[While Paxton burns—or simmers or escapes entirely—intra-party
fighting and dirty laundry airing be damned, the USA’s largest,
richest, and most powerful wing of the GOP have screwed Texas on such
a large, systemic scale that theyll still prevail.]
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PAXTON IS BURNING  
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Nancy Goldstein
May 28, 2023
Texas Observer
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_ While Paxton burns—or simmers or escapes entirely—intra-party
fighting and dirty laundry airing be damned, the USA’s largest,
richest, and most powerful wing of the GOP have screwed Texas on such
a large, systemic scale that they'll still prevail. _

,

 

Was yesterday’s performance by the Texas House of Representatives
intended to restore public faith in the body’s commitment to the
rule of law? Separate the good cops in the GOP from the bad cops? Or
prove that a legislature that spent a year cravenly ignoring the pleas
of Uvalde victims’ relatives for common-sense gun safety laws before
rejecting them outright while rushing through an attempt to put the
Ten Commandments in every classroom isn’t really the 10th circle of
hell? If so, the hearing leading up to a 121-23 vote to impeach
Attorney General Ken Paxton for corruption was an epic fail.

What the public saw—regardless of the lawmakers’ intentions—was
the eruption of fissures that have more to do with pride and power
than justice. It was a cross between the state’s largest intra-party
catfight and its most public self-inflicted gunshot wound, as the bad
blood between Paxton and Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who serve as
proxies for Trump and Republicans trying to distance themselves from
Trump in advance of next year’s elections, finally spilled out into
the open.

The lineup featured, on the one hand, GOP representatives who suddenly
had a lot of worries about “due process,” “precedent,” and
“evidence” that had not been evident while banning abortion
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stripping transgender youth and their families of access to
healthcare. Or during the next day’s vote, when the GOP ended their
regular legislative session by singling out Houston, with its sizable
Black population, for a different election process than the rest of
the state. The thinly veiled voter suppression measure gives the
secretary of state under certain conditions the power to run
elections in Harris County
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home to Houston and 4.8 million residents. It follows
a bill approved days earlier
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shifts the oversight of elections from its appointed elections
administrator to the county clerk and county assessor.

The opposition to the allegedly process-and-fairness-obsessed wing of
the GOP  were those GOP colleagues
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solemnly intoned about what appears to be their newly discovered
“obligation to protect the citizens of Texas from elected officials
who abuse their office and their powers for personal gain.”
Notwithstanding _their_ shared enthusiasm for consolidating power
both by passing voter suppression laws and by riling up their base
through culture war moves like banning abortion and stripping
transgender youth and their families of access to healthcare and human
rights.

Various media outlets, and a few of Paxton’s defenders, have made
much of the lightning speed of this past week. But while it may have
been mere days between the Republican-led House General Investigating
Committee’s announcement of their investigation and their unanimous
vote to introduce 20 articles of impeachment to the full House for
Saturday’s hearing and impeachment vote, Paxton has been under
felony indictment for securities fraud since he became attorney
general in 2015. The FBI had been investigating Paxton on allegations
that he used his office to benefit a wealthy donor
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Nate Paul, since late 2020. Only in February of this year did the
Department of Justice take over that probe
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breathing new life into it.

Paxton’s overreach the next month, in March of this year, appears to
have been the second-to-last straw. According to the
committee’s own memo
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released the day before the full House hearing: “But for Paxton’s
own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful
conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment.” Not, please note,
the wrongful conduct—that is, Paxton’s firing of four
whistleblowing members of his own senior staff after they accused him
of using his office to help out Paul. Nor Paxton’s decision this
past spring to pay $3.3 million to settle out of court. Or even the
$600,000 the House spent defending Paxton. But Paxton’s request that
taxpayers pay that $3.3 million—and that his fellow GOP
colleagues go on record approving that request
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The final straw? Paxton, likely knowing that Phelan was going to try
to gloss this most recent disgusting legislative term by ending it on
a high note, called on him to resign
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week over alleged drunkenness—via a tweet. Making it look
super-extra-duper political when the House General Investigating
Committee revealed that afternoon that it had been investigating
Paxton in secret since March. The committee then heard a three-hour
presentation from its investigators detailing allegations of
corruption
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the attorney general and voted to forward 20 articles of impeachment
to the full House.

Believe me when I say that I, like many people who have been burned by
the Texas GOP’s seemingly endless appetite for cruelty, ignorance,
and hypocrisy, felt a certain satisfaction as I watched yesterday’s
coverage of it setting itself on fire. Top moment? When the first
group to appear outside the Capitol in Austin
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response to Paxton’s call for supporters to turn out was around 100
people preparing for the “Trot for Trans Lives,” a 5K run held in
support of transgender Americans affected by the waves of anti-trans
rights legislation passed in recent years, including by Texas
lawmakers. 

Small pleasures aside, none of this is as satisfying as it sounds, nor
do I think it will end well. Not considering all the bureaucracy that
lies ahead. Governor Greg Abbott, who has remained curiously silent
this past week while he sticks his finger into the political wind, has
10 days to tell the Senate to start a trial. A trial that would be
presided over by Paxton buddy arch-conservative Lieutenant Governor
Dan Patrick, and that’s likely to be kicked down the road infinitely
and/or end with an acquittal.

But the bottom line: While Paxton burns—or simmers or escapes
entirely—and intra-party fighting and dirty laundry airing be
damned, the members of the USA’s largest, richest, and most powerful
wing of the GOP have screwed Texas on such a large, systemic level
that they’ll still prevail. In the state, through control of both
chambers and the governor’s seat, held in place by voter suppression
and gerrymandering. Nationally, with courts packed with ideologues,
including a Supreme Court that has already demonstrated its
willingness to let Texas gut constitutional rights, overturn
precedent, and play an enthusiastic role in the new national sport:
playing on whatever field offers your agenda the best advantage. That
means valorizing states’ rights when it’s convenient, or passing
the ball to the Supreme Court if a federal ban looks more likely or
appealing. 

Call this, with apologies to Taylor Swift, the “Errors Tour” or,
in a nod to the Ziegfeld Follies, “Hypocrisy on Parade.” Or
let’s go “Paris is Burning” and give the representatives a
Realness Award for their impersonation of legislators who seriously
care about integrity, democracy, and the will of voters.

But whatever you do, don’t hold your breath waiting for justice.

[Enjoy this story? Want to support the writer? We are a journalism
non-profit that relies on readers—not corporations or special
interests—so we can always tell the unvarnished truth. Help us keep
up the fight for Texas by donating to our tip jar.]
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NANCY GOLDSTEIN
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about politics and culture for _The American Prospect_, _The
Guardian_, _The Nation_, and _The Washington Post_. A New Yorker for
the past few decades, she is currently spending as much time as
possible in the Mediterranean.

 

* Ken Paxton
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* texas
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* Republican Party
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