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      Texas Passes Bills Targeting Elections in Democratic Stronghold

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      The bills’ passage was the culmination of a Republican effort to increase oversight of voting in Harris County, which includes Houston.The LatestThe Texas Legislature gave final approval on Sunday to a new round of voting bills to increase penalties for illegal voting and expand state oversight of local elections specifically in Harris County, which includes Houston, where Democrats have become dominant.The measures, which now head to Gov. Greg Abbott to sign, include a bill that would upend elections in Houston a few months before the city’s mayoral race in November by forcing the county to change how it runs elections and return to a previous system.That bill, known as Senate Bill 1750, was crafted so that it applies only to Harris County. So was another bill, Senate Bill 1933, that would give broad new powers to the secretary of state, appointed by the governor, to direct how elections are run in the county if there are complaints and to petition a court to replace the top election officials when deemed necessary.Election workers organized paperwork from each polling location at NRG Arena in Houston, Texas, in November.Annie Mulligan for The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Harris County could tilt the power balance in Texas.Harris County, the state’s most populous county, has become a reliable Democratic stronghold.The passage of the bills marked the culmination of a monthslong effort by Texas Republicans to contest some of that dominance. They highlighted Election Day problems last November in Harris County as justification for challenging results that favored Democrats and call into question the way the Democratic-led county runs its elections.“It was a stated intention of some of the folks in the Legislature to take action against Harris County election administration,” said Daniel Griffith, the senior policy director at Secure Democracy USA, a nonpartisan organization focused on elections and voter access.Senate Bill 1750 eliminates the appointed position of elections administrator, which has been in place in Harris County only since late 2020. If the bill becomes law with the governor’s signature, the county must return to its previous system of running elections, in which the county clerk and the county tax collector-assessor split responsibilities. Both positions are currently occupied by elected Democrats.“The Legislature’s support for S.B. 1750 and S.B. 1933 is because Harris County is not too big to fail, but too big to ignore,” State Senator Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican and sponsor of several election bills, said in a statement. “The public’s trust in elections in Harris County must be restored.”Another bill, Senate Bill 1070, removes Texas from an interstate system for crosschecking voter registration information run by a nonprofit, the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. The system has been the target of conservative attacks in several states in part because it requires states using it to also conduct voter outreach when new voters move in from out of state. The Texas measure bars the state from entering into any crosschecking system that requires voter outreach.Yet another bill, House Bill 1243, increases the penalty for illegal voting from a misdemeanor to a felony.The measures that passed were opposed by Democratic representatives and voting rights groups. But advocates of greater access to the polls were relieved that other, more restrictive measures put forward and passed in the State Senate — including one that would have required voters to use their assigned polling place instead of being able to vote anywhere in the county, and another that would have created a system for the state to order new elections under certain circumstances in Harris County — failed in the Texas House.“Those haven’t moved and that’s definitely a good thing,” Mr. Griffith said.What’s Next: a lawsuit and a microscope on upcoming elections.The bills invite new scrutiny of elections, especially in Harris County, where officials would be expected to revamp their system just months before important elections.Under the new legislation, future complaints about the functioning of elections in the Democratic-run county could create the real possibility that the secretary of state, a former Republican state senator, could step in and oversee elections as early as next year, as the county votes for president.The bills, said Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston, “create more problems than they allegedly solve.”Top officials in Harris County have vowed to go to court to challenge both measures aimed at the county once the laws go into effect (Sept. 1, if the governor signs), meaning the fight over elections in the county remains far from over. More

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      Texas attorney general impeached by Republican-led House in historic vote

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      Texas’ Republican-led House of Representatives impeached state attorney general Ken Paxton on Saturday on articles including bribery and abuse of public trust, a historic rebuke of a GOP official who rose to be a star of the conservative legal movement despite years of scandal and alleged crimes.Impeachment triggers Paxton’s immediate suspension from office pending the outcome of a trial in the state Senate and empowers Republican governor Greg Abbott to appoint someone else as Texas’ top lawyer in the interim.The 121-23 vote constitutes an abrupt downfall for one of the Republican party’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the US supreme court to overturn president Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump. It makes Paxton only the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.Paxton, 60, decried the move moments after many members of his own party voted to impeach, and his office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.“The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,” Paxton said. “It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning,”Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial. His fellow Republicans had long taken a muted stance on the allegations, but that changed this week.“No one person should be above the law, least not the top law enforcement officer of the state of Texas,” David Spiller, a Republican member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said in opening statements. Another Republican committee member Charlie Geren said without elaborating that Paxton had called some lawmakers before the vote and threatened them with political “consequences”.Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that they had too little time to review evidence.“I perceive it could be political weaponization,” Tony Tinderholt, one of the House’s most conservative members, said before the vote.Paxton is automatically suspended from office pending the Senate trial. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Paxton’s wife, Angela, is a member.Representatives of the governor, who lauded Paxton while swearing him in for a third term in January, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on a temporary replacement.Before the vote on Saturday, Trump and senator Ted Cruz came to Paxton’s defense, with Cruz calling the impeachment process “a travesty” and saying the attorney general’s legal troubles should be left to the courts.“Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with impeachment, “I will fight you.” More

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      Impeachment proceedings against scandal-hit Texas attorney general begin

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      Texas’s Republican-led house of representatives launched historic impeachment proceedings against attorney general Ken Paxton on Saturday as the scandal-plagued lawyer called on supporters to protest a vote that could lead to his ouster and Donald Trump came to his defense.The house convened on Saturday afternoon to debate whether to impeach and suspend Paxton from office over allegations of bribery, abuse of public trust and that he is unfit for office. They’re just some of the accusations that have trailed Texas’s top lawyer for most of his three terms.In opening statements, the state congressman Charlie Geren, a member of the committee that investigated Paxton, said the attorney general had called lawmakers and threatened them with political “consequences”.As the charges against Paxton were read, some lawmakers shook their heads. Impeachment is expected to be debated for four hours, followed by closing remarks and the vote.The hearing could result in a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the Republican party’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the US supreme court to overturn president Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of Donald Trump. Only two officials in Texas’s nearly 200-year history have been impeached.Paxton, 60, has called the impeachment proceedings “political theater” and on Friday, he asked supporters “to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the Capitol tomorrow”.Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, though he has yet to stand trial.If impeached, Paxton would be removed from office pending a senate trial, and it would fall to the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, to appoint an interim replacement. Final removal would require a two-thirds vote in the senate, where Paxton’s wife’s, Angela, is a member.To Paxton’s detractors, the rebuke was years overdue.In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later he was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton’s office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but was soon fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.But what ultimately unleashed the impeachment push was Paxton’s relationship with the Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developer’s unproven claims that an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200m of his properties was afoot. The FBI searched Paul’s home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. Its bribery charges allege that Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general’s home.A senior lawyer for Paxton’s office, Chris Hilton, said on Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations. More

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      Texas attorney general calls for state capitol protests before impeachment vote – video

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      The Texas attorney general has called for his supporters to protest at the state capitol when Republicans in the House of Representatives take up historical impeachment proceedings against him. The state house has set a Saturday vote to consider impeaching Republican Ken Paxton and suspending him from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust. ‘I want to invite my fellow citizens and friends to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the capitol tomorrow,’ Paxton said at a news conference on Friday. The request echoes that of the former president Donald Trump for people to protest against his electoral defeat on 6 January 2021, when a mob violently stormed the US Capitol in Washington. More

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      Texas attorney general urges supporters to protest at capitol ahead of impeachment vote

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      The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has urged his supporters to protest at the state capitol when Republicans in the House of Representatives take up historic impeachment proceedings against him.The state House has set a Saturday vote to consider impeaching Paxton and suspending him from office over allegations of bribery, unfitness for office and abuse of public trust – just some of the accusations that have trailed him for most of his three terms.Paxton, a 60-year-old Republican, decried the impeachment proceedings as “political theater” that will “inflict lasting damage on the Texas House”, adding to his earlier claims that it was an effort to disfranchise the voters who returned him to office in November.“I want to invite my fellow citizens and friends to peacefully come let their voices be heard at the capitol tomorrow,” he said at a news conference, without taking any questions. “Exercise your right to petition your government.”The request echoes former president Donald Trump’s call for people to protest against his electoral defeat on 6 January 2021, when a mob violently stormed the US Capitol in Washington. Paxton, who spoke at the rally that preceded that insurrection, called his supporters to the Texas capitol on a day when the governor is supposed to deliver a Memorial Day address to lawmakers.If impeached, Paxton would be suspended from office immediately and the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, would appoint an interim replacement.The Republican-led committee spent months quietly investigating Paxton and recommended his impeachment on Thursday on 20 articles. Paxton has said the charges are based on “hearsay and gossip, parroting long-disproven claims”.As reported by the Texas Tribune, four investigators, testifying before the House general investigating committee on Wednesday, described in “painstaking and methodical detail” ways in which they said Paxton violated multiple state laws.Investigators said they believed Paxton wrongly spent official funds and misused his authority to help a friend and financial backer, the Tribune said.Prominent conservatives have been notably quiet on Paxton, but some began to rally around him on Friday. The chairman of the state Republican party, Matt Rinaldi, criticised the process as a “sham” and urged the Republican-controlled Senate to acquit Paxton if he stood trial in that chamber.“It is based on allegations already litigated by voters, led by a liberal speaker trying to undermine his conservative adversaries,” Rinaldi said, echoing Paxton’s criticism of Republican House speaker Dade Phelan. He said the Senate would have to “restore sanity and reason” by acquitting Paxton.It’s unclear how many supporters Paxton may have in the House, but only a simple majority is needed to impeach. That means just a small fraction of the 85 Republican members would need to vote against Paxton if all 64 Democrats do. Final removal would require two-thirds support in the Senate, where Paxton’s wife, Angela, is a member.The move to impeach Paxton sets up what could be a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the Republican party’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the US supreme court to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor. He was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, but has yet to stand trial.When the five-member committee’s investigation came to light on Tuesday, Paxton suggested it was a political attack by Phelan, calling for his resignation. Phelan’s office brushed this off as an attempt to “save face”. More

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      Texas panel hears allegations of years of misconduct by state attorney general

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      In a dramatic state hearing on Wednesday, the Republican attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, faced allegations of years of misconduct.As reported by the Texas Tribune, four investigators, testifying before the house general investigating committee, described in “painstaking and methodical detail” ways in which they said Paxton violated multiple state laws.Investigators said they believed Paxton wrongly spent official funds and misused his authority to help a friend and financial backer, the Tribune said.In response, Paxton maintained his innocence and vowed “to continue my fight for conservative Texas values”.Paxton was elected in 2014 and has won re-election twice. He has faced significant legal scrutiny before. In 2015, Paxton was indicted on securities fraud charges on which he is yet to stand trial. The US justice department is also investigating Paxton over alleged corruption, according to the Associated Press.In Texas, the state investigators initially looked into a possible $3.3m deal to settle a whistleblower complaint brought by four top deputies who were terminated after alleging Paxton pocketed bribes and engaged in other improper conduct.Andrew Murr, the committee chair, said the settlement would have to be allowed by the state. Murr also said a settlement would thwart a trial in which accusations against Paxton could be litigated publicly.Members of the committee asked whether legislators were being made part of a cover-up, the Tribune said.Murr said: “It is alarming and very serious having this discussion when millions of taxpayer dollars have been asked [for] to remedy what is alleged to be some wrong. That’s something we have to grapple with. It’s challenging.”While many accusations against Paxton were previously known, Wednesday’s hearing indicated the broad scope of investigations. The committee has extensive powers and can recommend punishment to the Texas house.Donna Cameron, one of the investigators, reportedly said some of Paxton’s alleged misconduct could constitute felony offenses including abuse of official capacity, misapplication of fiduciary property and misuse of public information.Investigators believe Paxton made top-level employees do tasks that helped his friend and donor, Nate Paul, a real-estate investor. Another allegation against Paxton is that he gave Paul an FBI dossier about an investigation into him, the Tribune reported.Paul did not immediately respond to a Guardian request for comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMaintaining his innocence, Paxton claimed a politically motivated effort to “sabotage my work”.“The false testimony of highly partisan Democrat [sic] lawyers with the goal of manipulation and misleading the public is reprehensible,” Paxton said on Twitter. “Every allegation is easily disproved, and I look forward to continuing my fight for conservative Texas values.”Paxton has long faced criticism and legal scrutiny. Recently, his investigation of gender-affirming care for youth prompted doctors at an adolescent medicine department in Austin to leave the facility en masse.Paxton alleged the investigation was needed because care children were receiving at Dell children’s clinic was illegal, due to their age.While gender-affirming care for minors is legal in Texas, Paxton and the rightwing governor, Greg Abbott, have described such treatment as child abuse and sought to punish providers and guardians through other legal avenues.Last summer, on the day Roe v Wade was overturned, Paxton issued a notice to encourage local prosecutors to swiftly bring criminal charges against Texans who help people obtain abortions.In February, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, barring several prosecutors from pursuing organizations that assist with out-of-state abortion care. More

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      Republican bill requiring display of Ten Commandments in Texas schools fails

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      Republicans in Texas failed to pass legislation that would have required the Ten Commandments to be prominently displayed in every public school classroom.The controversial bill, authored by the Republican state senator Phil King, would have required schools to display the Old Testament text “in a conspicuous place in each classroom”, in a durable poster or frame.Passed by the Texas senate last week, the bill failed in the house. But it represented another sign of just how far to the right the conservative-majority Texas legislature is willing to go.Civil rights groups condemned the bill as an assault on religious freedom and the separation of church and state guaranteed by the US constitution.In a statement, the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties of Union said: “Parents should be able to decide what religious materials their child should learn.”Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a non-profit advocacy group, told the New York Times: “Forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments is part of the Christian nationalist crusade to compel all of us to live by their beliefs.”The bill is far from the first attempt by far-right Texas lawmakers to embed Christianity in public education.In 2021, a Texas law came into effect requiring schools to display any donated “In God We Trust” signs, so long as they were in English.More recently, a bill was passed in the Texas legislature that would allow religious chaplains to act as school counselors as soon as the next school year.Another bill would allow public schools to observe a moment of prayer and hear a reading from a religious text, such as the Bible.In 2005, as Texas attorney general, the current Republican governor, Greg Abbott, won a case over attempts to display the Ten Commandments on a monument on the grounds of the state capitol building. More

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      ‘People were stunned’: Uvalde families’ Texas gun safety win lasts just 24 hours

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      Days after a deadly mass shooting in a Dallas suburb, families of another horrific killing gathered in the Texas capitol, demanding a change to the state’s famously lax gun laws.It had been nearly a year since a gunman shot 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, with police waiting more than an hour to confront and kill him. Those children’s parents and relatives hadn’t stopped lobbying Texas lawmakers for stricter gun control.And after eight others were killed at an Allen shopping mall on 7 May, the Uvalde families quickly descended to tell lawmakers to pass their number one priority: to raise the minimum age for Texans to purchase semi-automatic firearms from 18 to 21.They lined the hallways as lawmakers walked through to the House chamber, holding signs and loudly chanting “raise the age”, which in part is an allusion to the 18-year-old Uvalde shooter.“Had this bill been the law in the state of Texas one year ago, the gunman would not have been able to [buy] the semi-automatic weapon he used to murder our daughter,” Kimberly Mata-Rubio, whose daughter Lexi died at the Uvalde school, testified in a Texas house committee hearing. “Our hearts may be broken but our resolve has never been stronger.”But that resolve from the Uvalde families hasn’t coalesced into much legislative progress in the past year, stymied by a strong Republican-led legislature and like-minded governor who has doubled down on opposition to even simple gun control measures.“Disappointment isn’t a strong enough word with regard to the inaction from the legislature,” said Nicole Golden, executive director of Texas Gun Sense, which advocates for gun control laws in the state. “We’re still taking steps in those directions, knowing we’re not there yet.”At the White House, Joe Biden signed one bill into federal law a month after the Uvalde shooting, making some minor changes to congressional gun control measures. In Texas, more than 300 bills relating to firearms have been filed this spring. Few of them will pass. Those that do probably won’t significantly reduce access to guns in the state, and some may make them even more accessible.The federal response to the shooting in Uvalde – exactly one year ago on Wednesday – was swift. The president was quick to demand Congress pass extensive control measures like a ban on assault weapons. But while most Republicans continued to push against the need for stricter gun control, US senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, led negotiations to pass modest adjustments.The law closed a “boyfriend loophole” to regulations banning people who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes from owning a firearm. Previously, the ban only prohibited spouses, or partners who live together or share a child. The new law expands that definition to include dating partners.Its passage was a major milestone for gun control advocates. Congress had not passed any similar gun control measures in nearly 30 years.“At a time when it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential,” Biden said when signing it into law.Since then, there have been more than 650 mass shootings in the United States, according to the non-partisan Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are killed or wounded.After many of them, Biden has re-upped calls for an assault weapons ban and other stricter gun control measures. He’s called the lack of response from Republicans “outrageous and unacceptable”.Much of that inaction is driven in part by Texas lawmakers. Especially on the state level, there has been little to no remedy for mass shootings besides tangential promises of better mental healthcare and other stopgap measures.The Texas state legislature only meets for five months every other year, so this spring lobbyists supporting gun control or, on the contrary, wider access to firearms descended on the capitol in Austin.Many of the measures, including red flag laws, community violence intervention measures, background check requirements and raising the minimum age to own a firearm, have stalled in the Texas capitol.Golden said the legislature did agree to allocate $500,000 over the next two years for the Keep ’Em Safe Texas campaign, which teaches gun owners about proper safe storage of firearms. Golden said proper storage helps stop suicides, homicides and mass shootings like the one five years ago at a Santa Fe, Texas, high school.On major measures, even the most recent mass shooting in the state, which killed eight people including three children in Allen, didn’t seem to sway Texas Republicans.But that shooting did move the needle for one bill in Austin.House Bill 2744, which would raise the age to buy semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21, had stalled in a chamber committee. Two days after the Allen shooting, the bill faced a deadline to be approved by the committee or fail there. Few expected it to move to the full house.After the Uvalde families packed the state capitol, chanting “raise the age” as lawmakers walked to the house floor, the house select committee on community safety quickly called a meeting.The committee voted 8-5 to approve the measure, with two Republicans in support. The room, full of Uvalde families, burst into applause. Some sobbed.“We see so much tragedy with kids getting shot at school. This is a small change we can make to give a lot of people peace of mind and keep kids safe,” Republican Sam Harless, who joined Democrats to advance the bill, told the Dallas Morning News. “I did not come to the legislature to take easy votes.”Golden said the vote was a major milestone for Texas gun policy.“It’s unprecedented at the capitol in general. People were stunned,” Golden said. “I don’t ever want to take away from that.”That win for gun control advocates was short-lived, however.The next day, it failed to meet another critical deadline and was not scheduled for a vote from the full house. Democrats say they will still push for the measure, but it’s unlikely to be approved.“The highs and lows in a matter of a couple days was overwhelming,” Golden said. “You have to take every single step forward and celebrate it and acknowledge it.” More