Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was removed from office on Saturday. Many of the members of the Texas House who voted to impeach him were Republicans themselves. The poll reveals a sharper divide between the far-right and moderate wings of the GOP. Loading Loading something.
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After eight years of surrounding himself with controversy but never getting into trouble, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general closely tied to the MAGA movement, was swiftly ousted on Saturday.
On Wednesday, a Texas House investigative committee revealed it had been looking into Paxton’s dealings with political donor Nate Paul, from a letter of complaint from 2020 — and accused the attorney general of criminal conduct. The next day, the committee investigating it presented 20 articles of impeachmentalleging that Paxton had engaged in bribery, obstruction of justice, false statements in official records and more while in office.
On Saturday, Paxton, a mainstay of Texas right-wing politics for more than two decades, was suspended from office after a historic 121-23 vote to approve all 20 articles of impeachment.
The the attorney general’s office called the vote “irresponsible, baseless and illegal impeachment”, maintaining that all his actions in office were lawful and that he never gave Paul special treatment.
For some, impeachment seemed long overdue. Paxton has faced criminal charges of securities fraud and multiple investigations since he was sworn in Attorney General’s Office in 2015.
“An embarrassment to the state”
While Paxton’s timing may surprise some, Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, told Insider that the Trump-loving attorney general, who moderates might consider “excessive on socially conservative issues” had not been popular with some Republicans. for quite some time. All they needed was the perfect opportunity.
“They were tolerating him, but also thinking of him as an embarrassment to the state and to the Republican Party in the state … And so I think this was an opportunity to get this guy out of the state scene and to further limit the embarrassment,” Jillson told Insider.
The opportunity arose, Jillson said, when Paxton, who owed four former employees $3.3 million as part of a whistleblower lawsuit. after he fired some of them for speaking outfiled with the Texas House Appropriations subcommittee in February for increase the budget of the general prosecutor’s office to pay the settlement.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a moderate Republican who later helped impeach Paxton, spoke out against it, calling it a misuse of taxpayers’ money. The funding request prompted the investigation into Paxton’s allegations, a spokesman said he told the New York Times.
Jillson also noted that the overwhelming majority to impeach Paxton, even in a Republican-dominated House with members who have previously supported him, suggested that the years of criminal allegations had become a focal point for many members
“That suggests to me that the vote was not really about the debate or the transcript that the investigative committee provided to the members, but it was about what all the members have observed over the last eight or nine years in terms of to Ken Paxton’s political and personal behavior.” Jillson said.
However, he says morality was probably not at stake. For Texas House Republicans, it was more about strategy.
“It’s not that morality doesn’t sometimes rear its head in politics, but it’s rare that it drives events,” Jillson said. “But when events make the moral element of a question unavoidable, there is a rush to declare that you have always felt deeply troubled by such behavior.”
GOP moderates and radicals on the national stage
Jillson noted that the conflict between the party’s more radical elements and moderates in Texas has been evolving over the past decade, inaugurated by the Tea Party in 2010. The divide is evident, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. , also close to former President Donald Trump, has become “increasingly and visibly dismissive” of Phelan.
It’s also evident in policy disagreements, from property taxes to public funding for private school education, The New York Times noted.
This conflict among Republicans in Texas reflects a national struggle among Republicans that rarely, if ever, plays out the way it did in Texas, Jillson said.
Jillson pointed to multiple disputes between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus, a far-right wing in the House, over everything from who should be speaker to the recent ceiling negotiations of the debt, where Republican lawmakers accused McCarthy of “shelling out.” engaging with President Joe Biden.
But unlike Texas Republicans, less far-right GOP members like McCarthy don’t have a majority to choose from, since the only nine-seat advantage means that to get things done, Republicans must keep – get together
“McCarthy is very vulnerable and therefore even more reluctant than the Republican majority in Texas to go against one of their own members,” Jillson said.
A representative for Paxton did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
