GOP State Reps Pour Fuel into Paxton Fight
as Issue Most Colleagues Would Rather Avoid
Capitol Inside January 22, 2024
Several high-ranking Texas House Republicans sought to give the appearance of a belated victory last week in a war against Attorney General Ken Paxton - claiming that he'd all but admitted his guilt with a legal ploy that he hatched in an attempt to dodge a deposition in a whistleblower lawsuit that spawned his attempted impeachment in 2023.
State Rep. Andrew Murr - a Junction Republican who spearheaded the Paxton impeachment probe last spring - said in a statement on Thursday that the AG maneuver in the whistleblower suit represented a "stark and undeniable confirmation" of the "grave concerns" that House leaders shared on the state's top lawyer.
“Mr. Paxton, in a move that speaks volumes, has dropped all pretense of innocence," Murr asserted. "He's admitted to what many in the Texas House have known in our hearts to be true: he flagrantly broke the law, violated the Whistleblower Act and betrayed the trust placed in him by retaliating against his own team, those who bravely reported his illegal actions."
Paxton actually confessed to nothing when his office announced that he would not contest an attempt by four former employees to revive a settlement that GOP leaders in the Legislature's lower chamber refused to fund and transformed into a stage for the impeachment instead. The move appeared to be an unsuccessful bluff, however, when a judge on the following day ordered Paxton to answer questions from the whistleblower lawyers on February 1.
GOP State Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano fired the first shot last week when he portrayed Paxton as a crime boss in an interview on the Spectrum News show Capitol Tonight. "I have no regrets whatsoever," he said. "I believed with all of my heart in May when I voted for impeachment that General Paxton was corrupt. Now, several months later, I believe without question, he's a sophisticated criminal."
Republican State Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco said the AG's attempt to avoid the deposition was tantamount to a "total vindication" for 60 GOP representatives who voted to impeach in the spring.
"I am proud of the whistleblowers and of my House colleagues, especially Chairman Murr, for having the courage to seek the truth and for protecting the integrity of our state government," Patterson said in a post on X. "We have all been vindicated today."
Patterson predicted on Sunday that GOP Speaker Dade Phelan would win a third term "without a doubt" in the speaker's election at the start of the regular session next year. "That's the least of our concerns," Patterson said in an interview on the Fox affiliate in Dallas. Patterson ticked off a list of conservative measures that the House has approved with Phelan at the helm.
"I'll ride with that team that's securing the border, that's cutting property taxes, that's saving children from these woke drag shows and pornography in our schools," Patterson contended. "I'll ride with a team that's doing that and accomplishing that over the grifters that are just out to make money."
Patterson had been a top target on the Paxton impeachment revenge tour until a challenger who the attorney general had endorsed dropped out of the race right before the filing deadline in December. Paxton had been taking aim at Murr as well before the General Investigating Committee chairman and leader of the House impeachment managers pulled the plug on his re-election campaign abruptly after the AG's acquittal in the Senate.
But Leach declined to cut and run like Murr - and he's ranked second only to the speaker on the Capitol Inside list of Texas Races to Watch with House Republicans on the defensive in the March 5 primary election. Allen Republican Daren Meis, who's challenging Leach in House District 67, saw the impeachment in a different light in the Spectrum News story.
“There was no sworn testimony," Meis said. "There was quadruple hearsay on the House floor. It was a botched process and when you try to circumvent and overthrow the will of more than 4.2 million Texas voters, people aren’t going to sit back and allow that to happen, including myself."
more to come ...
A conservative Texas House is bad for business when your business is convincing people the Texas House isn’t conservative. #txlegehttps://t.co/snl3junTpu
“Mr. Paxton, in a move that speaks volumes, has dropped all pretense of innocence. He's admitted to what many in the Texas House have known in our hearts to be true: he flagrantly broke the law, violated the Whistleblower Act and betrayed the trust placed in him by retaliating… pic.twitter.com/FReJARpeE5
