustrating various Biden initiatives."

Rosenzweig adds, "Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it seems quite possible that the Court will depower judicial opposition in the service of conservative policy."

*Paul Rosenzweig's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

---

an 5 25

In a Thursday, May 29 post on X, formerly Twitter, President Donald Trump's White House adviser, Stephen Miller, angrily wrote, "We are living under a judicial tyranny." Miller's post was in response to a U.S. Court of International Trade ruling that blocks — at least temporarily — most of the tariffs Trump is imposing on the United States' trading partners.

But Miller isn't the only MAGA Republican who is using the phrase "judicial tyranny" to attack federal judges who are blocking Trump's executive orders. Trump and his MAGA allies, from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to Vice President JD Vance, claim that federal courts are failing to respect the president's executive powers — and Trump's critics are responding that in fact, the courts are playing the role they are supposed to play in the United States' system of checks and balances.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 30, attorney Paul Rosenzweig — a former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official — lays out the flaws and contradictions of the "judicial tyranny" arguments coming from Trump and his MAGA allies.

IFrame Content

MAGA Republicans, Rosenzweig stresses, have a long history of seeking "universal injunctions" against Democratic policies they don't like — including far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Rosenzweig adds, "Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it seems quite possible that the Court will depower judicial opposition in the service of conservative policy."

*Paul Rosenzweig's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

---

AN 5 25

Controversial Republican firebrand and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is polling ahead of his soft-toned GOP rival Sen. John Cornyn, but Republican officials are not happy with his impending victory.

“It feels like Republicans are slow-walking into a disaster in Texas,” one senior Senate GOP aide told NOTUS. “Right now, it doesn’t look like John Cornyn has a path to victory against Ken Paxton, and Ken Paxton is completely capable of blowing a competitive general election. It’s fair to say folks on the Hill are getting concerned.”

NOTUS reports Cornyn is down substantially against Paxton in Texas Senate primary polls, but Paxton is polling behind Democratic contenders in the Texas general election, including Democratic state Rep. Colin Allred, who Sen. Ted Cruz defeated by less than 10 points in an election with President Donald Trump at the top of the ticket. Trump isn’t running this time, and the incumbent president’s party traditionally suffers in the mid-terms. This, coupled with Paxton’s record of controversy, could give Democrats a boost in deep-red Texas.

Like Trump, Paxton’s ruby red political base is willing to overlook his personal failings, says the Texas Tribune, including an indictment from a Collin County grand jury on three felony counts of securities fraud and for failing to register as an investment adviser. Prosecutors accused him of offering to sell people stock in McKinney technology company without disclosing that the company was compensating him, a charge for which he faces up to 99 years in prison, if convicted.

IFrame Content

Also, Paxton was impeached for allegedly using the powers of his AG office to protect Austin real estate developer and campaign donor Nate Paul for making false statements to banks. Seven of Paxton’s own top deputies reported him to the FBI, and their claims brought to light an affair Paxton had with one of Paul’s employees, which undercut his "family-values" conservative image.

But more Republicans in the Senate supported Paxton than opposed him, and he survived his impeachment in the Texas Senate.

However, Paxton’s support begins and ends with Republicans, and a general election containing independents and Democrats could topple him. In 2018 his statewide general election race for AG was a razor-edge 4-percentage point win against Democratic lawyer Justin Nelson.

If Paxton loses in Texas, it could help delete Republicans’ narrow majority in the Senate and stifle Trump’s agenda.

Read the full NOTUS report here.

4 25? this f guy affair, wife is state rep drove truck avoid subpoena lied; am promise bill support?!

---

an 4 25

On Tuesday, April 8, far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that he is giving conservative incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) a primary challenge in the 2026 midterms. Paxton is accusing Cornyn of not being MAGA enough and "turning his back on President Trump and the America First agenda."

But Cornyn is pushing back hard.

In an official statement, the Texas senator noted that he "voted with President Trump more than 95 percent of current senators." Cornyn, referencing Paxton's legal problems and impeachment in the Texas State Legislature, declared, "Ken Paxton is a fraud…. He says his impeachment trial was a sham but he didn't contest the facts in legal filings which will cost the state millions."

Newsweek's James Bickerton notes, "In March, the Texas Public Opinion Research polled 700 registered voters in the Lone Star State. Of those identifying as Republican primary voters, 27 percent said they either support or lean toward Cornyn in a potential Republican Senate primary against Paxton, against 38 percent for the current Texas attorney general. A survey conducted by Fabrizio, Lee and Associates between January 28 and February 2 found Paxton leading Cornyn in a hypothetical Republican primary matchup by 53 percent of the vote against 28 percent."

IFrame Content

Paxton's primary challenge announcement is receiving plenty of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.

Punchbowl News' Max Cohen tweeted, "Cornyn campaign spox goes in hard against Paxton."

Cohen noted some of Cornyn's scathing comments, including, "Ken claims to be a man of faith but uses fake Uber accounts to meet his girlfriend and deceive his family."

The Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger pointed out that Paxton is entering Texas' 2026 U.S. Senate race with a great deal of legal baggage.

Sollenberger posted, "Texas AG Ken Paxton, who paid $3 million to make securities charges go away, got impeached by fellow Republicans, was just found liable for whistleblower retaliation ($6M payout), and is reportedly still under federal investigation, has filed to run for Senate against John Cornyn…. And Cornyn is swinging."

The Dallas News' Nolan D. McCaskill observed, "Paxton’s campaign website includes a picture with Trump, suggesting to primary voters he has the president’s endorsement. CNN reported Sunday that Senate GOP leaders have asked Trump to endorse Cornyn."

Axios' Alex Isenstadt tweeted, "Ken Paxton has tapped @AxiomStrategies - the firm behind @tedcruz - to run his primary challenge to John Cornyn Axiom founder @jeffroe - who’s drawn the ire of Trumpworld - has told people he’s not involved."

Democratic political scientist Joel Montfort commented, "Sounds about right. Crooked president and a crooked senator from TX. When did we jump to an alternate timeline."

CNN's Manu Raju noted that the "Cornyn team" was quick to issue a "statement blasting Paxton."

Raju also observed that so far, Texas' other GOP senator, Ted Cruz, is " not saying if he’s going to back Cornyn for reelection."

---

an 3 25

Some Texas Republican lawmakers are reviving a previously stalled effort to expand the Texas attorney general’s power to prosecute election crimes.

*This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

The long-running push is a response to a 2022 ruling from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which found that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office does not have unilateral authority to independently prosecute criminal cases in trial courts without the request of a local prosecutor.

Senate Bill 1026, filed by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a powerful Republican from Central Texas, would amend the law to require the Texas attorney general’s office to prosecute election crimes if no local proceedings have begun after six months. The bill was approved by the GOP-led Senate Committee on State Affairs Thursday. Similar bills have also been filed in the House.

Some election and voting rights advocates said they’re concerned that the bill, as written, would require Paxton’s office to prosecute even if local district attorneys had chosen not to, or didn’t find enough evidence to do so.

The bill specifically changes the wording of a section of the law that now says the office “may” prosecute a criminal offense to “shall.” They warned that the bill seemed aimed at increasing election prosecutions, potentially intimidating voters and local election officials.

“On its own, that is a problem,” said Ashley Harris, staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas. “It’s all part of an attempt to control not only local prosecutors, but also election offices.”

Geoff Barr, chief of the election integrity division at the Texas Attorney General’s Office, said he interpreted the bill as giving his office discretion.

“If I don’t feel that I can prove the case, if the evidence is insufficient, I would argue that that ‘shall’ does not mandate me to prosecute against my ethical duties,” Barr said during a Senate Committee on State Affairs public hearing last week on the bill.

At the hearing, Hughes said lawmakers have been aware of instances where local district attorneys, who are elected, may have conflicts when asked to prosecute alleged election crimes.

“Who knows whether politics or other matters in any given county could affect prosecution?” Hughes said. “So election law is a matter of paramount statewide importance. This bill is intended to restore the authority the attorney general has had for decades to handle those matters.”

Paxton has actively pursued election-related crimes since he took office in 2015. After his office set up the election integrity unit, it has opened more than 300 investigations of suspected crimes by voters — in a state which has more than 18 million voters registered — but has successfully convicted only a handful.

Republican lawmakers filed similar bills in 2023, which failed to pass. Those bills came during a legislative session that ended with the House impeaching Paxton over other matters. The Senate later acquitted Paxton of several impeachment articles.

The debate over whether the attorney general’s office should have such authority was put to the test following the 2018 election of a local sheriff in Jefferson County, where the elected district attorney declined to prosecute alleged campaign-finance violations against Sheriff Zena Stephens.

Paxton then obtained an indictment from neighboring Chambers County. In 2021, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the indictment. After Paxton asked the court to rehear the case, it upheld its previous ruling, saying the attorney general does not have the independent authority to pursue criminal cases in trial courts unless the local prosecutor asks the office to do so.

Paxton later targeted three of the judges who reached that decision when they were up for reelection, successfully leading a campaign to oust them during the 2024 Republican primary.

Hughes’ bill would explicitly give Paxton’s office the authority he sought from the appeals court.

*Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia atncontreras@votebeat.org

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

---

wapo no lnx

Trump-appointed judge rejects lawsuit targeting special counsel Jack Smith

U.S. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk denied Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to temporarily block special counsel Jack Smith from destroying records.

November 26, 2024

Special counsel Jack Smith, in August 2023, arriving to announce the indictment of Donald Trump. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

By Tobi Raji

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas has rejected the state’s long-shot attempt to temporarily block special counsel Jack Smith from destroying records related to his investigation into President-elect Donald Trump, calling the state’s argument “unserious.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) had asked U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk to order Smith to preserve the records, including any communications Smith’s office had with a “range of outside parties” and information regarding the cellphones assigned to Smith’s team, among other items, according to the complaint.

What readers are saying

The comments reflect a strong criticism of Ken Paxton, highlighting his past legal issues and perceived lack of integrity. Many commenters express skepticism about his future political prospects, particularly in relation to Trump. Additionally, there is a discussion about Jack... Show more

This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.

---

an 12 24

texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit accusing a New York doctor of prescribing abortion drugs to a Texas resident in violation of state law.

This lawsuit is the first attempt to test what happens when state abortion laws are at odds with each other. New York has a shield law that protects providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions, which has served as implicit permission for a network of doctors to mail abortion pills into states that have banned the procedure.

Texas has vowed to pursue these cases regardless of those laws, and legal experts are divided on where the courts may land on this issue, which involves extraterritoriality, interstate commerce and other thorny legal questions last meaningfully addressed before the Civil War.

In this case, Paxton accuses Dr. Margaret Carpenter of mailing pills from New York to a 20-year-old woman in Collin County. The woman allegedly took the medication when she was nine weeks pregnant. When she began experiencing severe bleeding, the lawsuit says, she asked the man who impregnated her to take her to the hospital. He had not been aware she was pregnant or seeking an abortion, according to the filing.

The lawsuit does not say whether the woman successfully terminated her pregnancy or experienced any long-term medical complications. Mifepristone and misoprostol, the medications Carpenter is accused of sending, are more than 95% effective if taken before 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Paxton is asking a Collin County court to block Carpenter from violating Texas law, and order her to pay $100,000 for every violation of the state’s near-total abortion ban. Texas’ near-total abortion ban comes with up to life in prison, fines of at least $100,000 and the loss of a provider’s Texas medical license.

Carpenter is not licensed to practice in Texas, according to the complaint. She is the founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, a national group that helps doctors in states with shield laws provide telemedicine consultations and abortion pills to patients in states that have banned abortions.

The group was founded after the overturn of Roe v. Wade by Carpenter, Dr. Linda Prine, and Julie Kay, a former ACLU lawyer who successfully argued the case that overturned Ireland’s abortion ban. They support doctors who want to become “shield providers” by advising them on licensure, data security, pharmacy contacts and legality.

Carpenter also works with AidAccess, an international medication abortion provider, and helped found Hey Jane, a telehealth abortion provider. Neither Carpenter nor Kay immediately responded to a request for comment.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/12/13/texas-paxton-abortion-pill-mail-lawsuit/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

---

an 11 24

Far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been a highly divisive figure in Lone Star State politics, often drawing vehement criticism not only from Democrats, but also from fellow Republicans. Nonetheless, Paxton survived an impeachment trial in the Texas State Senate, where he was acquitted on 16 articles. And the Donald Trump ally hasn't become any less combative.

Paxton, a Baptist who embraces a severe brand of Christian fundamentalism, is known for picking fights with churches he considers impure. And his latest religious target, according to Chron.com reporter Eric Killelea, is a church in Austin that helps the homeless.

Killelea reports that on Tuesday, November 26, Paxton announced a lawsuit against Austin's Sunrise Community Church in response to their activities on behalf of the city's homeless.

READ MORE:['Encouraging decision': Here are the Trump Cabinet picks Russia is most excited about

The Texas attorney general declared, "By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students' health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down."

In Austin, Sunrise operates a nonprofit called the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center.

Paxton, in the lawsuit, describes the church as a "magnet" for people with drug problems and alleges that the Navigation Center encourages them to commit crimes.

The lawsuit alleges, "Sunrise homeless clients break into residents' homes. They menace residents with machetes. They routinely urinate and defecate in the streets. They masturbate in public, while trying to grab passing women. They wake up residents with high-pitched screams in the middle of the night."

READ MORE:['Do we advise the president to look elsewhere?' GOP senators uneasy about Tulsi Gabbard

According to the Sunrise Community Church, however, the Navigation Center has helped many homeless Texans overcome homelessness.

Killelea reports, "Sunrise Community Church, which is part of the Reformed Church in America — a generally liberal denomination within the Protestant faith — has described the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center as the largest provider of homelessness services in Travis County. The Center, founded in 2015, provides meals, showers and computer access to people experiencing homelessness, per reporting by the Austin American-Statesman's Skye Seipp. The church claims to have helped more than 4275 people move into housing through the ministry.

READ MORE:['I have no idea': RFK Jr.’s former staffers question his ability to run a federal agency

*Read Eric Killelea's full article for Chron.com is available at this link.

===

an 11 24 it’s bondi

Now that former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has officially withdrawn his name from consideration to be the next attorney general, President-elect Donald Trump is quickly moving on to his next choice.

According to a Thursday report in NYSun.com, Trump's next attorney general-designate could be Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Sun reported that an unnamed source "with close ties to Trump's team" says Paxton — who has served as the top law enforcement official in the Lone Star State since 2015 — is "the ideal choice for the America First movement."

As Texas' attorney general, Paxton led the charge at the state level to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Paxton was the lead plaintiff in the Texas v. Pennsylvania lawsuit that sought to prevent the certification of election results in the handful of battleground states that President Joe Biden narrowly won four years ago, unsuccessfully arguing that those states' Covid-19 pandemic voting procedures violated the U.S. Constitution.

Paxton is also likely to be agreeable to Trump's stated plans to use the Department of Justice as a vehicle to hound his political enemies. As Texas' attorney general, Paxton launched an investigation into Democratic-aligned advocacy group Media Matters for America in 2023. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ultimately shut down Paxton's attempts to probe Media Matters' financial records and internal communications.

The Sun's Matthew Rice noted that in addition to presumably all Senate Democrats, one unlikely opponent Paxton could have in the Senate would be Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has publicly feuded with Paxton in the recent past. In February, Cornyn was one of several Republicans who joined all Democrats in supporting a supplemental foreign aid package to help Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine. Paxton accused Cornyn of "stay[ing] up all night to defend other countries' borders, but not America." Cornyn clapped back, mentioning Paxton's criminal charges for alleged securities fraud (which have since been dropped).

"Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending longstanding felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges," Cornyn tweeted.

Aside from Paxton, other potential attorneys general may include Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — whose father served as solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan — and far-right attorney Mike Davis, who has blamed Democrats for the assassination attempts on then-candidate Trump.

*Click here to read the Sun's report in its entirety (subscription required).

---

BB 9 24

Texas is suing to block a new rule that protects the privacy of women who travel over state lines to receive an abortion. Attorney General Ken Paxton wants to know who they are—as a matter of "state investigative authority"—so they and anyone helping them leave the state may ultimately be prosecuted.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said in announcing the rule in April that no one should have their medical records "used against them, their doctor, or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive health care."

The measure came in response to efforts by authorities in some Republican-led states that ban abortion, including Texas, to restrict out-of-state travel for abortion. So far, no criminal prosecutions or civil judgments have resulted from those efforts.

Goverment so small it not only gets to know where you are and what you're doing, but gets to know everything everyone else knows about those things in the service of physically controlling what you do.

Texas already struck out on a similar plan for drug users, but 2017 was three Supreme Court seats ago. As an administrative law judge said then, why isn't Texas charging people for gambling in Vegas, given that it's illegal in Texas?

Previously:

• New doctors avoiding states with abortion bans

• Texas woman sues prosecutors who charged her with murder for using abortion medication

• Beverly Hills is an abortion rights battleground

• Arizona repeals 1864 abortion ban

---

trib

The League of United Latin American Citizens plans to request a federal investigation into raids Attorney General Ken Paxton conducted this week as part of what he called an “ongoing election integrity investigation.”

Gabriel Rosales, Texas LULAC’s state director, said in a statement that Paxton carried out the raids 11 weeks before the 2024 elections “to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and any means necessary to tilt the electoral process in favor of his political allies.”

Agents raided the home of Cecilia Castellano — the Democrat running to succeed state Rep. Tracy King, D-Uvalde — and confiscated her phone as part of the search, according to Rosales. Republicans see that seat, which Gov. Greg Abbott carried by nearly 6 percentage points, as their best potential state House flip in November.

Law enforcement also searched the homes of at least five other Latino individuals, all of whom were working on Castellano’s campaign and three of whom are members of Texas LULAC, Rosales added. LULAC is a non-partisan, volunteer-based Hispanic civil rights organization headquartered in Washington.

The group is in the dark about the details of any accusations, Rosales said, “but there's none that we’ve been privy to that merits an investigation like this that wastes taxpayers’ money.”

“It is disgraceful and outrageous that the state of Texas, and its highest-ranking law enforcement officer is once again using the power of his office to instill fear in the hearts of community members who volunteer their time to promote civic engagement,” Rosales said in a statement.

Paxton announced on Wednesday that his office executed “multiple” search warrants in Frio, Atascosa and Bexar counties the day prior as part of an investigation into allegations of “election fraud and vote harvesting that occurred during the 2022 elections.” A two-year investigation, Paxton said, provided “sufficient evidence” to obtain the search warrants.

“Secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” Paxton said in a statement. “We are completely committed to protecting the security of the ballot box and the integrity of every legal vote. This means ensuring accountability for anyone committing election crimes.”

Paxton’s office did not reply to a request for additional information. His announcement did not detail the targets of the raids, the number of raids, or the reason specific homes were searched.

“It’s still very vague,” Rosales said in an interview. “That’s what’s really unnerving about the whole situation.”

According to one person whose home was raided, Rosales said, law enforcement suggested that he was accused of possessing “illegal voter information” — a claim that he denied and called politically motivated, saying voter information is publicly available.

“There’s no there, there,” Rosales said. “They’re using every tool in the toolbox to intimidate our people from coming out to the polls.”

The Texas Tribune

Rosales said he was working with the group’s national leaders and attorneys to draft a formal complaint with the U.S. Justice Department requesting a federal investigation into Paxton’s raids.

The attorney general’s office was asked to investigate the allegations of election fraud and vote harvesting during the 2022 elections by 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Louis, a Republican whose district includes Frio and Atascosa counties.

---

trib aug 26

Officials in a North Texas county debunked claims made by a Fox News host that migrants were registering to vote outside a state drivers license facility west of Fort Worth — an unsubstantiated claim that appeared to spark an investigation by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office.

Both the Parker County Republican chair and election administrator said there was no evidence to support the Aug. 18 social media post made by television personality Maria Bartiromo, who previously promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Paxton’s office announced it was opening an investigation into “reports that organizations operating in Texas may be unlawfully registering noncitizens to vote” Wednesday.

In announcing the investigation, the attorney general’s office said investigators confirmed that nonprofits had booths set up outside of license offices to offer voter registration assistance, though it did not state specifically where these offices were located.

The attorney general’s office statement did not say any laws were broken.

The Department of Public Safety, which managed the state’s drivers license offices, said in an email obtained by The Texas Tribune that voter registration groups would not be allowed to recruit new voters outside those locations — a response to allegations that so far have not been proven true.

Neither the attorney general’s office nor the public safety department responded to questions about the investigation.

There are several ways to register to vote in Texas, including when obtaining or updating a driver’s license or identification card. U.S. citizens and Texas residents may also register with a volunteer deputy voter registrar. Those are individuals who must register with their local county and attend training.

Among the first questions on the state’s voter registration application is whether or not the applicant is a U.S. citizen.

There is no evidence that large numbers of noncitizens vote or are registered to vote. A 2019 attempt by the state to scour voting rolls for noncitizens was abandoned after it jeopardized legitimate voter registrations and prompted three federal lawsuits.

Gabriel Rosales, Texas state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he viewed Paxton’s investigation as an act of intimidation to keep Hispanic voters from voting, adding there was nothing wrong with people providing voter registration assistance outside of drivers license offices.

"I don't think it violates anything by having them out there," Rosales said. Republicans " see the writing on the wall,” he said. “They know that if the Hispanic vote comes out, they lose.”

Bartiromo’s claim first made on social media cited “a friend,” who cited a friend’s wife who said there was a massive line of immigrants obtaining driver’s licenses at a DPS office in Weatherford and said there was a tent outside the office where those immigrants were registering to vote. She later repeated similar claims on her Fox Business television program.

Bartiromo did not respond to questions or a request for an interview.

Bartiromo is no stranger to spreading controversial allegations with little or no proof. She was among the first on Fox News to repeat a baseless conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged its voting machines to take votes away from Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election.

Those allegations were the basis of a $787 million defamation lawsuit settlement between Dominion and Fox News. As part of the suit, it was revealed that the source of Bartiromo’s Dominion claims was an email from a Minnesota woman who, in addition to what she described as a “ wackadoodle” theory about Dominion, wrote that she was a time-traveler who talks to the wind, and that former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was actually killed as part of a weeklong human hunting expedition.

The woman’s claims were forwarded to Bartiromo by Sidney Powell, a Dallas lawyer and longtime election fraud conspiracy theorist who pleaded guilty last year for her role in an attempt to overturn 2020 election results in Georgia. A day after receiving the email, Bartiromo aired an interview with Powell that echoed many of its claims about Dominion. Text messages made public as part of the Dominion suit show that some of Bartiromo’s producers believed she was susceptible to conspiracy theories, and that GOP activists were using her to advance their agenda.

Parker County Republican Chair Brady Gray refuted Bartiromo’s claims that immigrants were lined up outside the DPS office in Weatherford. He said on social media that his party investigated the claim.

“While we are everyday registering more voters in Parker county, there has been no large submission of registrants consistent with the claim,” he wrote on X. “The DPS office has confirmed that there have been no tents or tables and no one registering voters on their premises, and that if it were the case they would be told to leave, as it is not allowed.”

Parker County Elections Administrator Cricket Miller also denied the incident and said communication between DPS and her office confirmed there weren't even any tables or booths set up outside the DPS office.

Gray, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, reiterated there was no evidence of voter registration fraud in Parker County. However, he said he supports Paxton and others investigating voter fraud.

"I think that if you have a functioning brain and an IQ over about 40, it would be absurd for you to believe that there's no election fraud happening anywhere," Gray said.

He said the online reaction to his post on X debunking the claims was strange with people using this one instance to debunk claims of fraud elsewhere in the state.

*Robert Downen contributed.

===

guard

one of the United States’ oldest Latino civil rights organizations is raising alarm after several of its members had their homes raided as part of a voter fraud investigation by the Texas attorney general’s office.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (Lulac) wants the Department of Justice to investigate raids on at least three of its members in Texas. Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, said in a statement last week his office had executed multiple search warrants in Bexar county, which includes San Antonio, as well as neighboring Frio and Atascosa counties as part of an ongoing, two-year investigation. The office did not provide details of the investigation or respond to a request for comment.

No one has been arrested and the exact nature of the investigation remains unclear. But the searches themselves were designed to intimidate, Lulac officials said.

‘A different level than 2020’: Trump’s plan to steal election is taking shape

Read more](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/trump-overturn-result-presidential-election-vote)

“They’re trying to intimidate our folks that are out registering people,” said Lulac’s president, Roman Palomares. “What they’re trying to do is they’re trying to intimidate, and then that has repercussions down the line here, where folks read about that and they go, ‘God, I mean, if they’re doing that to her and I’m a registrar, God, how are they going to go after me?’”

A justice department spokesperson said the agency was aware of the matter and declined to comment further.

Lidia Martinez, 87, said nine officers from the attorney general’s office showed up at her front door at 6am last Tuesday and spent hours searching her home as she watched in her nightgown. She said they told her they were there because she had filed a complaint that senior citizens were not receiving their ballots.

Martinez was taken outside in front of her neighbors while officers searched the house, she said. Eventually, the officers left with her laptop, planner and cellphone.

View image in fullscreen

Lidia Martinez, center, a volunteer and great-grandmother whose home was searched, center, speaks at a news conference for Lulac on Monday. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

“I asked them why are you all doing this? And he said because there was fraud,” she said. “I said I’m not doing anything illegal. All I do is help the seniors.”

Texas has extremely strict rules around mail-in balloting. Only those who are sick, out of the county on election day, confined in jail, giving birth within three weeks of election day, or aged 65 and older are authorized to request a mail-in ballot. Anyone who assists someone in requesting a ballot must fill out a form indicating they assisted. Anyone who assists the voter in returning the actual ballot, other than a family or household member, must sign the envelope with the ballot noting their assistance.

Texas leans on new voting law to reject thousands of ballot applications

Local Efforts to Protect Workers

In states without occupational heat standards, some local governments have tried to create ordinances to protect workers from heat stress. However, strong lobbying by corporate interests has blocked those efforts, turning life-saving worker protections into a political tug-of-war. Espousing the goal of creating consistent statewide policy, Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed aggressive preemption laws that have steam-rolled efforts by local governments to protect workers.[[79]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn79)

Texas

Texas is one of the hottest states in the country and the impact of heat on workers there is undeniable. For example, data from the Houston Health Department on ER admissions for heat-related illness in 2022 showed that 58% of the illnesses occurred while working and the patients were largely construction workers, warehouse workers, and firefighters.[[80]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn80)

The cities of Austin and Dallas attempted to address the dangerous conditions facing construction workers. They passed ordinances requiring that construction workers to be given 10-minute water breaks every four hours.

:{:{But in July of 2023 Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 2127, the sweeping “Death Star Law,” which bars local governments from issuing regulations across a wide range of categories without approval from the Texas Legislature, including labor regulations}:.[[81]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn81)

The legislation went as far as specifically preempting rules on rest breaks. In a legal challenge to the new law brought by Houston, El Paso and San Antonio, Travis County Civil District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble blocked the Death Star law as unconstitutionally vague under the Texas Constitution.[[82]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn82)

The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately appealed the ruling and the Appellate Court temporarily suspended Judge Gamble’s ruling, allowing the law to go into effect on September 1, 2023, as planned.[[83]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn83) It may be 2025 before the Texas Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the statute.[[84]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn84)}:

Florida

For 46 straight days in 2023 Miami’s heat index exceeded 100°F.[[85]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn85)

In March of 2024, Miami-Dade County was just weeks away from instituting employer requirements to protect workers from heat-related illnesses, injuries and fatalities. In a preemptive strike, fueled by the the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the powerful agriculture and construction lobbies,[[86]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn86) Florida lawmakers passed HB 433[[87]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn87) to prevent it from happening. Taking a page from the Texas Death Star Law, the legislation prohibits local governments from instituting protections for workers. However, the Florida law is much more narrowly targeted.[[88]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn88)

Instead of prohibiting local governments from instituting a wide range of regulations, the cruel Florida law very specifically attacks heat stress protections. It details a list of prohibited workplace requirements — basic protocols to prevent heat stress including hydration, rest breaks, acclimatization, and any form of training for workers about the dangers of heat illness and how to prevent it. It even prohibits requirements for employers to have the first aid and emergency response protocols necessary to save lives. Finally, the law undermined all pretext of maintaining consistent requirements for employers throughout the state by prohibiting the state government from passing workplace heat stress protections for the next two years.

The law is expected to impact nearly 1.8 million Florida workers, having a disproportionate impact on Latino and undocumented immigrant workers.[[89]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn89) In Florida, 40% of outdoor workers are Latino, whereas Latinos make up only 30% of the total workforce in the state. While undocumented immigrants make up only 12% of the Florida workforce, they make up 22% of outdoor workers.[[90]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn90) This pattern of heightened exposure to heat stress is broadly reflected in the national outdoor workforce.

Phoenix, Arizona

For millions in the American South and Southwest, intense heat waves lasted for weeks in the summer of 2023. Phoenix, Arizona experienced a record-setting 31 consecutive days above 110°F[[91]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn91) with only a brief intermission — two days with highs of 108°F and

109°F — before suffering through another week surpassing the 110°F mark again.[[92]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn92) The scorching Phoenix daytime highs were accompanied by 16 consecutive days when overnight lows didn’t sink below 90°F.

:{:{On March 26, 2024, the Phoenix City Council passed an ordinance to protect all outdoor workers of city contractors and subcontractors from heat stress.[[93]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn93) The definition of outdoor work environments is work conducted on city-owned, city-leased or city-licensed outdoor property and includes greenhouses, sheds, tents, and jet bridges to aircrafts.[[94]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn94)}:

The ordinance requires employers to provide — (1) regular breaks and necessary breaks as needed in the shade or air-conditioning; (2) free, accessible and cool drinking water; (3) air-conditioning in vehicles by May 1, 2025; (4) effective acclimatization for newly assigned or reassigned to outdoor workers.[[95]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn95) And it requires detailed comprehensive training for all employees and contract workers with required elements similar to those found in the Washington heat standard.[[96]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn96) Failure to comply with the requirements of the Phoenix heat standard could result in cancellation or suspension of the contract.[[97]](https://www.citizen.org/article/scorched-states/#_ftn97)}:

Conclusion...

Hamilton’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation has continued. In March, he participated (https://www.heritage.org/immigration/event/virtual-event-battling-the-biden-border-crisis) in a panel discussion on the “Biden border crisis” hosted by Carafano, alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. ToHamilton’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation has continued. In March, he participated (https://www.heritage.org/immigration/event/virtual-event-battling-the-biden-border-crisis) in a panel discussion on the “Biden border crisis” hosted by Carafano, alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Rep. Tom McClintock of California.m McClintock of California.

resources:

https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/stephen-millers-influence-on-immigration-policy-and-throughout-the-administration

---

===

an 5 24

at Texas GOP convention, Republicans call for spiritual warfare]

(https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/28/texas-gop-convention-elections-religion-delegates-platform/)" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

SAN ANTONIO — From his booth in the exhibit hall of the Texas GOP’s 2024 convention, Steve Hotze saw an army of God assembled before him.

For four decades, Hotze, an indicted election fraud conspiracy theorist, has helmed hardline anti-abortion movements and virulently homophobic campaigns against LGTBQ+ rights, comparing gay people to Nazis and helping popularize the “groomer” slur that paints them as pedophiles. Once on the fringes, Hotze said Saturday that he was pleased by the party's growing embrace of his calls for spiritual warfare with “demonic, Satanic forces” on the left.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/JFkqsROPRlcFcL99azhBNmhW0bY=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/ee33b4da54577749111fe238d8b0bd90/0905%20Impeach%20Trial%20Day%201%20BD%20TT%2013.jpg)

From left: Conservative activists Steven Hotze and Jared Woodfill enter the Senate gallery during the afternoon session of Day 1 of the Ken Paxton impeachment trial in the Texas Senate on Sept. 5, 2023. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune

“People that aren’t in Christ have wicked, evil hearts,” he said. “We are in a battle, and you have to take a side.”

Those beliefs were common at the party’s three-day biennial convention last week, at which delegates adopted a series of new policies that would give the party unprecedented control over the electoral process and further infuse Christianity into public life.

Delegates approved rules that ban Republican candidates — as well as judges — who are censured by the party from appearing on primary ballots for two years, a move that would give a small group of Republicans the ability to block people from running for office, should it survive expected legal challenges. The party’s proposed platform also included planks that would effectively lock Democrats out of statewide office by requiring candidates to win a majority of Texas’ 254 counties, many of which are dark-red but sparsely populated, and called for laws requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools.

Those moves, delegates and leaders agreed, were necessary amid what they say is an existential fight with a host of perceived enemies, be it liberals trying to indoctrinate their children through “gender ideology” and Critical Race Theory, or globalists waging a war on Christianity through migration.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/fzcMrsQQEKXRO3FPEF7YT6aOTHo=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/da9c4842dbc8e8cb35ddbcee11590f3b/0523%20GOP%20Convention%20EH%20TT%2031.jpg)

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaks during the Texas GOP Convention on Thursday, May 23, 2024 in San Antonio. Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune

Those fears were stoked by elected officials in almost every speech given over the week. “They want to take God out of the country, and they want the government to be God,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Thursday morning.

“Our battle is not against flesh and blood,” Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, said Friday. “It is against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

”Look at what the Democrats have done,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Saturday. “If you were actively trying to destroy America, what would you do differently?”

*[“The house is on fire”: Texas GOP plots its next chapter amid civil war, depleted staff, funding drops]

Controlling elections

The Texas GOP’s conventions have traditionally amplified the party’s most hardline activists and views. In 2022, for instance, delegates approved a platform that included calls for a referendum on Texas secession; resistance to the “Great Reset,” a conspiracy theory that claims global elites are using environmental and social policies to enslave the world’s population; proclamations that homosexuality is an “abnormal lifestyle choice”; and a declaration that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected.

The 2024 convention went a step further.

It was the first Texas GOP convention set against the backdrop of a civil war that was sparked by the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and inflamed by scandals over white supremacists and antisemites working for the party’s top funders, West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. This year’s convention was also sparsely attended compared to past years, which some longtime party members said helped the Dunn and Wilks faction further consolidate their power and elect their candidate, Abraham George, for party chair.

“What we're seeing right now is a shift toward more populism,” said Summer Wise, a former member of the party’s executive committee who has attended most conventions since 2008, including last week’s. “And the [party’s] infrastructure, leadership, decision-making process, power and influence are being controlled by a small group of people.”

(https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/_X93OkVqWjKf0MF0YqIovXarXM4=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/37d777dfbb61f282f112bd04a575cbbc/0523%20GOP%20Convention%20EH%20TT%2055.jpg)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, wave to attendees during the Republican Party of Texas convention in San Antonio on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune

That shift was most evident, she said, in a series of changes to the party’s rules that further empower its leaders to punish dissent. The party approved changes that would dramatically increase the consequences of censures — which were used most recently to punish House Speaker Dade Phelan for his role in impeaching Paxton, and against U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales for voting for gun safety legislation.

Under the changes, any person who is censured by the party would be banned for two years from appearing on GOP primary ballots — including judges, who are elected in partisan races but expected to be politically neutral once on the bench. The party also voted to unilaterally close its primaries, bypassing the Legislature, in a move intended to keep Democrats from voting in Republican primaries.

“It’s pretty hypocritical,” Wise said of the changes, which legal experts and some party members expect will face legal challenges. “Republicans have always opposed activist judges, and this seems to be obligating judges to observe and prioritize party over law — which is straight-up judicial activism.”

The convention came amid a broader embrace of Christian nationalism on the right, which falsely claims that the United States’ founding was God-ordained and that its institutions and laws should reflect their conservative, Christian views. Experts have found strong correlations between Christian nationalist beliefs and opposition to migration, religious pluralism and the democratic process.

*[Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools, electoral changes that would lock Democrats out of statewide office]

Wise said she has seen parts of the party similarly shift toward dogmatic political and religious views that have been used “to justify or rationalize corrupting the institution and stripping away its integrity, traditions, fundamental and established principles" — as if “‘God wants it, so we can rewrite the rules.’”

“Being Republican and being Christian have become the same thing,” she said. “If you're accused of being a (Republican in Name Only), you're essentially not as Christian as someone else. … God help you if you're Jewish.”

The “rabbit hole”

Bob Harvey is a proud member of the “Grumpy Old Men’s Club,” a group in Montgomery County that he said pushes back against Fox News and other outlets that he claims have been infiltrated by RINOs.

“People trust Fox News, and they need to get outside of that and find alternative news and like-minded people,” Harvey, 71, said on Friday, as he waited in a long line to meet Kyle Rittenhouse, who has ramped up his engagement in Texas politics since he was acquitted of homicide after fatally shooting two Black Lives Matter protesters.

Rather, Harvey’s group recommends places such as the Gateway Pundit, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News or the Epoch Times, a far-right website that also had a booth at this year’s convention and is directly linked to the Falun Gong, a hardline anti-communist group.

Such outlets, Harvey said, are crucial to getting people “further down the rabbit hole,” after which they can begin to connect the dots between the deep-state that has spent years attacking former President Donald Trump, and the agenda of the left to indoctrinate kids through the Boy Scouts of America, public schools and the Democratic Party.

Harvey’s views were widely-held by his fellow delegates, many of whom were certain that broader transgender acceptance, Critical Race Theory or “diversity, equity and inclusion” initiatives were parts of a sinister plot to destroy the country and take over its churches.

The culprits behind the ploy differed — Democrats, socialists or “globalists,” to name a few. But their nefarious end goals loomed over the convention. Fearing a transgender takeover of the Republican Party of Texas, delegates pushed to explicitly stipulate that the party’s chair and vice chair must be “biological” men or women.

At events to recruit pastors and congregations to ramp up their political activism, elected leaders argued that churches were the only thing standing between evil and children. And the party’s proposed platform included planks that claim gender-transition care is child abuse, or urge new legislation in Texas that's "even more comprehensive" than Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits the teaching of sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/ciJpskJjFVkA32MexM-6q3bGI6M=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/8fc7586ac950819feeeabb4760560fb8/0523%20GOP%20Convention%20EH%20TT%2072.jpg)

Kyle Rittenhouse shakes hands with conventioneers at a meet and greet during the Texas GOP convention on Thursday in San Antonio. Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune

“Our next generation is being co-opted and indoctrinated where they should have been educated,” Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, said at a Friday luncheon for pastors and churches. “We are in a spiritual battle. This isn't a political one.”

For at least a half-century, conservative Christian movements have been fueled by notions of a shadowy and coordinated conspiracy to destroy America, said Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University who focuses on movements to put the Bible in public schools.

“It's like the boogeyman that won't go away, that gets summoned whenever a justification is needed for these types of agendas,” he said. “They say that somebody is threatening quintessential American freedoms, and that these threats are posed by some sort of global conspiracy — rather than just recognizing that we're a pluralistic democracy.”

In the 1950s, such claims were the driving force behind the emergence of groups such as the John Birch Society, a hardline anti-communist group whose early members included the fathers of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump. After decades of dwindling influence, the society has seen a revival since Trump's 2016 election. And in the exhibit hall last week, so-called Birchers passed out literature and pamphlets that detailed the New World Order's secret plans for "world domination."

Steve Oglesby, field director for the Birch Society's North Texas chapter, said interest and membership in the group has been on the rise in recent years — particularly, as COVID-19 lockdowns and international climate change initiatives have spurred right-wing fears of an international cabal working against the United States.

"COVID really helped," he said, adding that the pandemic proved the existence of a global elite that has merely shifted its tactics since the 1950s. “It’s not just communism — it’s the people pulling the strings.”

Throughout the week, prominent Republicans invoked similar claims of a coordinated conspiracy against the United States. On Friday, Patrick argued that a decadeslong decline in American religion was part of a broader, “Marxist socialist left” agenda to “create chaos,” including through migration — despite studies showing that migrants are overwhelmingly Christian. Attorney General Ken Paxton echoed those claims in his own speech minutes later, saying migration was part of a plan to "steal another election."

“The Biden Administration wants the illegals here to vote,” he said.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/XrT-lkapyY0opApzI2UV_yF-8JE=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/f65ff0a8564b0acdb321e69bd3b233c7/0523%20GOP%20Convention%20EH%20TT%2011.jpg)

Ella Maulding and Konner Earnest watch as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaks during the Republican Party of Texas convention in San Antonio on Thursday, the first day of the gathering. Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune

As Paxton continued, Ella Maulding and Konner Earnest held hands and nodded their approval from the convention hall’s front row. Last year, the two were spotted outside of a Tarrant County office building where Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist and Adolf Hitler fan, was hosted for nearly seven hours by Jonathan Stickland, then the leader of Dunn and Wilks' most powerful political action committee. They eventually lost their jobs after The Texas Tribune reported on their ties to Fuentes or white nationalist groups.

Maulding has been particularly vocal about her support for Great Replacement Theory, a conspiracy theory that claims there is an intentional, often Jewish-driven, effort to replace white people through migration, LGBTQ+ acceptance or interracial marriage. Once a fringe, white nationalist worldview, experts say that Great Replacement Theory has been increasingly mainstreamed as Republican leaders, including some who spoke last week, continue to claim that migration is part of a coordinated effort to aid Democrats. The theory has also been cited by numerous mass shooters, including the gunman who murdered 22 Hispanic people at an El Paso WalMart in 2019.

Five hours after Paxton and Patrick spoke, Maulding took to social media, posting a cartoon of a rabbi with the following text: “I make porn using your children and then make money distributing it under the banner of women’s rights while flooding your nation with demented lunatics who then rape your children.”

David Barton

Kason Huddleston has spent the last few years helping elect Christians and push back against what he believes is indoctrination of children in Rowlett, near Dallas. Far too often, he said, churches and pastors have become complacent, or have been scared away from political engagement by federal rules that prohibit churches from overt political activity.

Through trainings from groups like Christians Engaged, which advocates for church political activity and had a booth at this year’s convention, he said he has been able show more local Christians that they can be “a part of the solution” to intractable societal ills such as fatherlessness, crime or teen drug use. And while he thinks that some of his peers’ existential rhetoric can be overwrought, he agreed that there is an ongoing effort to “tear down the family unit” and shroud America’s true, Christian roots.

“If you look at our government and our laws, all of it goes back to a Judeo-Christian basis,” he said. “Most people don’t know our true history because it’s slowly just been removed.”

He then asked: “Have you ever read David Barton?”

Since the late 1980s, Barton has barnstormed the state and country claiming that church-state separation is a “myth” meant to shroud America’s true founding as a Christian nation. Barton, a self-styled “amateur historian” who served as Texas GOP vice chair from 1997 to 2006, has been thoroughly debunked by an array of historians and scholars — many of them also conservative Christians.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/Pr4f05aMyQrJ6_1ubGg9az8vwjQ=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/7acf1f2412dd7df9c6f492e50a5f07ee/BD%20INC%20Barton%20David%20748%202012)

David Barton, left, of WallBuilders, at a Texas Eagle Forum reception at the Republican Party of Texas convention in Fort Worth on June 7, 2012. Credit: Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune

Despite that, Barton’s views have become widespread among Republicans, including Patrick, Texas Supreme Court Justice John Devine and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. And his influence over the party was clear at last week’s convention, where his group, WallBuilders, maintained a booth and delegates frequently cited him.

This year’s platform, the votes for which are expected to be released later this week, included planks that urged lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools — which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.

Warren Throckmorton, a former Grove City College professor and prominent conservative, Christian critic of Barton, told the Tribune that the platform emblematized Barton’s growing influence, and his movement’s conflicting calls to preserve “religious liberty” while attempting to elevate their faith over others. The platform, he noted, simultaneously demands that students’ religious rights be protected, and for schools to be forced to teach the Bible.

“What about the other students who aren’t Christians and who don't believe in the Bible?” he said. “This is not religious liberty — it’s Christian dominance.”

As Zach Maxwell watched his fellow Republicans debate and vote last week, he said he was struck by the frequency and intensity with which Christianity was invoked. Maxwell previously served as chief of staff for former Rep. Mike Lang, then the leader of the ultraconservative Texas House Freedom Caucus, and he later worked for Empower Texans, a political group that was funded primarily by Dunn and Wilks.

He eventually became disillusioned with the party’s right wing, which he said has increasingly been driven by purity tests and opposition to religious or political diversity. This year’s convention, he said, was the culmination of those trends.

“God was not only used as a tool at this convention, but if you didn’t mention God in some way, fake or genuine, I did feel it was seen as distasteful,” he said. “There is a growing group of people who want to turn this nation into a straight-up theocracy. I believe they are doing it on the backs of people who are easily manipulated.”

Nancy Leclerc poses for a photo in front of a GOP elephant statue during the Texas GOP convention in San Antonio on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/05/28/texas-gop-convention-elections-religion-delegates-platf

Texas Observer: “TPPF’s Long Love Affair With Ken Paxton”

Law360: “Do New Laws Seek To Regulate Charitable Bail, Or End It?”

---

5 24

'Solid use of public funds': Embattled Texas AG mocked for flying to NY to 'stand with Trump' - Alternet.org

===

an 4 24 stateside

south Dakota state Sen. John Wiik likes to think of himself as a lookout of sorts — keeping an eye on new laws, programs and ideas brewing across the states.

“I don’t bring a ton of legislation,” said Wiik, a Republican. “The main thing I like to do is try and stay ahead of trends and try and prevent bad things from coming into our state.”

This session, that meant sponsoring successful legislation banning cities or counties from creating basic income programs, which provide direct, regular cash payments to low-income residents to help alleviate poverty.

While Wiik isn’t aware of any local governments publicly floating the idea in South Dakota, he describes such programs as “bureaucrats trying to hand out checks to make sure that your party registration matches whoever signed the checks for the rest of your life.”

The economic gut punch of the pandemic and related assistance efforts such as the expanded child tax credit popularized the idea of directly handing cash to people in need. Advocates say the programs can be administered more efficiently than traditional government assistance programs, and research suggests they increase not only financial stability but also mental and physical health.

Still, Wiik and other Republicans argue handing out no-strings-attached cash disincentivizes work — and having fewer workers available is especially worrisome in a state with the nation’s second-lowest unemployment rate.

South Dakota is among at least six states where GOP officials have looked to ban basic income programs.

The basic income concept has been around for decades, but a 2019 experiment in Stockton, California, set off a major expansion. There, 125 individuals received $500 per month with no strings attached for two years. Independent researchers found the program improved financial stability and health, but concluded that the pandemic dampened those effects.

GOP lawmakers like Wiik fear that even experimental programs could set a dangerous precedent.

“What did Ronald Reagan say, ‘The closest thing to eternal life on this planet is a government program’?” Wiik said. “So, if you get people addicted to just getting a check from the government, it’s going to be really hard to take that away.”

Momentum for Basic Income Builds as Pandemic Drags On

IFrame Content

The debate over basic income programs is likely to intensify as blue state lawmakers seek to expand pilot programs. Minnesota, for example, could become the nation’s first to fund a statewide program. But elected officials in red states are working to thwart such efforts — not only by fighting statewide efforts but also by preventing local communities from starting their own basic income programs.

Democratic governors in Arizona and Wisconsin recently vetoed Republican legislation banning basic income programs.

Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County to block a pilot program that would provide $500 per month to 1,900 low-income people in the state’s largest county, home to Houston.

Paxton, a Republican, argued the program is illegal because it violates a state constitutional provision that says local governments cannot grant public money to individuals.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, a Democrat, called Paxton’s move “nothing more than an attack on local government and an attempt to make headlines.”

Meanwhile, several blue states are pushing to expand these programs.

Washington state lawmakers debated a statewide basic income bill during this year’s short session. And Minnesota lawmakers are debating whether to spend $100 million to roll out one of the nation’s first statewide pilot programs.

“We’re definitely seeing that shift from pilot to policy,” said Sukhi Samra, the director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, which formed after the Stockton experiment.

So far, that organization has helped launch about 60 pilot programs across the country that will provide $250 million in unconditional aid, she said.

This is an effective policy that helps our families, and this can radically change the way that we address poverty in this country.

– Sukhi Samra, director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income

Despite pushback in some states, Samra said recent polling commissioned by the group shows broad support of basic income programs. And the programs have shown success in supplementing — not replacing — social safety net programs, she said.

The extra cash gives recipients freedom of choice. People can fix a flat tire, cover school supplies or celebrate a child’s birthday for the first time.

“There’s no social safety net program that allows you to do that.” she said. “ … This is an effective policy that helps our families, and this can radically change the way that we address poverty in this country.”

Basic income experiments

The proliferation of basic income projects has been closely studied by researchers.

Though many feared that free cash would dissuade people from working, that hasn’t been the case, said Sara Kimberlin, the executive director and senior research scholar at Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Stanford’s Basic Income Lab has tracked more than 150 basic income pilots across the country. Generally, those offer $500 or $1,000 per month over a short period.

“There isn’t anywhere in the United States where you can live off of $500 a month,” she said. “At the same time, $500 a month really makes a tremendous difference for someone who is living really close to the edge.”

Kimberlin said the research on basic income programs has so far been promising, though it’s unclear how long the benefits may persist once programs conclude. Still, she said, plenty of research shows how critical economic stability in childhood is to stability in adulthood — something both the basic income programs and the pandemic-era child tax credit can address.

Over the past five years, basic income experiments have varied across the country.

Last year, California launched the nation’s first state-funded pilot programs targeting former foster youth.

In Colorado, the Denver Basic Income Project aimed to help homeless individuals. After early successes, the Denver City Council awarded funding late last year to extend that program, which provides up to $1,000 per month to hundreds of participants.

Despite pandemic pay boost, low-wage workers still can’t afford basic needs

IFrame Content

A 2021 pilot launched in Cambridge, Massachusetts, provided $500 a month over 18 months to 130 single caregivers. Research from the University of Pennsylvania found the Cambridge program increased employment, the ability to cover a $400 emergency expense, and food and housing security among participants.

Children in participating families were more likely to enroll in Advanced Placement courses, earned higher grades and had reduced absenteeism.

“It was really reaffirming to hear that when families are not stressed out, they are able to actually do much better,” said Geeta Pradhan, president of the Cambridge Community Foundation, which worked on the project.

Pradhan said basic income programs are part of a national trend in “trust-based philanthropy,” which empowers individuals rather than imposing top-down solutions to fight poverty.

“There is something that I think it does to people’s sense of empowerment, a sense of agency, the freedom that you feel,” she said. “I think that there’s some very important aspects of humanity that are built into these programs.”

While the pilot concluded, the Cambridge City Council committed $22 million in federal pandemic aid toward a second round of funding. Now, nearly 2,000 families earning at or below 250% of the federal poverty level are receiving $500 monthly payments, said Sumbul Siddiqui, a city council member.

Siddiqui, a Democrat, pushed for the original pilot when she was mayor during the pandemic. While she said the program has proven successful, it’s unclear whether the city can find a sustainable source of funding to keep it going long term.

States look to expand pilots

Tomas Vargas Jr. was among the 125 people who benefited from the Stockton, California, basic income program that launched in 2019.

At the time, he heard plenty of criticism from people who said beneficiaries would blow their funds on drugs and alcohol or quit their jobs.

“Off of $500 a month, which amazed me,” said Vargas, who worked part time at UPS.

Tomas Vargas Jr. was among the 125 people who participated in the 2019 basic income experiment in Stockton, Calif. Vargas, pictured here with his family, said the $500 a month allowed him to be a better father and take off time to pursue a better career. Courtesy of Tomas Vargas Jr.

But he said the cash gave him breathing room. He had felt stuck at his job, but the extra money gave him the freedom to take time off to interview for better jobs.

Unlike other social service programs like food stamps, he didn’t have to worry about losing out if his income went up incrementally. The cash allowed him to be a better father, he said, as well as improved his confidence and mental health.

The experience prompted him to get into the nonprofit sector. Financially stable, he now works at Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

“The person I was five years ago is not the person that I am now,” he said.

Washington state Sen. Claire Wilson, a Democrat, said basic income is a proactive way to disrupt the status quo maintained by other anti-poverty efforts.

“I have a belief that our systems in our country have never been put in place to get people out of them,” she said. “They kept people right where they are.”

Wilson chairs the Human Services Committee, which considered a basic income bill this session that would have created a pilot program to offer 7,500 people a monthly amount equivalent to the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in their area.

The basic income bill didn’t progress during Washington’s short legislative session this year, but Wilson said lawmakers would reconsider the idea next year. While she champions the concept, she said there’s a lot of work to be done convincing skeptics.

In Minnesota, where lawmakers are considering a $100 million statewide basic income pilot program, some Republicans balked at the concept of free cash and its cost to taxpayers.

“Just the cost alone should be a concern,” Republican state Rep. Jon Koznick said during.

State Rep. Athena Hollins, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, acknowledged the hefty request, but said backers would support a scaled-down version and “thought it was really important to get this conversation started.”

Much of the conversation in committee centered on local programs in cities such as Minneapolis and St. Paul. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, a Democrat, told lawmakers the city’s 2020 pilot saw “groundbreaking” results.

After scraping by for years, some families were able to put money into savings for the first time, he said. Families experienced less anxiety and depression. And the pilot disproved the “disparaging tropes” from critics about people living in poverty, the mayor said.

Carter told lawmakers that the complex issue of economic insecurity demands statewide solutions.

“I am well aware that the policy we’re proposing today is a departure from what we’re all used to,” he said. “In fact, that’s one of my favorite things about it.”

context

---

an 4 24

months after a scandal over his ties to white supremacists, far-right political operative and former state lawmaker Jonathan Stickland has created a new group — with help from outgoing Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi.

On March 5, Stickland registered “RaTmasTeR Holdings LLC” with the Texas secretary of state, and Rinaldi is listed as the new group’s organizer. A week later, the chief operating officer of Pale Horse Strategies — a far-right consulting firm Stickland owns — separately registered another group, “Patriot Service Alliance LLC,” according to the Texas Voice, a conservative website that first noted the new groups on Friday.

“RaTmasTeR” is a reference to the alias that Stickland has used for decades in online gaming forums, where he was an infamous troll. Stickland parlayed the skills he honed during his early life as an internet antagonist to help lift him from a job in pest control to the Texas House and, eventually, one of the most powerful political positions in the state.

Stickland and Rinaldi, who is stepping down as Texas GOP chair next month, did not respond to requests for comment Friday afternoon.

Stickland has been at the center of a white supremacy scandal since October, when The Texas Tribune reported that he had hosted infamous Adolf Hitler fan Nick Fuentes at Pale Horse’s offices for several hours. Rinaldi was also spotted outside Pale Horse’s one-story office building in rural Tarrant County, but denied knowing Fuentes was inside.

The meeting — as well as subsequent reporting by the Tribune that uncovered other white supremacists in Stickland’s orbit — prompted House Speaker Dade Phelan and other Republicans to call for party members to redirect money they received from Stickland’s group, Defend Texas Liberty, to pro-Israel charities.

Defend Texas Liberty is a powerful political action committee that West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks have used to give more than $15 million to far-right groups, lawmakers and candidates. Dunn and Wilks are also Attorney General Ken Paxton’s biggest donors, and Defend Texas Liberty gave $3 million to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last summer, before Patrick presided over Paxton’s impeachment trial in the state Senate.

In the fallout from the Fuentes meeting, nearly half of the Texas GOP’s executive committee called for the party to cut ties with Stickland and Defend Texas Liberty, which was the party’s biggest donor last year.

Stickland was quietly replaced as Defend Texas Liberty’s president in October, and Pale Horse Strategies later rebranded as “West Fort Worth Management LLC.” (Not long after it was registered last month, “Patriot Service Alliance” filed paperwork to operate under the name “West Fort Worth Management LLC”). Rinaldi, meanwhile, has continued to attack critics of Stickland and Defend Texas Liberty — while quietly working as an attorney for Wilks, one of the group’s billionaire funders.

In November, the Texas GOP’s executive committee narrowly rejected a resolution that banned the party from associating with Holocaust deniers, antisemites and neo-Nazis — language that some members argued could create a slippery slope and complicate the party’s relationship with donors or future candidates. After backlash, the party in January passed a resolution that banned it from associating with antisemites — a significantly watered-down version of previous proposals that specifically named Stickland and Defend Texas Liberty.

---

mma 4 24

media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone issued the following statement after Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Elon Musk encouraged Republican state attorneys general to use their power to harass their critics and stifle reporting about X. Ken Paxton was one of those AGs that took up the call and he was defeated. Today's decision is a victory for free speech.

Key takeaways from the order:

As Judge Mehta noted, Media Matters’ investigative journalism and reporting “are core First Amendment activities,” and any “loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”
Judge Mehta prohibited Paxton from taking any steps to enforce his unlawful demand to rifle through Media Matters’ confidential documents.

The same day that X Corp. filed a meritless lawsuit against Media Matters for America for an accurate report on the platform’s extremism, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened a similarly specious investigation into MMFA under Texas’ deceptive trade practices act. Paxton subsequently issued an overbroad and invasive civil investigative demand – despite the fact that Media Matters has no relevant connection to Texas. The nonpartisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker which catalogs press freedom violations in the United States recently recorded an incident report related to the Texas attorney general's investigation in their database.

---

gmail 3 24

fox no lnx

Texas and 15 states sue Biden admin over climate agenda targeting gas projects

'I will not stand by while Biden attacks Texas,' Attorney General Ken Paxton says

Thomas Catenacci By Thomas Catenacci Fox News

Published March 22, 2024

Facebook

Twitter

Flipboard

Comments

Biden's halting of liquified natural gas projects is 'utter nonsense': Marc Morano

Climatedepot.com Executive Director Marc Morano discusses the impact on American energy from the Biden administration's halt of liquified natural gas projects and reacts to Davos saying that drinking coffee causes climate change.

A coalition of 16 Republican states, led by Texas and Louisiana, filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, challenging its recent climate action pausing proposed energy projects.

The multistate coalition filed its complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, listing President Biden, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the Department of Energy (DOE) among the defendants in the case. According to the complaint, the DOE's move earlier this year pausing major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects violated long-standing federal energy laws.

"Biden’s unilateral decree disregards statutory mandates, flouts the legal process, upends the oil and gas industry, disrupts the Texas economy, and subverts our constitutional structure," said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

"The ban will drive billions of dollars in investment away from Texas, hinder our ability to maximize revenue for public schools, force Texas producers to flare excess natural gas instead of taking it to market, and annihilate critical jobs," he continued. "I will not stand by while Biden attacks Texas."

GOP LEADERS CONFRONT BIDEN’S NEW CLIMATE CZAR ON KEY SECURITY RISKS LURKING IN GREEN AGENDA

Ken Paxton in front of Supreme Court

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 1, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

According to Paxton, the LNG export moratorium is unconstitutional, ignores the 1938 Natural Gas Act’s "presumption in favor of exports" and discards decades of DOE energy policy.

In arguing the alleged unconstitutionality of the policy, the states' complaint notes Article I of the Constitution vests Congress with "[a]ll legislative Powers," including the power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." Therefore, since blocking LNG exports can be considered a regulation of commerce, the DOE violated the Constitution, according to the lawsuit.

TIKTOK ACTIVIST SAYS HE ADVISED WHITE HOUSE ON BIDEN'S NEW NATURAL GAS MORATORIUM

"The LNG Export Ban implicates an issue of profound national importance. LNG exports account for billions of dollars to the economy and thousands of jobs," the complaint states. "They also raise serious questions of national security. And this is an issue that has been the subject of proposed legislation and public attention in and outside of Congress."

President Biden ordered pending natural gas export projects to be halted in a stunning move in January. (Getty Images)

The complaint accuses DOE of violating the Administrative Procedure Act which governs the procedures of administrative law. The states highlight that DOE failed to host any public comment period before finalizing its LNG policy without "good cause to forego the notice and comment requirement."

Additionally, the states argue the DOE failed to properly consider the Natural Gas Act and its provision that states the agency issue an export license before hearing from the public.

DOZENS OF FORMER TOP FEDERAL OFFICIALS CALL ON CONGRESS TO STRIKE DOWN BIDEN'S NATURAL GAS CRACKDOWN

"The Biden administration’s illegal attacks on American energy jeopardizes the livelihoods of thousands of hard-working Louisiana men and women, millions of dollars in tax revenue, and billions of dollars in infrastructure," said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.

"LNG continues to have an enormous positive economic impact for our state — especially on our hard-hit coastal communities, which continue to recover from a recent series of devastating hurricanes. Jobs like these grow the economy, reduce crime, and help address the out-migration problem," she continued. "The people of Louisiana are proud to power this nation. I’m ready to fight for them."

An LNG tanker is pictured at the Elbehafen port in Brunsbuettel, Germany. American LNG has been critical in helping Germany and other European nations wean off Russian gas. (Bodo Marks/picture alliance via Getty Images)

In a surprise move in January, Biden ordered the DOE to pause pending permits for LNG export facilities while federal officials conduct a rigorous environmental review assessing the projects' carbon emissions, which could take more than a year to complete. The action was lauded by climate activists who have loudly called for such a move, which they said would help combat global warming.

However, the move was blasted by industry groups, former federal officials and bipartisan lawmakers, who noted energy exports are vital for aiding allies in Europe and Asia. In the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine two years ago, U.S. LNG largely filled the void left by Russian natural gas as U.S. allies sought to wean off Russian exports and punish the nation's economy, a plan Biden endorsed at the time.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Opponents also argued that LNG exports bolster domestic energy production and boost the U.S. economy. Fossil fuel industry groups recently cited research indicating that LNG exports could add as much as $73 billion to the U.S. economy by 2040, create 453,000 American jobs and increase U.S. purchasing power by $30 billion.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

an 3 24

his vengeance campaign conflicts with aBBOTTS

Ken Paxton’s new investigation another attack on religious organizations aiding migrants - Alternet.org

---

an 2 24

texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently attacked Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) over his support for the $95 billion supplemental foreign aid package that just passed the US Senate. Cornyn didn't let the attack stand without firing off a pithy response of his own.

Earlier on Tuesday, 22 Senate Republicans joined 48 Democrats and independents in voting to pass a bill to provide additional funding to US allies overseas after a long weekend of debates and amendments. Cornyn — one of the highest-ranking Republicans — joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and a score of other more moderate GOP senators in supporting it. This prompted Paxton to accuse Cornyn of "stay[ing] up all night to defend other countries' borders, but not America."

In response, Cornyn quote-tweeted Paxton's post, writing, "Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending longstanding felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges."

Cornyn's tweet is in reference to Paxton's upcoming criminal trial in April, where the Lone Star State's top law enforcement official is facing three felony charges. Two of those charges are for alleged securities fraud, which carry a maximum sentence of up to 99 years in prison. Paxton is also facing one third-degree felony count of failing to register with state securities regulators, and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The charges stem from 2011, when Paxton was in the Texas House of Representatives. He was accused of soliciting investors to buy into a tech company without disclosing that he was being paid to promote it.

The federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that Cornyn referred to was convened last August, and its focus remains unclear. However, the Texas Tribune reported that it may be connected to an alleged bribery case in 2020 involving Paxton's longtime friend and political donor, Nate Paul, who is a real estate developer in Austin.

Four of Paxton's former deputies reported their former boss to the FBI, which took over the investigation in February of 2023. The Texas House of Representatives impeached Paxton over the alleged bribery scheme, which resulted in his suspension from office pending a senate trial. The Texas Senate ultimately acquitted Paxton on all 16 charges. Cornyn told reporters that while he accepts the state senate's verdict, he stated "I don't think the story is over yet" in regard to the Texas AG's ongoing criminal issues.

Cornyn, who is Texas' senior US senator, is up for reelection in 2026. Paxton has floated a primary challenge against him, saying "somebody needs to step up and run against this guy."

===

yikes influencers get gov’t jobs?!

January 23, 2024 rww

Justin Rohrlich @ The Daily Beast: ‘Libs of TikTok’ Creator Now Advising Oklahoma School Libraries.

Chaya Raichik—who doesn’t even live in Oklahoma—was tapped for her expertise on the “radical left” and “woke indoctrination.”

Nathalie Baptiste @ HuffPost: Ryan Walters Smears Oklahoma Educators While Proposing New Rules.

The controversial Oklahoma state superintendent of schools suggested, without evidence, that the state teachers union and educators were creating a culture that allowed for rampant sexual misconduct against students.

Robert Downen @ The Texas Tribune: Email sheds new light on Texas House candidate Jared Woodfill’s role in Southern Baptist leader’s sex abuse scandal.

Woodfill has been endorsed by Attorney General Ken Paxton despite his connection to Paul Pressler, a prominent religious figure accused of rape.

Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood @ Public Witness: Josh Hawley’s ‘Christian’ Nation.

After fist-pumping for Christian Nationalism and running away from the truth, Hawley doubled down on his effort to undo our constitutional system.

Tori Otten @ The New Republic: New Transcript Blows Up James Comer’s Entire Hunter Biden Argument.

A new transcript from a key Hunter Biden witness undercuts many of the claims Republicans are making about “Biden corruption.”

Charisma Madarang @ Rolling Stone: Trump Attempts to Describe Missile Defense: ‘Ding, Ding, Ding, Boom, Whoosh!’

The former president resorted to sound effects when explaining missile defense systems during a campaign rally in New Hampshire.

an 12 23 tx trib

"Three court of criminal appeal judges up for reelection targeted by Ken Paxton’s political revenge machine" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Attorney General Ken Paxtonis turning up the heat in the Republican primary for Texas’ highest criminal court, where three judges are up for reelection.

Paxton has long made clear he would be going after the Republican judges over their 2021 ruling that struck down the attorney general’s ability to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud, saying that his office must get permission from local county prosecutors to take on such cases. The three judges up for reelection next year — Sharon Keller, Barbara Hervey and Michelle Slaughter — were all in the 8-1 majority.

Now, Paxton’s plan to unseat the judges is coming into focus. Primary challengers to all three judges filed Saturday, two days before the deadline. And in an announcement first shared with The Texas Tribune, Paxton’s allies have started a new political action committee, Texans for Responsible Judges, that will work to defeat the incumbents.

“Despite Texas’ reputation for conservative leadership, the Court of Criminal Appeals remains plagued by judges who’ve abandoned their conservative roots,” the PAC’s executive director, Sam Vrana, said in a statement. “Their decision to strip the Texas Attorney General of the power to prosecute voter fraud has left Texas undefended against liberal district attorneys.”

The attack on the judges dovetails with Paxton’s more recent commitment for political revenge targeting Texas House members who voted to impeach him in May. Paxton was acquitted of abuse-of-office charges by the Senate after a trial in September.

Keller, the presiding judge who has served on the court since her first election in 1994, is being challenged by David Schenk, a former state appeals court judge. Hervey’s challenger is Gina Parker, a Waco attorney. And Slaughter’s opponent is Lee Finley, a lawyer from Paxton’s native Collin County.

Both Schenk and Parker have run competitive races for statewide judicial office before. Schenk ran against Texas Supreme Court Justice Evan Young in the 2022 primary and got 45% of the vote. Parker challenged another Court of Criminal Appeals judge, Bert Richardson, in the 2020 primary and received 48%.

:{The judges serve six-year staggered terms, and their races usually do not draw much attention outside the legal community. Two of the three judges who were up for reelection last year ran uncontested in the primary, and the third defeated a primary challenger by a comfortable margin. T:{he court has not had a Democrat on the bench since 2013, when Lawrence Meyers, who was elected as a Republican, switched parties}:.

The 2021 ruling came just days after the filing deadline for the 2022 primary, so Paxton was unable to recruit challengers back then.

In the 2021 opinion, the court said the law had violated the separation of powers in the Texas Constitution, letting the executive branch intrude on the judicial branch by attempting to prosecute election cases without being asked by a local prosecutor.

Paxton attacked the ruling, saying the court handed “Soros-funded district attorneys” the exclusive power to determine whether to prosecute voter fraud. And he called for the electoral defeat of all eight judges who supported the ruling.

“We got to make sure the next round that we pay attention to those people and get rid of everybody but Kevin Yeary,” Paxton said while campaigning for reelection last year, referring to the lone dissenting judge in the opinion.

The case stems from when Jefferson County’s district attorney declined to prosecute Sheriff Zena Stephens over campaign-finance allegations related to the 2016 election. Paxton's office stepped in and obtained an indictment from a grand jury in neighboring Chambers County.

Paxton has not endorsed any of the 2024 primary challengers yet, but the PAC has ties to him. Vrana, the executive director, works for Fundraising Solutions, LLC, a firm that counts Paxton among its clients.

A spokesperson for the group said it has “raised six figures already” but declined to comment further on fundraising details. Its next campaign finance report is due to the Texas Ethics Commission by Jan. 16.

Asked for comment on the efforts to unseat the judges, Slaughter touted her record.

“As a constitutional conservative and originalist judge with over a decade of judicial experience, I am confident that the people of Texas will reelect me to the Court of Criminal Appeals,” Slaughter said in an email.

Keller provided a brief response when asked about Paxton’s focus on the 2021 ruling.

“We just followed the Constitution,” she wrote in an email.

A court spokesperson did not respond to an email seeking campaign contact information for Hervey.

The primaries have an additional layer of intrigue because two other statewide officials — Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — had expressed opposition to the 2021 ruling. The Texans for Responsible Judges website prominently features quotes from Abbott and Patrick urging the court to reconsider its decision at the time. Patrick called the decision “completely unacceptable.”

The court upheld its ruling in September 2022, declining to rehear the case. Two judges dissented, including Yeary and Slaughter. Slaughter said she stood by the original ruling but believed there was a way to interpret the law in question in a “very narrow manner to find it constitutional in some circumstances.”

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/13/ken-paxton-court-of-criminal-appeal-primary-republicans/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

---

rove

https://www.alternet.org/paxton-2664005796/

---

tex trib

---

Highlights From The National Association of Christian Lawmakers Gala

frank Pavone, an anti-abortion hardliner who was kicked out of the priesthood by Pope Francis this year, says that banning abortion was “front and center throughout the day” during the recent meeting of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, the gathering at which Speaker of the House Mike Johnson declared that God had prepared him to be a “Moses” leading America in this “Red Sea Moment.” Pavone, who reported on the conference in an article posted at Gateway Pundit and LifeNews.com, praised Johnson and other speakers at the event’s gala for highlighting efforts to ban abortion.

As voters across the country reject MAGA Republicans’ abortion bans, and GOP strategists fear the issue will hurt their electoral prospects in 2024, Johnson has publicly downplayed the priority of a national abortion ban for congressional Republicans. But, as Pavone’s report makes clear, abolishing abortion is still a priority for the religious-right movement from which Johnson emerged.

Johnson’s own track record is long and brutally anti-choice. As an anti-abortion attorney before his election to Congress, Johnson “helped draft and defend successive Louisiana laws aimed at tightly regulating abortion providers, helping make abortion increasingly inaccessible in the state even as the procedure remained technically legal,” the New York Times reported.

As an attorney at the Alliance Defending Freedom, the religious-right legal group that pushed the Trumpified Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, he represented anti-abortion extremists. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Johnson gleefully celebrated Louisiana’s law, tweeting, “Perform an abortion and get imprisoned at hard labor for 1-10 yrs & fined $10K-$100K.”

As a member of Congress, Johnson has sponsored multiple federal abortion ban bills, including one that would declare fertilized eggs to be constitutionally protected persons from the moment of conception. Anti-abortion strategist Robert George has argued in a Supreme Court brief that such an interpretation of the Constitution would require states to treat abortion as homicide.

Johnson has cited religious-right leaders and dominionist activists as mentors and major influences. At the NACL gala, Johnson told lawmakers, “What we’re engaged in right now is a battle between worldviews.”

Another scheduled conference speaker was Janet Porter, author of abortion-banning “heartbeat” legislation. In the lead-in to Ohio’s recent vote on a pro-choice constitutional amendment, she and her allies promoted false claims that it would abolish all limitations on abortion and tried to mobilize an anti-trans panic against the amendment. But after voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment, Porter began arguing that it had no authority over the state’s anti-abortion laws. She urged state lawmakers to ignore voters’ wishes and strip state courts of the power to enforce the constitutional amendment. Porter’s recent moves are evidence of what The Nation’s Amy Littlefield described this month as “a variety of anti-democratic schemes to prevent the expansion of abortion access.”

Meanwhile, Johnson ally and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fought successfully in recent days to get the state Supreme Court to overrule a lower court decision allowing a woman carrying a fetus with a fatal diagnosis to get an abortion, even though being forced to carry the doomed pregnancy threatens her health and future fertility. Her lawyer has said she has left the state to get the healthcare she needs.

While religious-right groups would generally be expected to howl in protest at any suggestion that government officials meddle in internal church affairs, Pavone reported that the executive committee of the NACL unanimously passed a resolution calling for the reversal of his dismissal from the priesthood.

:{===

he wd want PR? party/ fox knows toxic vs 2024?

Fox News buried the story of a Texas woman prevented from getting an emergency abortion | Media Matters for America

// Anti-abortion media attacked a Texas woman seeking an emergency abortion, likening the procedure to eugenics | Media Matters for America

sent ltr to 3 hosp threatened civil and crim charges after he LOST in ct?!

texas-attorney-general-threatens-to-prosecute-over-court-ordered-emergency-abortion-of-unviable-fetus-doctors-say-endangers-the-mother

The many times Ken Paxton refused to defend Texas agencies in court

The Texas attorney general said he’s “back to work” after his recent acquittal, but his office has repeatedly declined to fulfill one of its key duties: representing state agencies who are being sued.

BY JESSICA PRIEST AND VIANNA DAVILA, THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA

SEPT. 21, 2023

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton during his impeachment trial last week. He was ultimately acquitted. Credit: Julius Shieh/The Texas Tribune

This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published. Also, sign up for The Brief, our daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Soon after his acquittal in an impeachment trial last weekend, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement that lambasted the proceedings but also spelled out his plan to continue challenging Biden administration policies now that he was being reinstated in office.

“Now that this shameful process is over, my work to defend our constitutional rights will resume,” the statement read.

“Now it is back to work!”

With his reinstatement, Paxton will return to his job overseeing an office of nearly 4,000 employees who handle thousands of legal cases every year — many of them connected to state agencies facing lawsuits.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

But an investigation published this month by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found Paxton denied requests for representation at least 75 times. That included instances in which Paxton refused to defend agencies fighting lawsuits connected to policies he’s publicly opposed, like affirmative action and gay marriage, according to records the news organizations obtained through public information requests.

Texas AG Ken Paxton’s habit of refusing to defend state agencies cost taxpayers

SEPT. 5, 2023

Paxton did not respond to questions from ProPublica and the Tribune about these denials. Neither did the attorney general’s office, other than to say it has approved the vast majority of solicitations for help. The bulk of the denials, the attorney general’s office has said, were because the agencies preferred to hire their own lawyers. In other cases, the attorney general’s office said, it may refuse a request for help because defending an agency would conflict with state law or with positions the attorney general has taken in other lawsuits.

First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster told state lawmakers during a legislative hearing in February that Paxton’s office had “never prevented someone from defending themselves. There’s no precedent for that.”

However, a week earlier, the attorney general’s office had effectively done just that, withholding a decision on whether or not to represent the University of Texas System in a case, but also refusing to give the school a green light to hire outside counsel.

ProPublica and the Tribune have compiled a list of instances in which the attorney general’s office refused requests for representation. The reason the office said was most commonly cited — agencies wanting their own lawyers — did not factor into most of the examples detailed below.

Public universities

The news organizations found numerous examples of Paxton’s office refusing to represent public universities that receive state funding.

Requester: University of Houston-Clear Lake

Request date: Nov. 30, 2021

Denial date: Nov. 30, 2021. The attorney general’s office said in a letter that the request was “not suitable for representation by our office.” A spreadsheet provided to the news organizations by the state Legislative Budget Board said the case conflicted with positions the attorney general’s office had taken in other litigation.

Case: Two students and Ratio Christi, a Christian organization that defends and shares its faith on college campuses, sued the university on Oct. 25, 2021, after it refused to recognize a new chapter. According to the lawsuit, the university wouldn’t recognize the chapter because it believed the organization’s requirement that leaders be Christian ran afoul of the institution’s anti-discrimination policy.

Ratio Christi was represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit legal firm that works to expand Christian practices in public schools and government as well as to outlaw abortion and same-sex relationships. Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Caleb Dalton said the case was important to pursue because “the bottom line is that student organizations, whether they are Christian, Muslim, conservative or liberal, should be able to require their leaders to actually believe what the organization is about.”

What happened after the denial: University spokesperson Chris Stipes said this was the first time the attorney general’s office had rejected representing the University of Houston in a lawsuit. As a result, the university’s Office of General Counsel took on the case. It settled the lawsuit in February 2022, before it was scheduled to respond to the allegations in court. The university agreed to allow student groups to “limit officers to those members who subscribe to the tenets of that organization.” The university also agreed to pay the plaintiffs $26,200 in attorneys fees and damages. Asked whether the outcome of the case would have been different had the attorney general’s office represented the school, Stipes said any response “would be purely speculative.”

Response: Stipes said the university’s Office of General Counsel devoted time and resources to the case, but he was unable to provide an exact amount. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Requester: University of Houston

Request date: Feb. 28, 2022

Denial date: March 10, 2022. The attorney general’s office said in a letter that the request was “not appropriate for representation by our office.” A spreadsheet the news organizations obtained from the Legislative Budget Board said the attorney general’s office thought the case conflicted with positions it had taken in other litigation.

Case: The group Speech First sued the university on Feb. 23, 2022, on behalf of three politically conservative students, arguing the university’s anti-harassment policy, which the lawsuit described as “restricting offensive speech about personal characteristics such as race, ethnicity or gender,” violated the First and 14th amendments.

What happened after the denial: The university retained outside counsel that represented it for free. In May 2022, the university amended its anti-harassment policy to specify that harassment must rise to the level of denying a student access to education by creating a hostile learning environment. In June 2022, the University of Houston settled the case by agreeing to officially adopt the amended policy and pay the plaintiffs $30,000 for attorneys fees.

Response: Stipes, the university spokesperson, said the attorney general’s denial in this case was surprising. The attorney general’s office has previously represented the university in similar cases, he said. “The OAG has done great work for UH in the cases we have had over the years.” Speech First did not respond to requests for an interview. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

Requester: Texas A&M University System

Request date: Sept. 13, 2022

Denial date: Oct. 13, 2022. The attorney general’s office said in a letter that the matter was “not suitable for representation by our office.”

Case: Richard Lowery, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, sued Texas A&M University, arguing the school illegally used race and sex preferences in faculty hiring and compensation, after its Office for Diversity sent a memo announcing the allocation of $2 million for the institution’s Accountability, Climate, Equity and Scholarship Faculty Fellows Program. The program provides a 50% match of a base salary and benefits, up to a maximum contribution of $100,000, for new, mid-career and senior tenure-track hires from underrepresented groups. Lowery said in the lawsuit he was “able and ready” to apply for a job at Texas A&M, but argued the university’s program prevented him from competing equally with the other applicants. Texas A&M has said that Lowery did not have standing to bring a lawsuit because he had not applied for a job. It said that nothing in the memo Lowery cited “indicates that anyone has been hired under this program, nor that any applicant of any race or gender will be excluded from consideration once implemented.”

Lowery is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former solicitor general of Texas who has made a name litigating conservative causes, and by America First Legal, which was founded in 2021 by Stephen Miller, a former policy adviser to former President Donald Trump.

What happened after the denial: Texas A&M retained outside counsel. The university argued that the case should be dismissed as moot after Senate Bill 17 passed earlier this year, prohibiting public universities from giving preference to applicants for faculty positions based on their race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. But Lowery has argued that the university cannot be trusted to follow the law. The case is ongoing.

Response: Texas A&M, which has been denied representation by the attorney general at least three other times since 2021, according to records, did not respond to requests for an interview or questions. Mitchell and America First Legal did not answer questions about the case. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Requester: University of Texas System

Request date: Jan. 12

Denial date: In its Feb. 14 response, the attorney general’s office did not deny the university system representation but withheld a decision on whether to represent the system and withheld a decision on whether or not it could retain outside counsel.

Case: In January, a man named George Stewart sued six medical schools that had rejected his applications for admission. All of the schools were in the UT System, except one that was part of the Texas Tech University System. Stewart, who is white, argued that the schools were “unlawfully discriminating against whites, Asians, and men.” The attorney general’s office told the UT System in a letter it agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that considering race and gender in student admissions was illegal and that it was awaiting the outcome of other affirmative action cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. The attorney general’s office also wrote in the letter that it had filed briefs urging the court to do away with affirmative action because it was “abhorrent to the Constitution.” UT could represent itself, the letter said, but only for the purpose of requesting extensions in the case. In a court filing, the UT System said by withholding a decision on the denial, the attorney general’s office “could potentially deny the UT Austin Defendants any litigation counsel whatsoever.”

What happened after the denial: UT asked for at least two more deadline extensions in the case. Eventually, the attorney general allowed the UT System to hire outside counsel to represent it, while Paxton was suspended from office. The attorney general’s office is representing the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in the case, though it would not explain what differentiated one university from the other.

Response: A UT System spokesperson declined to discuss the case but said the school, like every state agency, is required to ask the attorney general for representation or outside counsel. The UT System has ultimately been able to secure counsel. The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center did not respond to requests for comment. Stewart and his attorneys, Mitchell and America First Legal, did not answer questions about the case. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Requester: University of Texas at Austin

Request date: Feb. 13

Denial date: March 6. The attorney general’s office denied the request, stating in a letter that the request was “not appropriate for representation by our office.” It provided no further explanation in the letter.

Case: Lowery, the same UT professor who sued Texas A&M in 2022, sued three University of Texas at Austin officials on Feb. 8, 2023. In this lawsuit, Lowery claims university officials engaged in “a campaign to silence (him) by threatening his job, pay, institute affiliation, research opportunities, academic freedom, and labeling his behavior as inviting violence or lacking in civility.” He claims university officials did this after he publicly criticized them for using diversity, equity and inclusion requirements to filter out competent academics with a differing viewpoint.

What happened after the denial: The attorney general’s decision delayed the case, said Del Kolde, a senior attorney at the Institute for Free Speech who is representing Lowery. Kolde wanted to request a hearing as soon as possible to obtain a court order for UT not to retaliate against Lowery, but UT officials asked for patience as they waited to hear whether the attorney general’s office would represent them, Kolde told the news organizations. On March 2, the university notified the court it had retained outside counsel and asked for more time to respond to the lawsuit, a request the judge granted. Kolde would have preferred the representation decision be made more quickly. “In my personal experience dealing with public-entity defendants in various jurisdictions, the decision about who would represent the UT defendants took longer than what I’m used to seeing,” he said. “I do not, however, know why it took so long.”

The case is ongoing.

“I am sure that it is costing the taxpayer more to have an outside law firm handle this than a salaried employee of the office of the attorney general,” Kolde said.

Response: The university did not respond to requests for an interview or answer questions. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

Small state agencies

The news organizations found instances in which Paxton’s office refused to represent smaller agencies with little to no budget to pay for private attorneys. Some smaller state agencies have general counsel on staff, but those attorneys may not have the experience or bandwidth to handle litigation.

The news organizations found one small agency that the attorney general’s office hasn’t represented in court for years and another that Paxton’s office said it would represent — but it wouldn’t use what could have been one of the best defenses available.

Requester: Board of Disciplinary Appeals

Request date: March 30

Denial date: May 2. The attorney general’s office said it would represent the agency but in a limited way.

Case: The Board of Disciplinary Appeals, made up of 12 attorneys appointed by the state Supreme Court, disciplines Texas lawyers. This year, a former lawyer sued board members who disbarred her in 2012 (none of the defendants still serve on the board). The attorney general’s office said it would represent the former board members, but conditionally: Specifically, it said it would not use as a defense a part of the Texas Rule of Disciplinary Procedure that says board members “are immune from suit for any conduct in the course of their official duties.” That decision surprised Kelli Hinson, the current board chair, who described the immunity defense as a “critical one that I would want asserted if it were me.”

Generally speaking, Hinson said, defending board members who make judicial decisions and asserting their immunity is important to make sure people want to continue serving in these kinds of volunteer roles. The whole basis of immunity is “that you shouldn’t be able to sue someone serving a judicial function for the decision that they make.”

What happened after the denial: The former board members ultimately chose not to be represented by Paxton’s office. Hinson is instead representing them, for free. The board does not have a budget for outside counsel, Hinson said. It has a total of three employees. “I didn’t feel like they should have to pay for a lawyer to defend them.” The former board members recently filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the case against them.

Response: Hinson said she doesn’t know why the attorney general’s office declined to raise the immunity defense but believes the board members ultimately will prevail in court. “I’m confident that they’re going to win in the end. So it’s just, do you want five air arrows in your quiver or four? And I think you would want as many as you could get,” Hinson said. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Requester: Texas Ethics Commission

Request date: Unknown

Denial date: Aug. 22, 2014, and Oct. 17, 2016

Case: Empower Texans, a conservative advocacy group that donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Paxton over the years, and its leader Michael Quinn Sullivan, challenged the commission’s enforcement of state campaign finance and lobbyist registration laws as unconstitutional in cases now before the Texas Supreme Court.

One case stems from the commission finding in 2014 that Sullivan failed to register as a lobbyist, ordering him to pay a $10,000 fine. He appealed, arguing that registering restricts free speech and the state can’t show that being compensated for speech is corrupt. At the time, Gov. Greg Abbott was still attorney general. An August 2014 San Antonio Express-News story reported that the Ethics Commission decided to hire an outside law firm to represent it in this case. However, the Ethics Commission has said in legislative appropriations requests that the attorney general’s office declined to represent it.

The other case stems from the commission’s investigation of Empower Texans and Sullivan allegedly violating campaign finance provisions governing political action committees. The commission sued Empower Texans and Sullivan on Oct. 15, 2015, to get the group to turn over more information as part of an investigation into those alleged violations. The attorney general’s office, by this time under Paxton’s leadership, initially represented the commission. In September 2016, the attorney general’s office dropped the commission’s effort to get a judge to order Empower Texans and Sullivan to comply with its subpoenas for information. But the case remained alive because of Empower Texans’ and Sullivan’s counterclaim that the commission could not enforce campaign finance laws because it is part of the legislative branch of government. A short time later, the Houston Chronicle reported, commission leaders told staff of the state Legislative Budget Board that the agency needed money to hire outside lawyers because it couldn’t depend on Paxton’s office to defend the agency in the future. In October 2016, the attorney general’s office asked a judge if a private lawyer could take the place of someone in its office to represent the commission. The judge agreed.

What happened after the denial: The commission requested from the state Legislature an additional $150,000 per year for outside legal counsel to defend it in these cases, starting in 2016. The Legislature increased the amount the commission was authorized to spend on outside legal counsel in 2018 to $300,000 per year. As of Sept. 1, the commission has spent nearly $1.1 million for representation in these cases. The cases are ongoing. The Texas Supreme Court has said it will hear oral arguments in Empower Texans’ case on Nov. 30 and has requested more information about Sullivan’s case.

Response: The Ethics Commission declined to comment on the denial and the cases. The Empower Texans PAC dissolved in October 2020, records show. It stopped posting to its website in 2021. Sullivan did not respond to calls and emails requesting an interview or to questions about this case. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case, including whether Empower Texans’ financial contributions to him influenced the attorney general’s office’s decision not to represent the commission in this case. In 2018, a spokesperson for the attorney general declined to explain why he refused to represent the commission. He told the Houston Chronicle that the office takes its duty to defend agency enforcement actions seriously, but its “first obligation is to defend the Constitution and the basic rights it guarantees to each and every Texan.”

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Agency: State Commission on Judicial Conduct

Request date: 2020

Denial date: 2020

Cases: In late 2019, Dianne Hensley, a justice of the peace in Waco, sued the judicial commission after it issued her a public warning because of statements she made to the media about disagreeing with and refusing to perform same-sex marriages after they’d been legalized, casting “doubt on her capacity to act impartially.” Hensley’s lawsuit argued that the commission’s public punishment of the justice of the peace constituted “a substantial burden” on her “free exercise of religion,” according to court records. A few months later, Brian Umphress, the county judge of Jack County, sued the judicial commission in federal court, arguing that he also was at risk of being sanctioned because he did not perform same-sex marriages. The attorney general’s office declined to represent the judicial commission in both cases. Both Hensley and Umphress are represented by Mitchell, the former solicitor general. The plaintiffs have also at some point been represented by First Liberty Institute, a Plano-based conservative Christian law firm. The firm’s president and chief executive, Kelly Shackelford, is a longtime friend of Paxton’s. First Liberty’s executive general counsel, Hiram Sasser, briefly worked for the attorney general’s office under Paxton. First Liberty board member Tim Dunn is among Paxton’s biggest individual donors.

What happened after the denials: The state judicial commission spent more than $120,000 to pay for outside counsel after the attorney general refused to represent it. Agency Executive Director Jacqueline Habersham successfully lobbied state legislators for an additional $150,000 to fund the commission’s legal representation over the next two years. The Texas Supreme Court will hear Hensley’s case in October. Umphress lost in federal district court but appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The 5th Circuit has yet to rule.

Response: Habersham said she hopes no one else files a lawsuit against the commission in which the attorney general’s office chooses not to represent it. Mitchell, Shackelford and Dunn did not respond to requests for comment. Sasser, who mainly has worked on the Hensley case, said in an interview he would have been disappointed had the attorney general chosen to represent the commission. Paxton and the attorney general’s office did not answer questions about this case.

Jessica Priest

ENGAGEMENT REPORTER, PROPUBLICA/TEXAS TRIBUNE INVESTIGATIVE UNIT

jessica.priest@texastribune.org

@jessica_priest

Vianna Davila’s staff photo

Vianna Davila

REPORTER, PROPUBLICA/TEXAS TRIBUNE INVESTIGATIVE UNIT

Vianna.Davila@propublica.org

@ViannaDavila

---

Texas Ethics Commission has ordered Michael Quinn Sullivan, leader of the conservative advocacy group Empower Texans, to pay a $10,000

---

an trib 8 23 no lnx

texas House impeachment managers have submitted nearly 4,000 pages of exhibits ahead of next month’s impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Senate, which is conducting the trial, published the exhibits Thursday night. The document dump provides granular detail of how Paxton allegedly abused his office to help Nate Paul, an Austin real estate developer and campaign donor.

Paxton’s lawyers last week called for all 20 articles of impeachment to be dismissed, relying in part on an argument that the House had not produced evidence to support them. Through the document dump, a remarkable public disclosure before the trial has started, the House managers have essentially called their bluff.

The managers’ responses to Paxton’s pretrial motions offer new allegations against Paxton, including that he used a burner phone, secret email account and fake Uber name to hide his relationship with Paul.

There are 150 exhibits across three documents totaling 3,760 pages. They include:

An interview with Paxton’s former personal aide who said he ferried documents to Paul on Paxton’s behalf and witnessed conversations about the renovations to Paxton’s home that suggested Paul had paid for it.

Emails showing how Paul and his lawyer directed a special prosecutor authorized by Paxton to investigate Paul’s business rivals and law enforcement officials that had raided his home.

Memoranda documenting numerous instances where Paxton’s senior advisers unsuccessfully urged him to cut ties with Paul, whom they suspected was a liar and criminal.

Trip records obtained from Uber showing an account Paul created under the alias “Dave P” which Paxton used to travel to the home of Paul and the apartment of the woman with whom the attorney general was having an extramarital affair.

An employment contract proving Paul had hired Paxton’s mistress to work at his business.

The Senate posted the exhibit records Thursday night on a website the chamber maintains for impeachment-related documents. The records are dated Tuesday, meaning the managers filed them on the day that responses to pretrial motions were due to the Senate.

The trial is set to begin Sept. 5. Responses to pretrial motions were due Tuesday, and now a special committee is reviewing the motions and responses. That committee has until Aug. 28 to prepare a report with recommendations on the motions for the trial judge, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.He gets to rule on all motions except for those that seek dismissal of any articles, which requires a majority vote of the Senate.

The breadth of the evidence could put more pressure on senators to at least proceed to trial. Assuming all 12 Democrats oppose Paxton’s motions to dismiss, managers would have to convince at least four of the 19 Republican senators to side with the Democrats and clear the way for a trial.One of those GOP senators is Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, and she does not get to vote under the trial rules.

===

https://www.alternet.org/new-allegations-against-texas-s-embattled-ken-paxton-raise-stakes/

https://www.alternet.org/embattled-texas-gop-ag-uber/

no lnx

https://www.alternet.org/rittenhouse-texas/

Kyle Rittenhouse launches nonprofit with far-right Texans as he ramps up political engagement in the state

Kyle Rittenhouse speaking at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore)

Robert DownenandThe Texas Tribune August 16, 2023

Kyle Rittenhouse, the right-wing activist who was famously acquitted of killing two Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, is stepping up his involvement in Texas politics.

Already this year, he’s rallied with a Texas secessionist movement leader, endorsed ultraconservative midterm candidates, and railed against Texas gun control legislation and the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Now, Rittenhouse is creating a nonprofit in the state — with help from well-connected, far-right political actors.

In a July 23 filing with the Texas secretary of state’s office, he described “The Rittenhouse Foundation” as a nonprofit that “protects human and civil rights secured by law, including an individual’s inalienable right to bear arms” and “ensures the Second Amendment is preserved through education and legal assistance.”

The foundation’s directors are Rittenhouse, Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt and Shelby Griesinger, treasurer for Defend Texas Liberty PAC, a key financier of far-right candidates in the state. The foundation’s registered agent is the law firm of Tony McDonald, who has for years represented Empower Texans and other deep-red organizations.

Defend Texas Liberty and Empower Texans have received tens of millions of dollars from a trio of West Texas oil tycoons — Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks — who have for decades funded campaigns, nonprofits and movements to promote their ultraconservative religious and social views.

McDonald declined an interview request Tuesday. Other foundation officials could not be reached for comment.

Rittenhouse moved to Texas last year after being acquitted of homicide charges in the fatal shooting of two people at a 2020 protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He’s since steadily ramped up his political involvement in Texas, often railing against the media, “cancel culture” and gun control groups.

In January, Rittenhouse appeared at a Conroe “rally against censorship” with Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, which advocates for Texas to secede from the United States. The event drew national media attention after a Conroe brewery said it was inundated with threats and harassment after pulling out as the event’s host venue.

In May, Rittenhouse joined Texas Gun Rights in opposing a House bill that would have raised the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. And he’s been active on social media,condemning the Texas House impeachment of Paxton and endorsing pro-Second Amendment, ultraconservative candidates who were also backed by groups affiliated with Dunn and the Wilks brothers.

Rittenhouse has endorsed Andy Hopper, a primary challenger to state Rep. Lynn Stucky, R-Denton. Hopper, who came close to unseating Stucky in a runoff in 2022, had the support of Defend Texas Liberty in that primary and is expected to have it again.

Rittenhouse more recently backed Brandon Herrera, a gun rights activist and YouTube star known as “The AK Guy” who is running against U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio. Gonzales represents the district where the 2022 Uvalde school shooting took place, and he was the only Texas Republican in the U.S. House to vote for a bipartisan gun law afterward.

Last year, Rittenhouse announced plans to attend Texas A&M University, only to walk back the claim after the university said he had not been accepted. Rittenhouse, an Illinois native, later said he planned to attend Blinn College, a two-year school in Brenham. It’s unclear if Rittenhouse is attending the school, which said he had not enrolled in classes after he announced his intention to go there.

Rittenhouse’s foray into Texas politics comes as Republicans continue efforts to reach out to younger Americans who are increasingly supportive of liberal policies. On Monday, The Texas Tribune reported on a new company, Influenceable, with ties to Dunn that has been quietly recruiting Gen Z social media influencersto do undisclosed political promotions.

Patrick Svitek contributed reporting.

The full program is now LIVE for the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival, happening Sept. 21-23 in Austin. Explore the program featuring more than 100 unforgettable conversations coming to TribFest. Panel topics include the biggest 2024 races and what’s ahead, how big cities in Texas and around the country are changing, the integrity of upcoming elections and so much more. See the full program.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/08/16/kyle-rittenhouse-texas-foundation/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'Country last': Trump Jr. mocked for calling Texas AG’s possible impeachment a 'RINO led witch hunt' ›

How the Republicans became the party of vigilante violence ›

Investigation tracks the activities of 17-year-old suspect in lead-up to Kenosha shootings that left 2 people dead ›

'The vigilante as the lone hero': Why the Republican Party’s 'bloodlust appears to be getting worse' ›

Mehdi Hasan clobbers 'bigoted' Republicans for embracing 'odious' convicted murderer Daniel Perry ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Kyle Rittenhouse a passenger in Texas traffic stop, takes selfie with ... ›

Kyle Rittenhouse's Texas A&M pledge sounds like a fantasy | Fort ... ›

Kyle Rittenhouse and What the Texas Right Means by Censorship ›

Texas brewery gets threats after canceling Kyle Rittenhouse event ... ›

an tex trib 8 23

How the Texas AG’s office became a pipeline for conservative federal judges

María Méndezand The Texas TribuneAugust 08, 2023

How the Texas AG’s office became a pipeline for conservative federal judges" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

The Texas attorney general’s office is often in headlines representing a conservative voice in legal fights over health care, abortion and immigration — and more recently, regarding suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment.

But it was once a quiet state agency that mostly collected child support and defended the state in bureaucratic lawsuits.

Over the course of more than two decades, the office has become a well-known champion of a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and a pipeline for conservative federal judges. Nine federal judges appointed by former President Donald Trump had worked in the Texas attorney general’s office beginning in 1999, according to a Texas Tribune review of the office’s recent history.

These judges have been key in deciding cases in favor of conservatives on a wide range of issues, including abortion, COVID-19 vaccine requirements and immigration policies, through the framework of constitutional originalism. This framework argues that judges should rely solely on the text of the nation’s founding documents, and how it was publicly understood at the time of their writing, to answer essential questions about applying the law to modern life.

Here’s a timeline of how the office transformed under the leadership of now high-profile Republicans Sen. John Cornyn, Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton. For an in-depth history of the office, you can read the Tribune’s three-part series here.

1998: John Cornyn elected attorney general

John Cornyn became the first Republican to win an election to the Texas attorney general’s office since the Reconstruction era of the late 1800s. He left his seat on the Texas Supreme Court for the role.

He stepped into the job just as attorneys general across the country began to gain more power, working across state lines on issues like suing tobacco companies for the public health costs associated with smoking.

In Texas, Cornyn created the solicitor general’s office, an elite, specialized unit of lawyers to handle state and federal appeals all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The office drew young, smart lawyers with the promise of courtroom experience.The office also began to slowly wade into more political lawsuits over topics like abortion laws and religion in schools.

2002: Greg Abbott elected attorney general

Like Cornyn, Greg Abbott left the Texas Supreme Court and was elected attorney general. But Texas Republicans now controlled the state Legislature and every statewide office. Under Abbott, the attorney general’s office more clearly championed conservatism.

Lawyers who felt politically alignedflocked to the office, including Ted Cruz,who was hired by Abbott as solicitor general and is now one of Texas’ two U.S. senators. Under Abbott and Cruz’s leadership, the office defended conservative principles in federal cases about abortion, voting and guns — even if they did not directly involve Texas.

Read more about how the agency came to draw conservative lawyers and leaders in the first part of our series here.

2008: President Barack Obama elected

Republicans had lost the White House and Congress, but they found power in the Texas attorney general’s office. Under Abbott, Texas brought more than 30 lawsuits against the Obama administration in six years.

Texas’s federal legal fights, which often argued that Obama had overstepped the power granted to the president in the U.S. Constitution, included attempts to:

Stop the Affordable Care Act, the federal expansion of government-subsidized health care.

BlockDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, protections for young people who entered the country illegally with their parents.

Guard businesses against environmental regulations intended to stave off climate change. CPP?

2014: Ken Paxton elected attorney general

Paxton, a former Republican state lawmaker, quickly pushed the office further to the right.

Paxton, who found early support among advocates of religious liberty, joined a conservative Christian legal movement against federal LGBTQ+ protections, which gained traction after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark ruling establishing protections for same-sex marriage.

His office began strategically filing lawsuits in remote areas of Texas where just one judge hears most cases, ensuring any cases would be heard by a conservative judge.

Read more about how Texas took on the Obama administration in the second part of our series here.

2016: President Donald Trump elected

After Obama failed to prioritize judicial appointments, Trump entered office with more judicial vacancies than almost any president in U.S. history.

By then, Cornyn and Cruz had gained influence on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and nominated a class of young, conservative lawyers to become judges, many of whom had worked in the Texas attorney general’s office.

Nine federal judges appointed by the Trump administration from 2018-20 had previously worked in the Texas attorney general’s office under Cornyn, Abbott or Paxton.

Trump also appointed seven conservative judges to single-judge divisions in Texas, hugely expanding the number of venues where Paxton could file cases and effectively handpick the judge who would hear it. And with four former Texas attorney general employees appointed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Texas also increased its odds of getting favorable appeals rulings.

Lawyers like Jonathan Mitchell, a private lawyer and solicitor general under Abbott, have also taken advantage of the increasingly conservative roster of judges. Mitchell, for example, scored a victory with a Trump-appointed judge in a case that blocked confidential contraception access for minors in Texas.

2020: President Joe Biden elected

The Texas attorney general’s office has continued barraging the federal government with lawsuits over issues such as environmental protections and immigration policies.

The office now sees itself as at war with “the forces that want to destroy the American order, root and branch,” as Aaron Reitz, former deputy attorney general, said in November 2021. “Our soldiers are lawyers, and our weapons are lawsuits, and our tactic is lawfare. This is the project that we’re engaged in.”

Although conservative judges have not always taken up or supported the cases, the office has succeeded in delaying the rollout of federal policies amid ongoing lawsuits.

2023: Paxton impeached

In June, the Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach Paxton after he asked the Texas Legislature to fund a $3.3 million settlement in a lawsuit brought on by former employees.

A House committee launched an investigation into the matter, resulting in 20 articles of impeachment listing a yearslong pattern of alleged misconduct. Paxton was suspended from his role and is awaiting a Senate impeachment trial scheduled to begin Sept. 5.

Paxton has faced criminal investigations, legal battles and accusations of wrongdoing for years. But he had eluded consequences and remained popular with Texas voters.

A handful of top agency employees took leaves of absence to defend Paxton. But the office has continued launching legal challenges against new federal smog regulations and protections for transgender student athletes under interim attorneys general appointed by Abbott.

And if a Republican is elected to the presidency in 2024, Texas conservatives could make further inroads in the judicial system, including in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read more about how Trump helped cement Texas’ influence in federal courts in the third part of our series here.

Eleanor Klibanoff contributed to this story.

paxton

https://www.alternet.org/texas-blocks-order-complicated-pregnancies/

an 7 23

no lnx twit

Ken Paxton’s far-right billionaire backers are fighting hard to save him

Robert Downen, Carla Astudillo and The Texas Tribune July 25, 2023

"Ken Paxton’s far-right billionaire backers are fighting hard to save him" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Hours before the Texas House overwhelmingly voted to impeach Ken Paxton in May, a well-funded supporter of the attorney general issued a threat to his fellow Republicans.

A vote to impeach Paxton, Jonathan Stickland wrote on Twitter, “is a decision to have a primary.”

“Wait till you see my PAC budget,” he later added.

Stickland is the leader of Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee that has donated millions of dollars to far-right candidates in the state. It is a key part of the constellation of political campaigns, institutions and dark-money groups that a trio of West Texas oil tycoons — Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks — have pumped small fortunes into as part of a long-term crusade to push Texas to the extreme right.

And, until last month, no state politician had received more money from those groups than Paxton, who has in turn used his office to push ultraconservative priorities while declining to defend state agencies in numerous lawsuits filed by groups connected to Dunn and the Wilks brothers, including those seeking to undermine the state’s campaign finance laws.

Now, with the clock ticking toward Paxton’s September impeachment trial before the Texas Senate, Stickland and his far-right friends are fighting hard and spending big to protect their most important ally — and to stave off a major loss amid their ongoing fight for control of the Texas GOP.

Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune, interviewedTim Dunn, CEO of CrownQuest Operating and chairman of Empower Texans, at The Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24, 2016. Photo by Brett Buchanan

Tim Dunn speaks with Evan Smith, former CEO of The Texas Tribune, at The Texas Tribune Festival on Sept. 24, 2016. Credit: Brett Buchanan for The Texas Tribune

The Paxton drama comes at a crucial time for the state’s ultraconservative wing, which has been increasingly criticized by moderate Republicans who have grown weary of their purity tests and attacks even as the state drifts further to the right. The Wilks and Dunn orbit also has been hobbled by a series of divisive, costly — and largely unsuccessful — primary races and the removal of former Rep. Bryan Slaton, whose political life was subsidized by Defend Texas Liberty until he was expelled from the House in May for having sex with a 19-year-old aide he got drunk.

Those losses, coupled with intraparty animus, have raised the groups’ stakes in the Paxton trial.

“The Paxton impeachment could be the most high-profile stumble for the far right of the Texas GOP,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor. “Paxton was their shining star but now looks more like a shooting star.”

The Wilks brothers could not be reached for comment. Dunn did not respond to multiple interview requests or a detailed list of questions emailed to him. Stickland declined an interview and did not respond to questions via text.

An old relationship

Over the past 20 years, Dunn and the Wilks brothers have sunk nearly $100 million into a sprawling mix of nonprofits, political campaigns, think tanks, fundraising committees and websites to advance their far-right religious, economic and anti-LGBTQ+ views.

But their groups were not always so laser focused on the red-meat social issues that they’ve helped thrust into the mainstream of today’s GOP. In the mid to late 2000s, their primary influence came from Dunn through a handful of groups — the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and Empower Texans — that pushed libertarian, small-government economic and tax policies.

As with now, the strategy was simple: Pull the party’s middle further to the right by labeling other Republicans — particularly Joe Straus, the GOP speaker of the House from 2009-19 — as ineffective moderates in bed with liberals to suppress conservative priorities. Those attacks were disseminated through a well-funded media ecosystem to a grassroots base motivated by the election of President Barack Obama, the Tea Party movement, the proliferation of social media and an influx of dark money unleashed by the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Since the beginning, the groups have aimed “to force retirements or defeat moderate incumbents in primaries, really almost to the exclusion of any other strategic goal,” said Matt Mackowiak, chair of the Travis County GOP and a longtime Republican political consultant.

“It’s about convincing incumbents that if they don’t vote as conservatives, then they’ll be put at political risk,” he said.

And the billionaire-backed groups have always liked Paxton.

In 2009, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility gave Paxton, who was then a state representative, the “Taxpayer Champion Award.” A year later, the group hailed him for his bill rejecting Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act. And, ahead of the 2011 legislative session, Empower Texans wrote glowingly of Paxton as he challenged Straus for House speaker, framing the McKinney Republican as a man-of-the-people conservative who was unafraid to confront the House’s effete RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — and their supposed liberal allies.

“This is the first time in modern history when Texans can express their preference on the speaker’s race and involve themselves in it,” Empower Texans wrote in November 2010. “Some in the Austin power elite — including the media — don’t like it.”

State Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, after failing to win the endorsement of GOP caucus members for House speaker on Jan. 10, 2011.

Then-state Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, made an unsuccessful bid for House speaker in January 2011. Credit: Marjorie Kamys Cotera for The Texas Tribune

Paxton dropped out of the speaker’s race shortly before the vote but a year later was elected to the Texas Senate, where he spent two years before launching his 2014 bid for attorney general. Despite initially trailing in the polls, Paxton defeated the better-funded, establishment candidate Dan Branchin the GOP primary runoff — with help from his West Texas friends.

In what The Dallas Morning News described at the time as an “unusual arrangement,” Dunn and Empower Texans backed a $1 million loan to Paxton that helped narrow Branch’s financial edge and pay for a late TV advertising campaign. Paxton also received a boost from freshmen U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Tea Party darling whose unexpected rise was aided by a super PAC that received $15 million from the Wilks brothers.

One year later, as news broke of Paxton’s indictment for securities fraud, those allies again came to his defense. Previewing the claims they’d make after his 2023 impeachment, Empower Texans insinuated conspiracy theories that framed Paxton as the victim of a witch hunt orchestrated by House Republicans and left-wing activists.

“Time will tell how long it will take for Paxton to clear his name and rebut the politically-charged attacks against him,” Tony McDonald, a longtime attorney for Dunn- and Wilks-connected groups, wrote at the time for Empower Texans. “But will we ever know the true role Republican House leadership played in launching the probe?”

The 2015 securities fraud charges, related to Paxton’s work soliciting investors in Servergy Inc. without disclosing that the McKinney tech company was paying him for the work, have yet to go to trial amid a series of appeals by prosecutors and defense lawyers.

In the years since, a mutually beneficial relationship has continued, with Paxton pushing policies favored by the far right as the billionaires filled his campaign coffers with millions of dollars.

Campaign finance records show that since 2002, Dunn, the Wilks family and their affiliated groups have collectively given more than $2.85 million to Paxton — 6.8% of his total fundraising, and nearly double what he’s received from his second-biggest donor, Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC.Add in the two loans that they’ve backed or given — including one that remains outstanding for $750,000 — and their support tops $4.65 million.

That money has helped keep Paxton afloat in recent years as his legal troubles mounted, approval ratings dipped and some key donors invested elsewhere.

After Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC gave $626,000 to Paxton’s 2022 primary challenger Eva Guzman,Defend Texas Liberty helped lift his campaign, giving him more money than ever and floating him a $750,000 loan. And last month, as Paxton and his high-profile defense team continued to spar with House impeachment managers, Dunn donated another $150,000 to the suspended attorney general’s campaign. Neither Paxton nor his attorneys have disclosed who is paying for his impeachment defense.

Recent financial disclosures also show that in June, Defend Texas Liberty gave $3 million in loans and donations to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who will preside over Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Texas Senate.

Hours after the donations were made public, Stickland again took to Twitter. “This is just the beginning,” he wrote. “Wait till you see the next report. We will never stop. Ever.”

Texas is among a handful of states with no limits on individual political contributions in state races. Since Defend Texas Liberty PAC was created in 2020, Dunn and Farris Wilks have given at least $14.5 million to the organization. They also helped bankroll Stickland’s career in the Legislature before he took over the group.

The Texas Tribune sent interview requests and lists of questions to Paxton’s lead impeachment attorney, his campaign and two communications firms working on his behalf. None responded. Patrick’s campaign and office did not return requests for comment.

“So too has Ken Paxton”

Millie Black, a political science professor at Collin College’s Wylie campus, said it’s often difficult to gauge the extent to which high-dollar donors impact politicians once they’re in office, particularly on social issues.

But it’s clear, she said, that Paxton’s public evolution from a small-government budget hawk into a red-meat social conservative has corresponded with the Texas GOP’s move to the right, a shift that was influenced heavily by Dunn and the Wilks brothers.

Publicly, “he has not always been so far to the right,” Black said of Paxton, whose legislative career mostly emphasized conservative economic policy. “But as the Republican Party has grown in its conservatism, so too has Ken Paxton.”

Since his election as attorney general, Paxton has used his office to rally behind the ultraconservative social issues and anti-LGBTQ positions favored by his biggest donors and their allies.

In 2017, Paxton pitched business leaders on the controversial “bathroom bill” that would have cracked down on transgender-friendly restroom and locker room policies. And he has routinely issued legal opinions that bolstered priority issues for groups connected to Dunn and Wilks, including “school choice” programs, challenges to Texas’ prohibitions on giving public money to religious institutions and bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Paxton has wielded power in other ways as well.

“Policymaking is not just what you do, but also what you don’t,” Rottinghaus said. “By ignoring some things and emphasizing others, politicians are effectively reshaping policy. The attorney general … has a lot of ability to shape policy at the margins” as the state’s top lawyer.

A handful of times, Paxton has declined to perform a core function of his office: defend state agencies from lawsuits — including those directly connected to his biggest donors.

In one instance, Paxton declined to defend the Texas Ethics Commission against a lawsuit, filed by Empower Texans, that sought to strip the agency of its core oversight of campaign finance. As a result of Paxton’s decision — which watchdog groups called “rare” at the time — the ethics commission made an emergency, $600,000 budget request in 2018 to lawmakers to pay for private lawyers in the matter.

In a separate lawsuit, Paxton’s office again did not represent the ethics commission afterEmpower Texanshead Michael Quinn Sullivan challenged his $10,000 fine for failing to register as a lobbyist while leading the group in 2010 and 2011. In that case, Empower Texans’ lawyers argued that Sullivan was the victim of a “witch hunt” orchestrated by Straus’ “cronies,” and that he and his group should have been exempt from registering as lobbyists because they were acting as journalists.

Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans speaks at a conservative grassroots rally for property tax relief and reform at the Texas Capitol on Tuesday. April 16, 2019

Michael Quinn Sullivan, then head of now-disbanded Empower Texans, speaks at a conservative grassroots rally for property tax relief and reform at the Texas Capitol on April 16, 2019. Credit: Juan Figueroa/The Texas Tribune

Those two lawsuits and their subsequent appeals have collectively cost the ethics commission more than $1 million in outside legal expenses, general counsel Jim Tinley said last week. That total is likely to climb if Sullivan successfully petitions for the case to be heard by the Texas Supreme Court.Tinley declined to comment on other questions about Empower Texans, citing pending litigation.

The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but officials have previously said the decisions aligned with the office’s “first obligation to defend the Constitution and the basic rights it guarantees to each and every Texan.”

The commission’s former chair still disagrees.

In an interview this month, Chase Untermeyer said Paxton’s hands-off approach in the Empower Texans lawsuits was upsetting, if somewhat expected given his ties to the group. But even if Paxton disagreed with the agency’s mission, Untermeyer said, he still had a duty to protect it as it carried out its “obligations under the state constitution to pursue” violations.

At one point, Untermeyer said, Paxton’s office stopped enforcing subpoenas issued by the agency — a “particularly appalling” decision that Untermeyer said undercut an investigation into Empower Texans.

“The only thing worse than not being represented by Ken Paxton would have been to be represented by Ken Paxton — because we did not have full faith that he was on our side,” Untermeyer said. “We can understand how the attorney general, for some reason of his own choosing, might not want to represent the ethics commission in a district or appellate court. But to not even support the principle of a state agency, a constitutional agency, issuing subpoenas, was a particular aggravation.”

Paxton has had his own issues with the ethics commission: He has repeatedly been criticized for failing to timely disclose significant campaign donors or the addresses of some properties owned by him and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton.

In 2016, the agency ruled that Paxton could not accept out-of-state donations to a legal defense fund in his securities fraud case. And last year, the Houston Chronicle found that Paxton had declined to sue hundreds of political candidates and lawmakers to collect more than $700,000 in fines for campaign disclosure violations assessed by the agency.

“Rules for thee, not for me”

For six years, Zachary Maxwell saw firsthand how West Texas oil money slowly reshaped the state’s political landscape — including through the numerous conservative campaigns he helped lead and, later, as chief of staff for formerRep. Mike Lang, the leader of the House’s ultraconservative Freedom Caucus.He also briefly worked for the Empower Texans-affiliated Texas Scorecard as a staff writer.

Maxwell ultimately left that world because of what he said was hypocrisy from the Dunn and Wilks cohort, who he said were almost singularly focused on conservative “chest beating” as a means of pulling the party’s mainstream views to the right and accumulating political power.

“It is rules for thee, not for me,” he said of Empower Texans and its affiliated groups, including Defend Texas Liberty. “They do not care about how Austin is run — they care about running Austin. They care about who can scream the loudest, and usually that ends up being people with the least amount of integrity. And the entire Legislature is sick and tired of it. Nothing is good enough. And the second you get off course, you’re going to get hammered.”

“It’s just exhausting,” added Maxwell, who still works in conservative politics. “But it’s the cost of doing business.”

Maxwell is not the only Texas Republican to express such frustrations. In recent years, prominent conservatives have complained about the groups’ frequent attacks from the right, and the perpetual purity tests that they worry may ultimately push the Texas GOP too far to the extremes.

The backlash was evident during the 2018 primaries, when conservative business leaders, worried about the effects of Empower Texans’ social policies on the state’s business climate, spent more than $3 million to defeat the group’s slate of far-right candidates. Bemoaning the races’ vitriol at the time, one prominent conservative commentator compared the West Texas billionaires to an “oligarchy,” hellbent on destroying anyone who “didn’t get on their knees and kiss the ring.”

“They romanticize the rural Texan,” Brandon Darby, editor of Breitbart Texas, a right-wing news site that had previously employed Sullivan, said at the time. “They wear the hat, the boots and the Wrangler jeans, but their policies actually strangle rural Texas communities.”

Meanwhile, Empower Texans continued its attacks on House leaders, accusing them of being RINOs and sparring over legislation and media credentials that would have given the group better access to representatives during floor debates. The latter conflict came to a dramatic head in 2019, when Sullivan released secret recordings with then-House Speaker Dennis Bonnen that prompted the Republican leader not to seek reelection.

In 2020, Empower Texans officially disbanded after its news blog, Texas Scorecard, was spun off into a new nonprofit that’s led by Sullivan. The website has remained one of the most vocal supporters of anti-LGBTQ and other far-right legislation, as well as candidates bankrolled by Defend Texas Liberty.

Chief among them: Slaton, the former Royse City representative who was removed from office.

Since running for office in 2020, Slaton received roughly $680,000 from Defend Texas Liberty — among the most of any other officeholder besides Paxton and Patrick — and was in turn a reliable bomb thrower and annoyance to House leadership, needling his fellow Republicans even as they passed a litany of conservative bills.

The Texas GOP’s campaign finance records show that in the first week of April — as rumors about Slaton’s inappropriate sexual relationship swirled around the Texas Capitol — the party received a $100,000 donation from Defend Texas Liberty PAC and another $35,000 from Dunn.

State Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, sits at his desk on the House floor in Austin on April 18, 2023.

Former state Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, at his desk on the House floor in Austin on April 18, 2023. Credit: Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune

Leaders of the party were later criticized for what some said was a muted and delayed response to the allegations against Slaton, a “family values” conservative who often touted his career as a Southern Baptist youth pastor.

The Texas GOP and its chair, Matt Rinaldi, declined interview requests and did not respond to a list of questions last week. In an email, Rinaldi condemned what he said was an attempt to frame Phelan and other House Republicans as the “mainstream in the Party and Paxton, Cruz, Trump, Patrick, and all others in the actual mainstream as a fringe group.”

A party spokesperson disputed the timing of the $100,000 donation from Defend Texas Liberty, saying it arrived March 30 — two days before Slaton allegedly had sex with his aide — but wasn’t posted until April 4 “due to processing times.” Asked twice to provide documents backing that claim, Rinaldi responded that “we can but don’t feel the need to.”

Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi speaks at a press conference at the Capitol on Aug. 30, 2021.

Republican Party of Texas Chair Matt Rinaldi speaks at a news conference at the Capitol on Aug. 30, 2021. Credit: Michael Gonzalez/The Texas Tribune

Members of the House General Investigating Committee — which also launched the inquiry into Paxton this year — later said their investigation of Slaton was hampered by obfuscation from him and members of his staff who refused to meet with an investigator. The staff members were represented by McDonald, the longtime Empower Texans lawyer who, in 2015, wrote that Paxton’s securities fraud charges were the result of a conspiracy orchestrated by House leadership.

McDonald declined an interview request but has previously said the House committee’s “statement that Slaton’s staff refused to cooperate is completely false,” and that “any condemnation of them is unfair, spurious and based on false information.”

New scandal, old tactics

Two weeks after Slaton’s ouster, the chance of also losing Paxton suddenly became real for the far right. As news of the House’s investigation into Paxton broke, Stickland, Sullivan and their allies went on the offensive.

They again blamed the attorney general’s mounting troubles on a shadowy cabal of liberals and House Republicans, and said his strong opposition to President Joe Biden made him a target of the deep state. (The inquiry began after Paxton asked lawmakers to cover a $3.3 million lawsuit settlement with whistleblowers fired from the attorney general’s office after they reported Paxton to law enforcement for allegedly misusing his authority to help a friend, real estate investor Nate Paul.)

Supporters posted about the “coming political war” and made overt threats to anyone who might support Paxton’s impeachment and the “witch hunt” that Sullivan said was orchestrated by Phelan’s “cult.” Occasionally, Paxton responded on social media with a simple “thank you.”

The day of the impeachment vote, Stickland’s PAC sent mass text messages comparing Paxton to twice-impeached former President Donald Trump and urging supporters to inundate their representatives with complaints.

And, in the wake of the 121-23 vote for impeachment, they excoriated the 60 Republicans who voted to advance the 20 articles of impeachment to the Texas Senate, calling it an attack on grassroots conservatives by the “crony establishment” that had been after Paxton since 2015.

A screenshot of a text message sent by Defend Texas Liberty defending Ken Paxton the day before the Texas House impeachment vote.

A screenshot of a text message supporting Ken Paxton sent by Defend Texas Liberty the day before the Texas House impeachment vote. Credit: Phone screenshot

Particular attention was given to longtime Paxton allies and deep-red conservatives who voted for impeachment. After Rep. Briscoe Cain, one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state, said he voted for impeachment out of a duty to due diligence, Sullivan compared Cain to Pontius Pilate, the enabler of Christ’s crucifixion.

Since then, Dunn and Wilks-backed groups and individuals have continued to attack virtually every aspect of the Paxton impeachment process — and fellow conservatives who supported it. In June, Defend Texas Liberty paid for billboards accusing Rep. Glenn Rogers, R-Graford, of having “joined 61 democrats to impeach Ken Paxton.”

Rogers, who fended off a well-financed 2020 primary challenge by Farris Wilks’ son-in-law, responded forcefully, noting the deep-pockets relationship between Dunn, Farris Wilks and Stickland, the “big puppeteer” who does “their dirty work.”

“They hide behind their money and a pious front in order to create chaos and division in the Republican party,” Rogers wrote on Facebook. “Get ready for a barrage of misrepresentations, deceit, and outright lies financed by these ‘fine Christian gentlemen.’”

Longtime political observers expect the acrimony to worsen in the coming months as Stickland promises expensive primary challenges to more-moderate incumbents next year, and Defend Texas Liberty continues to receive heavy backing from West Texas — including a new, $3.5 million infusion from Dunn and Farris Wilks in June.

The Texas GOP, chaired by Rinaldi, a former representative who was bankrolled by Dunn and Wilks, has gone all-in on attacking House leadership, accusing Phelan and others of subverting the will of voters by impeaching Paxton, and claiming that it is part of a broader plot against grassroots conservatives.

That schism is likely to deepen ahead of an expected October special legislative session on contentious “school choice” legislation and the 2024 primary elections, said Mackowiak, the Travis County GOP chair. He said it would be extremely difficult for Defend Texas Liberty and its allies to mount serious challenges to every Republican who approved Paxton’s impeachment. Mackowiak also said he doubts the Paxton impeachment vote will be the primary, animating issue for voters next year.

But he said Defend Texas Liberty could attack incumbents from the right by packaging together their votes on school voucher-like programs, Paxton and bills on social issues that did not make it out of the House during the last legislative session. And while losing Paxton would be a blow to that ultraconservative wing of the Texas GOP, Mackowiak does not believe that it would change the faction’s tactics, which he said have been proven successful by the state’s gradual turn to the far right over the past decade.

“It’s a proxy battle,” he said. “And, in a way, their movement is bigger than it’s ever been.”

Disclosure: Collin College, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Texas Public Policy Foundation and University of Houston have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Join us for conversations that matter with newly announced speakers at the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival, in downtown Austin from Sept. 21-23.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/24/ken-paxton-impeachment-dunn-wilks/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Tensions between Ken Paxton and Republican Texas House speaker reach boiling point ›

Group supporting suspended TX AG Paxton gives $3 million to impeachment trial judge Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick ›

Texas AG Ken Paxton impeached — suspended from duties pending outcome of Senate trial ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Indicted. Under F.B.I. Investigation. And Still Popular With Texas ... ›

https://www.alternet.org/texas-2662296231/

Group supporting suspended TX AG Paxton gives $3 million to impeachment trial judge Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

Patrick Svitek The Texas Tribune

cd hurt state gop?

https://www.alternet.org/ken-paxton-defense-500k-useless/

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/impeached-texas-attorney-general-partnered-with-troubled-businessman-to-push-opioid-program

real estate $ arrested

https://www.alternet.org/the-right-wing/ken-paxton-2661165035/

impeached

https://www.alternet.org/ken-paxton-2660738741/

po'd

https://www.alternet.org/ken-paxton-2660651313/

wife

https://www.alternet.org/ken-paxton-2660662364/

am 5 23 no lnx

no lnx

over the years, far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has not only made enemies among Democrats, but also, among fellow Republicans. Paxton's years in Texas' statement government have been tumultuous; nonetheless, he was elected to a third term in 2022, defeating Democratic challenger Rochelle Mercedes Garza by around 10 percent.

Paxton's third term is seeing considerable tensions between him and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a conservative Republican.

The Associated Press (AP) reports that on Tuesday, May 23, Phelan announced that the Texas House General Investigating Committee has, for months, been probing "alleged illegal conduct" by Paxton. Conversely, Paxton called for Phelan's resignation after a video emerged of Phelan drunkenly addressing lawmakers.

READ MORE: Ken Paxton’s campaign against election crimes ensnared a Texas justice of the peace three times

Phelan has flatly denied Paxton's accusation, attacking it as "a last-ditch effort to save face."

Paxton was under investigation long before Phelan made his May 23 announcement. In 2015, a Texas grand jury indicted Paxton on criminal fraud charges, but his trial was delayed multiple times.

The bitter exchanges between Paxton and Phelan, according to AP reporter Jake Bleiberg, have "jolted" Texas "near the frantic end of a legislative session that has again laid bare the raw divisions between Republicans who control every level of power in the state government."

"At stake for Paxton in the final days of the session is whether lawmakers will approve using $3.3 million in taxpayer dollars to settle a lawsuit brought by the attorney general's accusers," Bleiberg explains. "Paxton, who also separately remains indicted on securities fraud charges from 2015, has denied wrongdoing."

READ MORE: Texas AG’s probe into trans care is based on illegal release of kids’ medical records: report

Paxton is controversial for a variety of reasons, including his efforts to overturn the election results in four states that President Joe Biden won in 2020: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Paxton, making false claims of widespread voter fraud, filed a lawsuit in the hope of getting the electoral votes for Biden thrown out in those states and given to former President Donald Trump. But the case was dismissed on December 11, 2020.

Democratic Texas State Rep. Chris Turner told the New York Times that Paxton is "the last person" who should be calling for Phelan or anyone else to resign.

Turner argued, "This is someone who is under multiple indictments, under an FBI investigation, tried to overturn a presidential election. So, Ken Paxton ought to tend to his own affairs."

READ MORE: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home to avoid being served with subpoena: court record

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Ruling by Texas GOP judge could imperil millions of Americans ›

Attorney behind Texas vigilante abortion ban drafting similar book ban bill to sue librarians ›

Texas AG’s probe into trans care is based on illegal release of kids’ medical records: report ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Texas AG Ken Paxton to apologize and pay $3.3 million to ... ›

Texas AG whistleblowers sue for wrongful firing, retaliation | AP News ›

Ken Paxton ordered to testify in abortion lawsuit | The Texas Tribune ›

an raw 5 23

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been accused of citing illegally leaked children’s medical records as part of a vendetta against trans kids and their families.

Paxton announced an investigation Friday of trans care by Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle.

But Harris County attorney Christian Menefee is firing back that Paxton’s move was predicated by conservative-media reports based on illegal leaks from his office, the report said.

“Menefee called for ‘swift and appropriate action’ in response to the apparent records leak and described Paxton’s investigation as ‘legally baseless,’” the Chronicle reported.

“This illicit release of medical records puts children and their families at risk, and swift action must be taken to ensure that this does not happen again," he said in a statement.

"I have spoken with representatives at Texas Children’s Hospital and understand that the hospital will fully investigate how this happened and notify all impacted families if their information was released.

“I expect they will fully disclose what they find to the United States Department of Health and Human Services. If a hospital employee leaked these medical records, they must be fired. If it was a hospital vendor, their contract must be terminated.”

The Chronicle said the AG's investigation followed as series of tweets from an activist that shared what he called evidence that the hospital "secretly" provided gender-affirming care. The tweets included details from medical records, with the patients' names redacted.

Menefee, the first Black person to serve as the top lawyer in Texas’ largest county, which is home to Houston, “noted that unauthorized disclosures of medical records may violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA,” the newspaper reported.

Hospital officials fired back at Paxton as well: “At Texas Children’s Hospital, our mission is to provide high-quality care for all patients. Throughout the policy debate surrounding gender medicine, our healthcare professionals have always and will continue to prioritize the care of our patients within the bounds of the law.”

Hospital officials fired back at Paxton as well: “At Texas Children’s Hospital, our mission is to provide high-quality care for all patients. Throughout the policy debate surrounding gender medicine, our healthcare professionals have always and will continue to prioritize the care of our patients within the bounds of the law.”

“Though many unhinged activists compromising the healthcare field think otherwise, children are not to be treated as science experiments. Doctors and hospitals should not be pushing mutilative and irreversible ‘gender transitioning’ procedures that will negatively impact innocent children for the rest of their lives.”

As the Texas Tribune reported Friday, Paxton’s newest investigation is part of an ongoing effort aimed at trans care.

The Texas Legislature recently passed a bill that would bar minors from receiving that medical care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and related surgery — though such surgery is rare for minors, the Texas Tribune reported. “Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will sign the bill, and it is expected to go into effect in September.”

Paxton’s targeting of Texas Children’s Hospital was only the latest salvo in an ongoing campaign, according to the Tribune.

“Two weeks ago, Paxton announced a similar investigation into Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin, citing allegations from a hidden camera video investigation from the conservative activist group Project Veritas," it reported.

“The same day Paxton announced the investigation, parents began receiving calls from Dell Children’s, telling them their appointments were canceled and their doctors had parted ways with the adolescent health clinic.”

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'A death sentence': How one trans Texas teen is navigating bans on gender-affirming care ›

Major House vote moves Texas closer to banning critical gender-affirming care for trans kids ›

Texas Department of Agriculture enforces anti-trans 'biological gender' dress code ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

In Texas, an assault on trans rights takes a mental toll : NPR ›

What does the Texas anti-trans law do? - The Washington Post ›

Texas Senate approves anti-trans bills amid mounting protests ... ›

ref tex trib legit

no lnx

attorney General Ken Paxton has once again waded into the conservative fight to restrict access to gender-affirming care for trans youth, announcing Friday that he was opening an investigation into “potentially illegal” practices at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas.

The investigation comes in the wake of a video report that alleges to show a social worker at Dell Children’s saying the Austin-based hospital provides certain gender-affirming treatment for patients “as young as eight, nine.”

Gender-affirming care is an umbrella term for the treatment of gender dysphoria, or the discomfort that comes when someone’s gender identity does not align with the sex they were assigned at birth. Gender-affirming care ranges from “socially transitioning” — using different pronouns or dressing differently — to puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical interventions.

Project Veritas, a far-right activist group that engages in deceptive practices to do hidden camera-style investigations, filmed health care professionals at Dell Children’s and other facilities around the country as they discussed gender-affirming care.

The clip of the social worker at Dell Children’s takes up less than a minute of the 11-minute edited video package. In the video, the woman is seen saying that patients could potentially be prescribed puberty blockers after just one appointment with a doctor.

“It’s not something that we want to gatekeep and require you to, you know, come to us 10 times before it’s prescribed,” the woman in the video said.

In a statement, Dell Children’s said they are reviewing the situation and will take appropriate action “to the extent that care provided at our clinic may have been inconsistent with our organization’s position on this important issue. The statement also noted that Dell Children’s does not prescribe hormone therapy or use surgery to treat gender dysphoria, but does “provide a safe and welcoming place for children to receive other forms of primary care and treatment.”

On Friday, Paxton filed a “request to examine” letter with Dell Children’s parent organization, Ascension Seton, asking them to turn over documents relating to the use of puberty blockers and counseling for trans youth.

It’s not clear what law Paxton believes Dell Children’s has broken; Texas does not currently have age limits on gender-affirming care, nor does it require doctors to see patients a specific number of times before prescribing puberty blockers.

But that could soon change. Paxton announced this investigation on the day of a crucial House vote on Senate Bill 14, which would prohibit transgender youth from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapy. In the two years since the Legislature last met, gender-affirming care for trans youth has emerged as a central issue for Republicans, led in many ways by Paxton.

Last session, the Legislature did not approve a measure that would have classified gender-affirming care as child abuse. But during the interim, Paxton issued a nonbinding legal opinion, claiming that existing state law allowed for parents who provide their trans children with gender-affirming care to potentially be classified as child abusers.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Citing this opinion, Gov. Greg Abbott directed the state’s child welfare agency to pursue investigations into families with trans children. The subsequent investigations sent shockwaves through Texas’ LGBTQ communities as parents of trans children lawyered up or left the state out of fear of persecution.

The Texas Supreme Court said in a ruling that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services erred in following Abbott or Paxton’s guidance on this, and a court order has broadly blocked the agency from opening new investigations.

But this has not stopped Paxton from continuing to push the issue. He has opened deceptive trade investigations into two pharmaceutical companies that produce puberty blockers and joined multistate coalitions opposing other state laws allowing for gender-affirming care.

In a statement Friday, he urged the House to pass SB 14, “to ban acts of child abuse such as so-called ‘gender transitioning’ surgical procedures and prescribing puberty-blocking drugs for minors.”

fail again

an 3 23

the Houston Chronicle's editorial board is offering a brief history lesson for QAnon supporters who believe in pushing conspiracy theories about Democratic leaders and lawmakers being at the center of child sex trafficking rings.

According to the board, an actual child sex ring was reportedly discovered in Texas but when it came to making sure criminals suffered consequences for their actions, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) is said to have dropped the ball.

"So where’s QAnon when you need them? We’re talking about the secretive cult of conspiracy-mongering crazies who believe that Democrats are pedophiles prone to making meals of their victims at the behest of evil Hillary Clinton and who worship Donald Trump," the editorial board wrote.

READ MORE: Venue nixes Trump-inspired event following warning of possible influx of white supremacists

The board went on to raise questions about the irony of former President Donald Trump's support of the movement while Paxton and QAnon supporters ignore a problem in their own backyard.

"We’ve noticed that the former president has taken to wearing a Q pin on his lapel, but in the interest of truth, justice, and the American way, we ask, how can these folks stay anon when an actual elected official in the great state of Texas has, by his rank incompetence, abetted what would appear to be actual cases of child sex-trafficking?"

Recounting the disturbing situation that unfolded in Waco, Texas, the board wrote: "Last year, the AG’s office proudly announced that the Human Trafficking Unit of the Criminal Investigations Division had arrested a group of people involved in a scheme in Coryell County, a rural county west of Waco, to ship teenage girls to Dallas and other Texas cities, where they were forced to 'exchange sexual contact for crystal methamphetamine.'

"Paxton’s office dubbed its sex-trafficking investigation 'Operation Fallen Angel,'” the board added.

READ MORE: Maryland’s GOP AG nominee called 9/11 an 'inside job': report

Now, unfortunately, the board is reporting that the investigation fell flat. "Now, thanks to a blockbuster investigative report by the Associated Press, we learn that Operation Fallen Angel has quietly fallen apart because of the AG’s bungling.

"Six of the people indicted are now free. One is being held in the Coryell County jail on other charges, while an eighth died in jail. The AP reports that Paxton’s attorneys were recently forced to drop four of the human trafficking and sexual assault cases — because they misplaced one of the victims."

The issue in Texas appears to underscore a bigger issue that was uncovered by the Associated Press.

Per the Houston Chronicle: "The AP investigation found that, as of August, the number of assistant attorneys general in the division that handles human trafficking cases was down by 40 percent. The number of assistant attorneys general in the criminal prosecutions division was down more than 25 percent from two years ago. The group that deals with financial and white-collar cases had been cut by more than half and has merged with another division."

The board concluded with a blistering assessment of Paxton's leadership and posed a compelling question to voters. "Paxton’s buffoonish adventures may read like a comic strip, but the harm he’s doing to this state is real," the board wrote. "How long will his supporters stand by and let it happen?"

READ MORE: Election conspiracy theorists are rallying behind these far-right MAGA Republicans in Michigan

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Maryland's GOP AG nominee called 9/11 an 'inside job': report ... ›

Election conspiracy theorists are rallying behind these far-right ... ›

Venue nixes Trump-inspired event following warning of possible ... ›

Experts: Trump is encouraging violence with Waco campaign rally on 30th anniversary of deadly siege - Alternet.org ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Texas Attorney General advances antifa conspiracy ... - PolitiFact ›

Are Texas Republicans embracing the QAnon conspiracy theory ... ›

Trump endorses Ken Paxton over George P. Bush in Texas attorney ... ›

fail

2 23 an

Attorney General Ken Paxton and four of his former top deputies who said he improperly fired them after they accused him of crimes have reached a tentative agreement to end a whistleblower lawsuit that would pay those employees $3.3 million dollars.

In a filing Friday, Paxton’s and the whistleblower’s attorneys asked the Texas Supreme Court to further defer consideration of the whistleblower case until the two sides can finalize the tentative agreement. Once the deal is finalized and funding is approved, the two sides will move to end the case, the filing said.

“The whistleblowers sacrificed their jobs and have spent more than two years fighting for what is right,” said TJ Turner, an attorney for David Maxwell, one of the whistleblowers. “We believe the terms of the settlement speak for themselves.”

This is a developing story.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/ken-paxton-attorney-general-settlement-whistleblower/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

spoke at cspoa

https://www.alternet.org/texas-sheriff/

https://boingboing.net/2022/12/14/texass-attorney-general-requested-a-list-of-all-transgender-texans-didnt-get-it.html

an 11 22

Another batch of emails obtained from John Eastman shows Donald Trump's lawyers were counting on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to help them disrupt Joe Biden's election win, and their certainty raises new questions about his wife's role in the scheme.

Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro wrote Dec. 31, 2020, that Thomas would be "our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6" on a challenge to election results in Georgia, whose circuit court he oversees, and Washington Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany wondered on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" why he and Eastman felt so confident about the justice's willingness to assist.

"The fringy lawyers that were surrounding Trump and helping him in his efforts to overturn the results of the election in the last few months of his presidency had reason to believe, at least publicly, that justice Clarence Thomas was going to be sympathetic to their cause. Remember in December of 2020, Thomas along with [Justice Samuel] Alito issued a brief statement after the audacious Texas lawsuit was filed, calling to ultimately throw out the results of the 2020 election in four battleground states. The majority dismissed it, but Alito and Thomas expressed a statement that was sympathetic to the lawsuit, and said that the majority threw it out too quickly."

"Now the question is, I think, privately, what reasons did John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have to believe that Thomas would be sympathetic to them if he got a lawsuit in front of them?" she added.v

Ginni Thomas was corresponding with Eastman during that same period, along with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Republican legislatures in key states won by Biden, and Alemany said the newly revealed emails place her under additional scrutiny.

"It's a very small world here," Alemany said. "There was no indication in the correspondence that either of the Thomases were [copied] on the e-mails, but you can clearly see why John Eastman was fighting hard to prevent the release of these e-mails."

Host Joe Scarborough said the revelations were scandalous.

"It's shocking, the behavior between John Eastman, Ginni Thomas, and the efforts to overthrow, throw out democratic election for the presidency," Scarborough said. "Also, their misreading of what Clarence Thomas and Alito did when they went along with an opinion in a Pennsylvania case, the only time the court wrote anything of substance on the election challenges, they said about the Pennsylvania case, which involved the court in Pennsylvania overruling the state legislature. That race is a constitutional question, and I think they rightly said, this race has questions we probably should address now, but even if we did address them now, it wouldn't change the outcome of the election, so there you have even the two most conservative justices saying even if we take this question up, which we think we should, there aren't going to be enough votes to change the fact that Joe Biden's the next president of the United States."

Watch the video below or at this link.

an 9 22

T**exas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home to avoid being served with subpoena**,

an 10 22

'Buffoonish adventures': Houston Chronicle editorial board gives QAnon a history lesson on the real child sex ring

Meaghan Ellis October 08, 2022

The Houston Chronicle's editorial board is offering a brief history lesson for QAnon supporters who believe in pushing conspiracy theories about Democratic leaders and lawmakers being at the center of child sex trafficking rings.

READ MORE: Venue nixes Trump-inspired event following warning of possible influx of white supremacists

The board went on to raise questions about the irony of former President Donald Trump's support of the movement while Paxton and QAnon supporters ignore a problem in their own backyard.

"Paxton’s office dubbed its sex-trafficking investigation 'Operation Fallen Angel,'” the board added.

The issue in Texas appears to underscore a bigger issue that was uncovered by the Associated Press.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/**2022/09/**06/esg-companies-bankroll-gop-ags-the-very-officials-retaliating-against-their-climate-goals/

alex k

the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) investigation has identified more than two dozen major U.S. companies that are publicly committed to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles yet have recently donated large amounts of campaign cash to a group of Republican state attorneys general that is hyper-focused on eroding air and water regulations, promoting fossil fuel companies, and using state governments to punish companies that try to limit their climate-related risks by divesting from oil, gas, and coal.

Republican attorneys general, along with fellow GOP governors and state financial officers, are weaponizing their public offices to prevent action on climate change. Their latest efforts seek to bar companies that divest from fossil fuels or employ other ESG principles from receiving government contracts.

And yet large U.S. companies such as AT&T, Cigna, Citigroup, Lowe’s, Pfizer, T-Mobile, and UPS—all of which publicly promote their commitment to ESG—have recently funded the political prosperity of these Republican AGs.

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

“Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges,” the multinational brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) acknowledges in its 2021 ESG report for investors. “Our evolved understanding of potential climate-related risks and opportunities across our value chain continues to inform our long-term strategy.”

AB InBev has set an ambitious climate goal for 2025, aiming to reduce its carbon emissions by 25% and purchase 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by then. In joining the international RE100 initiative to switch to 100% renewables, the company intends to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

But the beer giant is one of the largest corporate funders of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a group of powerful state officials that has long attacked environmental regulations in the U.S. Members of RAGA—which receives substantial funding from fossil fuel companies to support the reelection campaigns of these AGs—have filed legal challenges against Obama-era air and water pollution regulations. Former Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt is among those who have worked directly with fossil fuel lobbyists to challenge these laws.

Numerous other corporations have given large sums to RAGA for this year’s elections while publicly committing to ESG principles and, in many cases, to direct climate action.

RAGA recently scored a big win in West Virginia v. EPA when the right-wing justices who now dominate the Supreme Court ruled against the agency, preventing the Biden administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act without going back to Congress for explicit authorization.

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

As the Right gets more extreme in the U.S., climate-denying Republicans have added a new weapon to their arsenal: attacking financial firms that decrease their investments in fossil fuels.

GOP attorneys general and financial officers are joining state lawmakers in penalizing investment firms that divest from fossil fuel companies. Although they are members of a political party ostensibly committed to a free market, these GOP officials are meddling in corporate decision-making by trying to prevent executives from limiting the enormous financial risk posed by the effects of climate change—likely the biggest economic challenge of the century.

As with their outcry about critical race theory supposedly being taught in American schools, GOP politicians are attempting to cast climate action as a culture war issue, branding routine practices such as ESG disclosures to investors and divesting from a waning fossil fuel industry as “woke.”

In 2021, Texas enacted a law to root out alleged “energy discrimination,” seeking to prevent investment firms that decrease their stakes in oil, gas, and coal from managing the state’s pension and other funds. After the law passed, the energy task force of the ultra-conservative, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) approved a model bill with similar language, directing state treasurers or comptrollers to maintain a list of firms that have divested from fossil fuels and to only issue government contracts to businesses with more than 10 employees that verify their allegiance to fossil fuels.

In the past year or so, similar legislation has been introduced in at least 15 states and has already passed in four. On Aug. 24, Texas released its first list of firms that allegedly “boycott energy companies,” including BlackRock, Credit Suisse, and UBS.

Dubious Claims

On Aug. 4, 19 GOP attorneys general sent a letterto BlackRock CEO Larry Finkaccusing his firm of making ESG investments that “force the phase-out of fossil fuels, increase energy prices, drive inflation, and weaken the national security of the United States.”

Claims like this are histrionic and often baseless. For example, BlackRock has invested more than $108 billion in Texas-based energy companies, and this year it plans to support proportionally fewer ESG shareholder resolutions than it did last year. And while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and his allies from other states claim that ESG investing hurts their pension funds, academic studies like a recent one undertaken by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago refute this. In fact, since Texas passed its anti-ESG law last year, the UPenn/Fed study indicates that it has already cost the state between $303 and $532 million, as Kate Aronoff points out in The New Republic.

Other evaluations of ESG investing are mixed, but when researchers from the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Rockefeller Asset Management analyzed over 1,000 relevant research papers from 2015–20, they found that a majority of the studies indicated ESG investing leads to either neutral or improved financial performance. The meta-analysis points out that “improved financial performance due to ESG becomes more marked over longer time horizons.”

Despite these findings, Republican state AGs and other officials have accelerated their attacks on climate action—a central tenet of ESG investing—in the past few years.

In August, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the trustees of the State Board of Administration voted to ban its investment managersfrom using ESG considerations in managing its portfolio of roughly $245 billion, primarily from the Florida Retirement System Pension Plan. Florida’s AG Ashley Moody (R) joined the governor in supporting the move.

In May, Kentucky’s AG Daniel Cameron(R) issued an opinion barring investment managers doing government business from employing ESG principles. On Sept. 1, Indiana’s AG Todd Rokita (R) did the same.

Meanwhile, right-wing entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is cashing in on the GOP’s anti-ESG and anti-woke craze, as CMD recently reported. His firm Strive Asset Management (DRLL) is trying to pull business away from the Big Three asset managers in red states. It recently announced that it hasraised $250 million thanks to large investments from far-right tech mogul Peter Thiel and his affiliated groups.

Not only are GOP AGs targeting asset managers that reduce fossil fuel investments, but they’re going after regulators and ratings agencies as well.

In June, Paxton spearheaded a letterfrom a group of 12 Republican AGs to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)opposing its proposed corporate disclosure requirements around sustainability. The rule would require firms to back up their claims of purportedly green or socially aware investments. Twenty-one GOP AGs sent another letter of opposition to the SEC on Aug. 16.

“The woke left is going full throttle in their mission to change every facet of American life… and erode our democratic institutions to suit their liberal agenda,” said West Virginia’s AG Patrick Morrisey (R).

In late July, Missouri’s AG Eric Schmitt (R) launched an investigation into whether Morningstar, a financial research and rating company, violated a state consumer-protection law by evaluating ESG issues. A few weeks later, 18 other AGs joined the probe. Schmitt and 16 other attorneys general are also trying to block California from setting its own vehicle emissions standards.

At the same time, the nonprofit State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and its members are doing all they can to prop up fossil fuel companies and punish firms that divest from oil, gas, and coal. In West Virginia, state Treasurer Riley Mooretold five financial companies—the banks Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, as well as BlackRock—that they would no longer be eligible for state contracts because they have reduced financing for coal projects.

Corporate Code of Silence ...

an 9 22

T**exas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home to avoid being served with subpoena**, court record says" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home in a truck driven by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, to avoid being served a subpoena Monday, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.

Ernesto Martin Herrera, a process server, was attempting to serve the state’s top attorney with a subpoena for a federal court hearing Tuesday in a lawsuit from nonprofits that want to help Texans pay for abortions out of state.

Reference

Court documents detailing a process server's attempt to deliver a subpoena to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at his McKinney home on Sept. 26.

(738.7 KB)

When Herrera arrived at Paxton’s home in McKinney on Monday morning, he told a woman who identified herself as Angela that he was trying to deliver legal documents to the attorney general. She told him that Paxton was on the phone and unable to come to the door. Herrera said he would wait.

Nearly an hour later, a black Chevrolet Tahoe pulled into the driveway, and 20 minutes after that, Ken Paxton exited the house.

“I walked up the driveway approaching Mr. Paxton and called him by his name. As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage,” Herrera wrote in the sworn affidavit.

Angela Paxton then exited the house, got inside a Chevrolet truck in the driveway, started it and opened the doors.

“A few minutes later I saw Mr. Paxton RAN from the door inside the garage towards the rear door behind the driver side,” Herrera wrote. “I approached the truck, and loudly called him by his name and stated that I had court documents for him. Mr. Paxton ignored me and kept heading for the truck.”

Herrera eventually placed the subpoenas on the ground near the truck and told him he was serving him with a subpoena. Both cars drove away, leaving the documents on the ground.

On Twitter, the attorney general said his sudden departure was motivated by concerns for his family's safety.

"It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family," he wrote in a tweet.

Paxton has been under indictment for securities fraud for seven years and faces a whistleblower lawsuit from former top deputies who accused him of abuse of office. Paxton has denied wrongdoing.

He was forced into a runoff for the Republican nomination for another term in office after high-profile Republicans, including former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman and Land Commissioner George P. Bush, tried to unseat him. But Republican voters chose him over his intra-GOP challengers, who criticized his legal and personal scandals on the campaign trail.

He faces Democrat Rochelle Garza in November.

Disclosure: Chevrolet has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/26/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-subpoena-abortion-lawsuit/.

The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

an 9 22

Since Dobbs, many of the nightmare scenarios about abortion access have come true. Trigger bans have gone into effect. Healthcare for miscarriages has been delayed. Common prescriptions that can cause abortion (abortifacients) aren’t being filled at pharmacies.

Despite assurances from anti-choice people, total abortion bans are not making exceptions for emergency healthcare situations or they are so confusing that they’re making doctors scared to perform abortions even when it’s necessary to save the person’s life.

While abortions should be legal and accessible no matter the reason, it’s particularly dangerous when one can’t get one in a life-or-death situation. There isn’t time to cross state lines or the pregnancy is too far along for a self-managed abortion.

The White House has issued guidance that abortions must be performed to save the life of the pregnant person or prevent serious risk, but this week a court sided with a Texas argument against saving lives – of course, celebrated by the “pro-life” movement.

While the response to Dobbs from the current administration has been mixed, a clarifying guidance from the US Department of Health and Human Services is a vital tool in saving pregnant people’s lives.

In 1986, the Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). The law required any hospital that accepts Medicare payments to provide emergency treatment to anyone regardless of their ability to pay or their legal status.

Obviously, this included emergency conditions related to pregnancy, including labor or miscarriage. The EMTALA requires hospitals to provide medical screenings as well as stabilization (or a transfer to a hospital that can provide medical care to accomplish stabilization).

In July, after Dobbs, the HHS clarified that the federal guidance under the EMTALA required performing an abortion if it’s necessary to save the pregnant person’s life or to prevent serious health risks.

HHS ensured its policy guidance had teeth.

Secretary Xavier Becerra emphasized that this federal policy preempts state law and that hospitals risk their Medicare payments if they do not comply. Such a policy from the HHS should protect emergency abortion in all 50 states despite individual state law.

The policy guidance makes it irrelevant if an abortion ban has a carve out for the life of the mother, because such abortions would be required (with the patient’s consent) under federal law as part of “stabilizing” the patient. While they didn’t issue an exhaustive list of pregnancy conditions that would warrant a federally required emergency abortion, “ectopic pregnancy, complications of pregnancy loss, or emergent hypertensive disorders, such as preeclampsia with severe features” were explicitly stated as qualifying conditions.

Unfortunately, states are challenging the HHS policy guideline in federal court and through total abortion ban legislation. State attorneys general are arguing against saving a pregnant person’s life.

Keep in mind, in many relevant cases, the choice is between allowing the pregnant person and fetus to die, and performing an abortion to save the pregnant person (or in the case of miscarriage, the fetus is already dead and they still want to let the pregnant person die).

The remaining cases are a choice between letting the mother die in the hopes that the fetus can be saved and performing an abortion to save the life of the mother. As far as I am aware, the HHS policy guidance doesn’t touch on the maternal fetal conflictwhen a pregnant person is diagnosed with cancer and might be denied treatment because said treatment could harm the fetus.

So State attorneys general in Texas and Idaho want to let pregnant people die even though denying abortion won’t save the fetus.

Ironically, part of their argument that the federal policy guidelines should be enjoined by a judge is that abortion bans in Texas and Idaho, and every other state, have life-of-the-mother exceptions.

In the opinion written by the Texas court enjoining the HHS guideline, the judge argues that policy guidelines are unnecessary and there is no conflict between state and federal law.

This is weird given that the Texas attorney general said that the HHS policy guidelines would require Texas doctors to violate state law.

Texas also argued that the EMTALA did not guarantee access to a specific treatment (and obviously didn’t mention abortion), so the federal government cannot require abortions using that law.

However, as some legal experts argue, if abortion is the only way to stabilize a patient, requiring such a procedure clearly falls under the EMTALA. There are many cases in which an abortion would be necessary in order to save the life of a patient. Therefore, denying one is tantamount to denying stabilizing care under the EMTALA.

The Texas opinion went further. The language of the EMTALA requires stabilizing the mother as well asthe fetus, but it was passed in 1986 when Roe was still law and abortion was legal in all 50 states.

It’s ahistorical and nonsensical to suggest that the law wouldn’t protect abortion to save the life of the mother since abortions for any reason were legal at the time the law was written.

Despite that clear rational interpretation, the Texas judge used the mention of the fetus in the law to argue it should protect the mother as well as “unborn children” (his wording - the EMTALA uses “fetus”).

Therefore, not only does this opinion enjoin federal policy guidance. It also elevates the fetus to the standing of a patient under the EMTALA, which supports the argument for the fetus’s personhood. (Again, this is why we need to embrace abortion as self-defense).

The Idaho case is more encouraging.

Unlike the Texas case, this suit resulted from the DOJ challenging the restrictive Idaho law that, the DOJ argued, violated the federal policy guidelines. Idaho’s trigger ban only allowed abortions when necessary to prevent death, which is more restrictive than the federal policy guidance that requires an abortion be performed if the pregnant person faces death or serious health risk.

The Idaho judge issued a temporary injunction on Idaho’s trigger abortion ban, because, “Allowing the criminal abortion ban to take effect, without a cutout for EMTALA-required care, would inject tremendous uncertainty into precisely what care is required (and permitted) for pregnant patients.”

The Texas and Idaho cases are ongoing. There are sure to be more lawsuits brought by state attorneys general as well as by the Department of Justice. We will have to wait and see if the HHS policy guidance requiring abortions to prevent death or serious risk stands.

Do not come away from reading this assuming the conflict is only about abortions in the case of serious risk or that abortions will always be allowed to save the life of the mother. Quibbling over bodily risk or death will absolutely result in pregnant people dying.

The more restrictive exceptions require doctors to delay care until sure the pregnant person is at risk or until a fetal heartbeat stops.

They also create confusion for doctors and care providers about when an abortion can be performed under state law. That confusion will result in the delay or refusal of care even when the pregnant person presents with a complication that will cause death.

Any abortion ban will delay care and result in higher maternal mortalities, but fighting against medically necessary abortions guarantees you’re fighting to explicitly let pregnant people die.

an ah 9 22

Although some progressives believe that President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel some student loan debt doesn’t go far enough, a long list of Republicans — from U.S. senators to right-wing think tanks to state attorneys general — have accused the president of overreaching and are looking for ways to undermine Biden’s plan. The National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke is even calling for Congress to “impeach and convict President Biden.”

Student loan debt has become a major problem in the United States, where it isn’t uncommon for students to graduate from college with six-figure debts that they will spend decades paying off with interest. This debt affects a variety of decisions that college graduates make as young adults, from deciding whether or not to have kids to being able to buy a house. Some older Baby Boomers, according to common complaints from Millennials and members of Generation Z, fail to comprehend the severity of the problem — as they graduated from college at a time when tuition was much more affordable than it is now.

Journalists Tony Romm, Jeff Stein and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel take a look at GOP reactions to Biden’s student loan debt plan in an article published by the Washington Post on September 1, stressing that some of those Republicans are considering lawsuits.

“Republican state attorneys generaland other leading conservatives are quietly exploring a slew of potential lawsuits targeting President Biden’s plan to cancel some student debt — challenges that could limit or invalidate the policy before it takes full effect,” the Post reporters explain. “In recent days, a number of GOP attorneys general from states including Arizona, Missouri andTexas have met privately to discuss a strategy that could see multiple cases filed in different courts around the country, according to a person familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the confidential talks.”

Romm, Stein and Douglas-Gabriel continue, “Other influential conservatives — including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and allies of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank — are mulling their own options as they ratchet up criticism of Biden’s debt-relief plan, two additional people familiar with the matter said. And a conservative advocacy group founded by a major Trump donor said it would file a lawsuit against the policy.”

The Post interviewed John Malcolm, who serves as director of theHeritage Foundation’s Meese Center.The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973, has been around 49 years — and its Meese Center was named after Edwin Meese, who served as U.S. attorney general during President Ronald Reagan’s second term and is now 90.

Malcolm told the Post, “The conservative public interest law firms in our network are exploring filing lawsuits against this. They are doing background legal research, trying to find out who might be the most suitable clients for them. They have to find a client with the standing and the gumption to take on a lawsuit. There are several groups in our network who are exploring that right now.”

Biden’s plan would forgive up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt, or as much as $20,000 if the former student also received Pell Grants. Some liberals and progressives were hoping to see larger amounts of student loan debt forgiven, but the centrist Biden believes that $10,000 or $20,000 is a step in the right direction.

The Post interviewed some former college students who have a lot of student loan debt, and they were appalled that Republicans oppose even the modest amounts that Biden favors.

One of those interviewees was 31-year-old Ohio resident Michael Loomus, who dropped out of the University of Toledo and has been struggling to pay down the $11,400 that he owes. Loomus told the Post, “It just seems they are continuously trying to keep borrowers in debt. I don’t make a lot of money.… and before this, it just felt like I’d never pay off my loans.”

tex obs:

...Eschelman pitched in another $500,000 after a consultant told him True the Vote needed “additional short-term money for Bopp.” But Bopp, Engelbrecht, and Phillips had promised much and delivered little. “We were just not getting any data or proof,” a lobbyist for Eshelman later told the Washington Post. “We were looking at this and saying to ourselves, ‘This just is not adding up.’”

Disgusted, Eshelman filed suit, demanding a refund. The lawsuit, first filed in federal court, was withdrawn and then refiled in Texas, where a judge threw out the case, ruling that Eshelman did not have standing to sue in the state. The proper authority to investigate the case, the judge said, was theTexas attorney general’s office. Republican attorney general Ken Paxton—who’s been a guest on Engelbrecht’s podcast, has taken no action.

Or rather, the Attorney General’s office has chosen a different kind of action. On May 13th, before the official May 20th release date of 2000 Mules, Jonathan White, the Division Chief of the AG’s Election Integrity Division, sent out an email to his team, stating that Deputy AG Josh Reno had invited everyone on it to a screening of D’Souza’s “voter fraud documentary” the next evening. The event was free to all comers, along with a plus-one.General Paxton had a block of reservations, White continued, and would be present. “I think they would love to have a good showing from our office…” the head of AG’s Election Integrity Division wrote. The office hosted another screening on June 6, complete with a BBQ lunch.

Meanwhile, according to Reveal’s reporting, court records showed that Phillips’s voter analysis company, OPSEC Group LLC, continued to bill True the Vote after Eschelman broke ties, receiving another $400,000 for a project called Eyes on Georgia.

True the Vote’s tax returns, linked to in the Reveal exposé, have been “riddled with inconsistencies and have regularly been amended,” Jaramillo wrote. Her extensive investigation found that along with the handsome sums paid to Phillips’s various companies for their data analysis, True the Vote has made questionable loans to Engelbrecht, who received $113,396 in 2019 alone

an 7 22

"Ken Paxton seeks to dismiss state bar’s lawsuit against him over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election"was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to dismiss a professional misconduct lawsuit filed by the state bar against him related to his legal challenge of the 2020 presidential election, court documents show.

In a court filing June 27, Paxton asked a district court in Collin County to dismiss the Texas State Bar’s lawsuit. The state’s top lawyer, a Republican who is seeking a third term in office, said state bar investigators are biased and politically motivated against him.

After the 2020 election, Paxton filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn elections in battleground states where former President Donald Trump, a Paxton ally, had lost. The Supreme Court eventually dismissed the suit, saying that Texas had no standing to sue.

The suit against Paxton last year came after a group of 16 lawyers, including four former state bar presidents, filed an ethics complaint against Paxton arguing that he demonstrated a pattern of professional misconduct, including filing the suit challenging the results of the 2020 elections.

In the court filing, Paxton said the state bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline, which filed the suit, had no authority to “police the decisions of a duly elected, statewide constitutional officer of the executive branch.” Paxton also stood by his decision to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

Paxton did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._Pennsylvania

texas v. Pennsylvania, 592 U.S. _ (2020), was a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the administration of the 2020 presidential election in certain states, in which Joe Biden defeated incumbent Donald Trump.

Filed by Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton on December 8, 2020, under the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, Texas v. Pennsylvania alleged that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin violated the United States Constitution by changing election procedures through non-legislative means – thus violating the Independent state legislature theory. The suit sought to temporarily withhold the certified vote count from these four states prior to the Electoral College vote on December 14. The suit was filed after about 90 lawsuits arising from disputes over the election results filed by Trump and the Republican Party had failed in numerous state and federal courts.

The suit had been drafted by a team of lawyers with ties to the Trump presidential campaign. Paxton agreed to file the case after other state attorneys general declined to do so. The Solicitor General of Texas Kyle D. Hawkins objected to the suit and refused to let his name be added. Paxton hired Lawrence J. Joseph, who had helped draft the suit, as special counsel to assist with the suit.^[1]

Within one day of Texas's filing, Trump, over 100 Republican Representatives, and 18 Republican state attorneys general filed motions to support the case.^[2][3] Trump referred to this case as "the big one" of the election-challenging lawsuits.^[4]

Attorneys general for the defendant states, joined in briefs submitted by their counterparts from twenty other states, two territories, and the District of Columbia,^[5] urged the Court to refuse the case, with Pennsylvania's brief calling it a "seditious abuse of the judicial process".^[6] Legal experts argued that the case was not likely to be heard and not likely to succeed if it did get heard, and that it was thus a "Hail Mary" action.^[7][8][9]^

The Supreme Court issued orders on December 11, declining to hear the case on the basis thatTexas lacked standingunder Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.^[10][11]

Background

Main articles: Pre-election and Post-election lawsuits related to the 2020 United States presidential election

Several states changed their voting laws prior to the 2020 United States presidential election to make postal voting easier, due to fears that in-person voting would expose people to COVID-19. Numerous legal challenges to voting changes were raised across the country. A number of these cases involved voting regulations that were altered by states' executive branches and not by state legislatures. In Texas v. Pennsylvania, Texas claimed that such alterations violated Article Two of the United States Constitution.^[12]

The initial tallies of votes in the election, completed within the week of election day, showed that Joe Biden had won sufficient votes in the Electoral College to secure the presidency over incumbent Donald Trump.Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) launched numerous lawsuits against various swing states challenging their vote tallies, particularly in states that had voted for Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election but had turned to Biden in 2020, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia.

Most of these cases raised by Trump and the RNC have been dismissed on procedural grounds or rejected on substantive grounds in the courts, and in so being have not affected the projected Electoral College result.^[13] PolitiFact noted that the forces behind reversing the election had by this point "lost dozens of election lawsuits."^[14]

Before and after the election, Trump stated his expectation that the Supreme Court would determine the outcome. After the election, his legal team sought a path to bring a case before the Court, on which conservative justices—including three appointed by Trump—held a 6–3 majority.^[15]

Filings

...

amucus

Supporting plaintiff Texas

Attorneys general of seventeen additional states filed a joint brief on December 9 supporting Texas.^[33][19][34]

On the same day, Trump filed a motion to intervene in his personal capacity, thereby attempting to join the case as a plaintiff.^[35] Trump's brief was filed by Chapman University School of Law professor John C. Eastman, who in August 2020 authored an article published in Newsweek questioning Kamala Harris's eligibility for the position of vice president.^[36]

On social media, the president referred to the case as "the big one".^[37] Over 120 Republican members of the House of Representatives filed an amicus in support of the suit, including leader Kevin McCarthy and his deputy Steve Scalise.^[38][39][40] 106 members of the House initially signed on to the lawsuit in support of the plaintiff.^[41] 20 additional members of the House signed on to the lawsuit in support of the plaintiff before it was dismissed.^[42]

Later on December 10, attorneys general of six states that had already responded in an amicus brief, Arkansas, Utah, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and South Carolina, petitioned to the Supreme Court to let them join Texas as a plaintiff in the case.^[43] This effort was led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.^[43]

...

RAGA

list of 17 attorneys general supporting Texas

Lynn Fitch, Mississippi

Tim Fox, Montana

Curtis Hill, Indiana

Mike Hunter, Oklahoma

Jeff Landry, Louisiana

Steve Marshall, Alabama

Ashley Moody, Florida

Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia

Doug Peterson, Nebraska

Jason R. Ravnsborg, South Dakota

Sean D. Reyes, Utah

Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas

Derek Schmidt, Kansas

Eric S. Schmitt, Missouri

Herbert H. Slatery III, Tennessee

Wayne Stenehjem, North Dakota

Alan Wilson, South Carolina

...

Politics

In favor

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signaled his support for the case, saying the case "tries to accelerate the process, providing certainty and clarity about the entire election process. The United States of America needs that."^[23]

President Trump retweeted several tweets that expressed support for the suit.^[16] On December 9, he promised to intervene in the suit,^[55] and filed a motion to do so the same day,^[35][56][57] thereby attempting to join the case as a plaintiff. On December 10, he tweeted "the Supreme Court has a chance to save our Country from the greatest Election abuse in the history of the United States."^[58] On December 11 he tweeted, "I just want to stop the world from killing itself! ... Now that the Biden Administration will be a scandal plagued mess for years to come, it is much easier for the Supreme Court of the United States to follow the Constitution and do what everybody knows has to be done."^[4]

Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both involved in close runoff races in Georgia, voiced support for the suit.^[59] In a tweet, Republican Missouri attorney general Eric Schmitt stated his support for the suit, promising to "lead the effort in support of Texas's #SCOTUS filing today".^[60] On Twitter, Republican Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge stated she would legally support the motion.^[61] Republican Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry also supported the complaint.^[62]

In response to an email to every Republican member of the House of Representatives from Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, 125 Republicans joined him to sign an amicus briefsupporting the suit.^[63][64] The number represented a clear majority of the Republican caucus in the House.^[4] Politico referred to the large number of GOP House members supporting the suit as "jaw-dropping".^[65] Republican members of the Senate, on the other hand, were much less likely to speak in favor of the suit, reflecting their different temperaments and political imperatives.^[65]

Against

The office of Republican Georgia attorney general Chris Carr also criticized the suit and Paxton. On December 8, Carr's spokeswoman said that Paxton was "constitutionally, legally[,] and factually wrong about Georgia".^[49][24]Georgia's deputy secretary of state Jordan Fuchs denounced the suit as "false and irresponsible".^[18] Trump warned Carr to not rally other Republican officials in opposition to the suit, and the Republican majority in the Georgia State Senate expressed their approval for the filing.^[66][49][24]

Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticized the suit,labelling it a "publicity stunt ... beneath the dignity" of the Texas attorney general office and saying "[t]he erosion of confidence in our democratic system isn't attributable to the good people of Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia[,] or Pennsylvania but rather to partisan officials, like Mr. Paxton, who place loyalty to a person over loyalty to their country."^[16]

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul called the case "genuinely embarrassing".^[18] Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro stated that "[t]hese continued attacks on our fair and free election system are beyond meritless, beyond reckless—they are a scheme by the President of the United States and some in the Republican party to disregard the will of the people—and name their own victors."^[29]

Attorney and Lincoln Project founder George Conway called the lawsuit the "most insane thing yet".^[67] Former Federal Elections Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky said, "By almost any measure, this is the legal equivalent of a Hail Mary pass."^[8]

Chip Roy, a Republican Texas congressman and former chief of staff to Texas senator Ted Cruz, characterized the suit as "a dangerous violation of federalism [that] sets a precedent to have one state asking federal courts to police the voting procedures of other states".^[68] Republican Texas senator and former Texas Supreme Court justiceJohn Cornynsaid he was unable "to understand the legal theory" behind the suit.^[69]

Governor Gary Herbert and Governor-elect Spencer Cox of Utah, both Republicans, denounced Republican Utah state attorney general Sean Reyes's decision to join the amicus brief in support of the lawsuit.^[70] Several other states also saw division among Republicans about whether coming out in favor of the suit was wise.^[58] The Associated Press wrote that the action "has quickly become a conservative litmus test."^[58]

Michael Steele, formerly the chair of the Republican National Committee, called Republican House members' decision to join the suit "an offense to the Constitution" that would "leave[] an indelible stain" on their "political skin".^[71] Jeb Bush opined on the suit: "This is crazy. It will be killed on arrival".^[72]

Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins, who normally would speak on behalf of the state in matters before the Supreme Court, was not listed on the suit.^[43]

Statistical analysis

The lawsuit included a declaration from Charles Cicchetti, who claimed that his statistical analysis showed that there was a less than one-in-one-quadrillion chance of Biden's having won any of the states in question.Cicchetti's analysis was widely criticized,^[73] since it assumed that voters behaved the same in 2020 as they had in 2016^[74] and because it assumed that vote tallying patterns were random over time. In reality, Biden was a different candidate than Hillary Clinton had been in 2016, and the marked shift of early Republican vote counts to later Democratic votes counts had been anticipated well in advance, because several battleground states had forbidden mail-in ballots from being counted earlier; mail-in ballots favored Biden in part because Trump had long attempted to discredit the reliability of mail-in voting.^[6]

Writing at PolitiFact, Eric Litke described the analysis as "wildly illogical", citing professors of political science who described the analysis as "ludicrous" and "statistical incompetence", with one wrong assumption being that "votes are all independently and randomly distributed".^[75]

At The Volokh Conspiracy, David Postdescribed Cicchetti's analysis as "idiotic" because it was based on two blatantly false assumptions: (1) that voters' preferences had not changed since 2016, and (2) that party preferences did not differ between mail-in and in-person voters. Post stated that Paxton's use of Cicchetti's work was "unethical" because Paxton had not mentioned Cicchetti's key assumptions.^[76] At The Washington Post, Philip Bump said that the analysis in the lawsuit was "utterly ridiculous", noting that the 2016 results could not be extrapolated to 2020, because Biden was more popular than Clinton and because voters had become more polarized. Bump also wrote that vote-counting was not "homogeneous", with the "blue shift" phenomenon being entirely expected due to mail-in ballots favoring Biden.^[77]

Outcome

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Texas v. Pennsylvania et al.

On December 11, in an unsigned ruling, the court ruled that Texas lacked standing and denied the suit.^{[78][79][80][81}]

The State of Texas's motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.^[11][82]

Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, disagreed with the ruling denying leave to file a bill of complaint, but did not otherwise find for the plaintiffs. He wrote that the Court is duty-bound to hear the case, referencing Thomas's dissent in Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. _ (Feb. 24, 2020):

In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction ... I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.^[11]^

Aftermath

Texan Republican Party chairman Allen West (pictured in 2011) alluded to secession after the court's decision.

After the Court declined to hear the case, Allen West, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, suggested that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution".^[83]

The statement was criticized by Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger, saying the call for secession was dangerous. The Lincoln Project's George Conway and National Review editor Rich Lowry also criticized West's remarks, stating they were unrepresentative of the "Party of Lincoln".^[84]

President Trump harshly criticized the Court's decision, saying "This is a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. The people of the United States were cheated, and our Country disgraced. Never even given our day in Court!"^[85][86] White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany echoed the notion that the case was never given a chance, saying the justices "hid behind procedure ... There's no way to say it other than they dodged."^[87] Paxton, for his part, said the decision was "unfortunate".^[88]

The Biden campaign said of the ruling: "The Supreme Court has decisively and speedily rejected the latest of Donald Trump and his allies' attacks on the democratic process. This is no surprise—dozens of judges, election officials from both parties, and Trump's own attorney general have dismissed his baseless attempts to deny that he lost the election."^[89]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that "The Court has rightly dismissed out of hand the extreme, unlawful and undemocratic GOP lawsuit to overturn the will of millions of American voters." and admonished that "Republicans must once and for all end their election subversion—immediately." Additionally she reprimanded House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."^[90][91]

New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat Republicans who signed the amicus curiae brief supporting the suit. This proposal would have applied to nearly two-thirds of the Republican representatives of the incoming 117th United States Congress. Pascrell stated, "The text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."^[92]

Paxton3 Bak

'This is a war': Hochul joins blue-state push in brewing gerrymander arms race

'The matter is closed': NY county clerk shuts down Texas AG's attempt to punish doctor

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules in Media Matters’ favor on First Amendment grounds: Angelo Carusone statement

Key takeaways from the ruling:

Local Efforts to Protect Workers

Texas

Florida

Phoenix, Arizona

Conclusion...

Controlling elections

The “rabbit hole”

David Barton

Basic income experiments

States look to expand pilots

Key takeaways from the order:

Group supporting suspended TX AG Paxton gives $3 million to impeachment trial judge Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

Dubious Claims

Corporate Code of Silence ...

Reference

Background

Filings

Supporting plaintiff Texas

Politics

In favor

Against

Statistical analysis

Outcome

Aftermath

See also