Texas may strike down Ken Paxton and find him more powerful than ever

The general attitude among Texas Republicans toward the impeachment report prepared against Attorney General Ken Paxton is that they didn’t just already know some of it — they knew all of it.

Paxton is the most Trumpian figure in statewide politics in Texas. He is widely known for his ethics problems and all manner of lawsuits and investigations, but he is also a reliable transactional conservative — the sort to ask the conservative base, “is this the thing you want? Then I’ll do it, with gusto.” But his current travails, where he faces the real risk of impeachment for a litany of breaches, deceptions and inappropriate donations, are actually part of a broader, long-simmering war between Texas donor bases whose priorities often clash in Austin. Does he deserve to be impeached and removed? Maybe he does! But why is it happening in the final three days of the session in Texas?

The Bryan Slaton scandal is a trigger here. Slaton, a loudly socially conservative House member who was expelled for getting a nineteen-year-old intern drunk and having sex with her, was supported by some of the same financial backers who back Paxton. Did he deserve to be expelled? Of course. But the fact that he was kicked out rankled conservative supporters who viewed it as a shot across the bow from House Speaker Dade Phelan. Phelan is a moderate Republican whose priorities are maintaining power and kicking dirt in the face of what he views as the crazy wing of his party. In Texas, it’s fair to say that “crazy” wing is also known as “the base.”

Since ascending to the speakership in 2021, Phelan has been a giant disappointment to conservatives in Texas, who hoped the malleable east Texan would move on multiple legislative reforms. Instead, he’s turned out to be a Mitt Romneyish figure who doesn’t care about moving the state in a proactively conservative direction. The Senate priorities on universal school choice, property taxes, and ramping up border enforcement are all things Phelan doesn’t want to push through the House.

So what do you do if you don’t want to vote on any of those issues in the final days of a legislative session? Well, you impeach the Attorney General of Texas. 

Phelan felt serious heat from the mutual backers of Slaton and Paxton from west Texas and decided that the best course of action was to turn up that heat. To dodge the priorities of the more conservative Senate and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Phelan decided to choose a target where the media, both local and national, would be on his side. 

Where Phelan could be miscalculating is that by lumping all of Paxton’s sins together to pursue this course, he’s creating a divisive primary issue for every single Republican member. Their desire to dodge the Senate’s conservative priorities is real — but is it worth it to impeach a popular conservative with well-heeled backers? If they vote for impeachment, the conservative base will come after them, and those same west Texans will fund their primary challengers. If he’s overplayed his hand, Phelan may end up losing his speakership due to the resentment over forcing such a vote on his fellow Republicans.

Whatever you think of Ken Paxton, he is a cunning politician. Having denounced his critics as RINOs and traitors, and Phelan as a drunk, he seems to be calculating based on Trumpian assumption that yes, the House will impeach him — but then he intends to fight like hell in the Senate, where he can escape conviction.

There are all sorts of historically unprecedented wrinkles here. Paxton’s wife serves in the Senate, and she is under no obligation to recuse herself. In Texas, impeachment means that Governor Abbott has to pick somebody to be acting AG until the trial is resolved — and he could well pick a Senator for that role. While multiple Republicans endorsed Paxton’s opponents in the last cycle, they may not want to take that role or go along with a risky vote. At the same time, they know that if Paxton does find a way to weasel out of this and return to his job, he will make everyone’s life a living hell. In the Texas system the Attorney General exercises outsized power, and he’ll come gunning for House members out of vengeance and then probably try to use his teflon status to run for higher office.

For almost a quarter century, the Republican Party has totally controlled Texas. While it’s transformed the state in many ways, the party has also grown fat and happy, bloated and lackadaisical, slouching into a lazy, nepotistic apparatus as easily as a worn leather chair in a cigar bar where the waitresses wear skirts that are just an extra inch too short. Paxton’s existence is a ramification of that — and so is the mess that Texas Republicans have on their hands today.