Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) would gain the right to investigate elections in Democratic districts under a new bill passed by the Texas Senate on Tuesday.
H.B. 5138 now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) desk, where it joins H.B. 45, which gives Paxton broad new powers to fight “human trafficking.”
Put together, the new bills would give his office the ability to investigate alleged trafficking or election fraud in any jurisdictions — regardless of the wishes of local communities or the elected district or county attorney.
Paxton has long used allegations of human trafficking to target nonprofit groups that provide aid to recent migrants.
If Abbott signs the elections bill, Paxton — who has announced his intentions to primary incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R) next year — would get new powers to prosecute alleged election crimes anywhere in the state, something state courts have denied him.
In 2021, the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) ruled that Paxton could only get involved in local elections if asked to by a district or county attorney, as The Texas Tribune reported, a ruling that Abbott explicitly criticized last year.
That CCA ruling created a structural problem, however, for the faction of Texas Republicans, including Paxton, that has long insisted that election fraud is rife in Texas’ Democrat-run jurisdictions.
That didn't stop Paxton’s office from raiding Democratic activists — and the candidate herself — during last year's race for a tightly contested state House district after the Democratic incumbent stepped down.
The Republican in that race, former Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin, ultimately won in a campaign that cited Paxton’s investigation into his opponent, Cecilia Castellanos, as evidence of her malfeasance.
Up until Tuesday’s bill passage, however, the attorney general’s ability to investigate local candidates like Castellanos was limited to those jurisdictions where he could find a district or county attorney to partner with — a requirement that HB 5138 would free him of.
Paxton has long conflated migration and election fraud.
In one notable case from last year’s election, Paxton insisted Democrats had secret plans to “illegally register noncitizens to vote in our elections,” a claim that originated in a friend-of-a-friend story on Fox News that local Republican county officials later debunked.
Democrats’ plan was to “tell the cartels, ‘Get people here as fast as possible, as many as possible, we’re not going to make them hide anymore — we’ll get them placed in the right states,’” Paxton told conservative talk show host Glenn Beck last year. “They want to fix the election so that we have a one-party country that we can’t fix.”
During last year’s election, Paxton also sued Bexar and Harris Counties, two of the state’s largest Democratic strongholds, for voter registration drive which he claimed aimed to register noncitizens to vote.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Texas AG Paxton would get expanded powers to target elections under new law )
Also on site :
- Legendary Hard Rock Band Racks Up the Heavy Metal as Iconic Album Hits Sales of 20 Million
- EU says Israeli strikes in Gaza 'go beyond what is necessary' to fight Hamas
- 7UP Confirms Return of Limited-Edition Flavor That Once Flew Off Shelves