Attorney General Ken Paxton
Texas today joined 10 other states in a lawsuit against the federal government to stop an Obama administration directive that requires all students — including transgender students — be protected and treated equally.
Not to be outdone by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick who got all the attention a couple of weeks ago for defending public bathrooms everywhere, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a press conference announcing that Texas is joining the plaintiffs in the suit, called the order from the administration “outside the bounds of the Constitution.”
“Our schools are now in the crosshairs of the Obama Administration, which maintains it will punish those schools who do not comply with its orders,” Paxton said in a written statement. “These schools are facing the potential loss of school funding simply for following common sense policies that protect their students.
“This represents just the latest example of the current administration’s attempts to accomplish by executive fiat what they couldn’t accomplish through the democratic process in Congress,” Paxton added. “By forcing his policies by executive action, President Obama excluded the voice of the people. We stand today to ensure those voices are heard.”
Paxton, who is facing federal civil charges and state criminal charges related to securities fraud, between the time he took office in January 2015 and November 2015, sued the federal government six times at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million (taxpayer) dollars. The first time he sued the feds was over the administration’s policy of extending spousal benefits to married same-sex federal employees.
And by the way, since President Obama was first elected in 2008, Paxton and his predecessor — now-Gov. Greg Abbott — have spent more than $5 million suing the federal government more than 39 times.
Resource Center issued this response to Texas participating in the lawsuit against the federal government:
Today’s lawsuit from Attorney General Paxton is a failure of Texas leadership on multiple levels. Rather than deal with the real problems the state faces and his ongoing legal woes, the attorney general is choosing to score political points by attacking and bullying the transgender children of Texas with the full backing of Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Patrick.
The U.S.Department of Education guidelines — based in sound legal precedent — are meant to protect all students across the nation, including those who are transgender, and to provide clarity for thousands of school districts who are seeking guidance. The Center worked with Dallas ISD to develop similar effective transgender protections approved by the DISD board in 2011.
According to the 2013 GLSEN National School Climate Survey of Texas schools, nearly six in ten LGBT students in Texas regularly heard negative remarks about their gender identity and more than one in ten were physically assaulted based on the way they expressed their gender. More than half of the students did not report the incidents to school personnel or family members. Does the leadership of Texas think transgender youth are unworthy of protections? The attorney general went to great lengths in his news conference to not answer that question.
Equality Texas also condemned the lawsuit. The statewide LGBT advocacy organization criticized Paxton and Patrick for having “already wasted millions of taxpayer dollars” and for discriminating “against their fellow Texans with taxpayer money and [depriving] thousands of Texans their dignity and respect in a losing effort opposing the freedom to marry. … Now in another lawsuit the attorney general has determined to waste millions more in an obviously futile attempt to prevent our transgender citizens, and in particular transgender kids, from being the most basic dignity in regard to basic bodily functions, despite the fact that the Fourth Circuit and various government agencies have made the law clear.”
Through this lawsuit, the Equality Texas statement said, “the attorney general will waste precious time and resources and millions of dollars to harm Texans who have done nothing wrong.” The statement also warned that Paxton and Patrick, with this “shameful animus towards the transgender community,” are “putting our economy at risk for personal political gain.”
James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and HIV Project, said the lawsuit is “an attack on transgender Americans, plain and simple. … The Supreme Court has made clear that one cannot sue an agency just because they disagree with the agency’s guidance. If these attorneys general disagree with the agency’s interpretation of what the federal ban on sex discrimination means, they can make that argument to the court when it arises in a real case. This lawsuit is a political stunt.”
Failed president candidate and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also weighed in on the lawsuit, siding — not surprisingly — with Paxton. Decrying the Obama Administration’s “unlawful transgender bathroom agenda,” Cruz said the guidance “has no basis in federal law, and it once again demonstrates that Obama is more devoted to radical social engineering than to the democratic process and the separation of powers.”
