It’s been a heck of a week for Texans fed up with the antics of our criminally indicted, philandering Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. In an unprecedented bipartisan move, a nearly equal match of Republicans and Democrats in the Texas House overwhelmingly voted to impeach Paxton over Memorial Day weekend, putting our state in the unusual position of making national news for doing something eminently reasonable (though way, way overdue). Paxton, whose impeachment documents include 20 articles concerning everything from bribery to conspiracy to obstructing justice, now awaits trial in the Texas Senate, where his wife will be among the lawmakers voting on the future of his career.
I hesitate to call a situation as messy and embarrassing as this one hopeful, but when it comes to Texas politics, the bar has historically been set lower than the deepest offshore drilling operation. We have to take our wins where we can get them. Whether state Republicans consider Paxton a genuine threat to the remaining shreds of their party’s integrity or simply want to end a public relations nightmare, for once they’re actually doing the right thing for all Texans. And the implications for the nation writ large are massive.
Texans already know the lengths to which Republicans will go and have gone to block left-leaning voters from casting ballots.
The potential for Paxton’s impeachment, and the resultant GOP infighting, to shake up the party’s stronghold on Texas is real. Following Paxton’s impeachment, a 2021 interview he gave to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon began making the rounds anew on social media. In it, Paxton brags that, but for his successful suppression of votes in reliably Democratic Harris County in 2020, Texas would have turned for Biden, and “Donald Trump would’ve lost the election.”
Texans already know — practically better than anyone else — the lengths to which Republicans will go and have gone to block left-leaning voters from…
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