While the attorneys general of 15 other states and the District of Columbia are suing the Trump administration for issuing executive orders that have allowed several health care providers to stop providing gender-affirming health care trans youth, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton continues his crusade to target transgender Texans for harassment, discrimination and harm while at the same time launching vicious partisan attacks against Democratic lawmakers and their supporters.
With Gov. Greg Abbott’s called special session set to end on Friday unless the Texas House manages a very unlikely quorum, Abbott and Paxton have targeted 13 Democrats to try and have them thrown out of office, a move that would eliminate some Democratic leaders but at the same time leave enough for the House to reach quorum. Watch for David Taffet’s story in the Aug. 15 issue of Dallas Voice.
Last week, Paxton sued Beto O’Rourke and his group Powered by People for allegedly acting deceptively to raise money and “illegally support” Democrats who left the state to break quorum in the House and stop the GOP’s efforts to pass wildly gerrymandered congressional district maps that would eliminate five Democratic seats in Congress. And today, Paxton announced that he is moving to have O’Rourke arrested and jailed for violating a court order that he stop his fundraising efforts.
Tarrant County District Judge Megan Fahey last week granted Paxton’s request for a temporary injunction blocking O’Rourke and his group from fundraising for the Democratic lawmakers. Now Paxton is insisting that O’Rourke violated that injunction at an Aug. 9 rally in Fort Worth when he told the crowd, “There are no refs in this game; fuck the rules.”
The Texas Tribune notes that video of the event indicates that O’Rourke was urging the crowd to support retaliatory redistricting in other blue states in response to Texas Republicans blatantly partisan efforts to pass racially-based redistricting maps here. But the Tribune also notes that Paxton cited several social media posts by O’Rourke in which O’Rourke said he was “still raising and rallying to stop the steal of five congressional seats in Texas,” and included a link to a donation platform.
Also according to the Tribune, Paxton says O’Rourke repeatedly urged the crowd to text “FIGHT” to a number that would automatically respond with a link to a donation platform.
In a press release issued through the Office of the Attorney General of Texas, Paxton insisted on referring to O’Rourke as “Robert Francis O’Rourke” rather than by “Beto,” the nickname he has been known by since childhood. That tracks with Republican claims that, in previous campaigns, O’Rourke used his nickname “Beto” to try and trick Latino voters into thinking he was Latino. In his most recent political campaign, O’Rourke ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Rafael Edward Cruz, who in his political career uses his nickname “Ted” to avoid sounding Latino.
Paxton’s actual legal name, by the way, is Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. Just in case you needed to know.
The OAG press release quotes Paxton as saying, “Robert Francis flagrantly and knowingly violated the court order I secured that prevents him from raising funds and distributing any more Beto Bribes. He’s about to find out that running your mouth and ignoring the rule of law has consequences in Texas. It’s time to lock him up.”
Paxton — who for several years, throughout his tenure as attorney general, faced federal charges of securities fraud, and who last year agreed to take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay restitution to those he was accused of defrauding to get those charges dismissed — also used an official OAG press release to harp on O’Rourke’s “criminal past.” O’Rourke was arrested in 1998, at the age of 26, for DWI in Anthony, Texas. And in 1995, he was one of three students arrested for “attempted criminal trespass” on the campus of UT El Paso.
Both of those charges were misdemeanors, and both were dismissed. O’Rourke has never been convicted of any crime and has willingly acknowledged and apologized for those incidents.
Paxton, by the way, has also been under investigation for abuse of power as OAG, and was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives on those charges in 2023. Allegations related to that investigation indicated that Paxton used the power of his office to get an Austin businessman to hire Paxton’s mistress. He is currently in the midst of a divorce from his wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, who said she was seeking the divorce “on biblical grounds” due to “recent discoveries.”
In addition, Paxton and his soon-to-be-ex-wife are currently being accused of tax evasion — including illegally collecting homestead property breaks on two homes, illegally declaring three homes as their primary residence in mortgage documents and violating mortgage terms by renting out at least two properties they had purchased as vacation homes.
— Tammye Nash