Who’s to blame for this failed Texas Legislature? Dan Patrick, not Dairy Queen | Opinion
Drag queens lost.
Dairy Queen won big.
That’s the nutshell version of this Texas Legislature.
Technically, this session ended Monday. But that was only on paper.
The House and Senate showed up Tuesday like any work day, returning to their desks to finish the work they couldn’t finish on time because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick kept saying no.
No teacher pay raises without giving state money for private schools.
No reducing businesses’ property taxes, he said. He had his own idea: Give all the tax savings solely to homeowners. (As in voters.)
No, no, no, Patrick said. The House gave in to him over and over — particularly on a wild Senate Bill 12.
The bill restricts audiences to age 18 and over for “sexual gesticulations using accessories or prosthetics” that exaggerate the anatomy.
Of course, in Texas you don’t have to be 18 to gesticulate.
This was Senate and House conferees’ clumsy attempt to ban anyone under 18 from drag or burlesque shows by expanding the overall definition of a sexy performance.
It turned into quite a high-heeled walk down a legal tightrope between stage acts, dance moves, costumes and sexually charged adult shows.
One big winner was a longtime Texas icon making a comeback after years of decline: Dairy Queen.
When the House General Investigating Committee recommended impeaching Attorney General Ken Paxton of McKinney, the report quoted 2016 federal testimony showing that a tech company CEO paid Paxton $100,000 in stock shares.
The shares were handed over at — of all places — a McKinney Dairy Queen.
Paxton said he offered to pay, but the CEO said, “God doesn’t want me to take your money.”
Heaven forbid Paxton should upset God.
So he took it.
That left us all asking:
If Paxton can get $100,000 in shares just by going to the Dairy Queen — then why doesn’t he go a few more times and get the $3.3 million to pay off the lawsuit by all the top assistants he fired for turning him in?
If people think there’s $100,000 to be had at Dairy Queen, then Texas is going to sell a lot more Blizzards.
Paxton will have plenty of time for Dilly Bars now. His Senate impeachment trial will probably start in August.
According to investigators, that wasn’t the only combo deal for the DQ Dude.
They could have impeached him years ago. But now, they’ve waited until they have a laundry list of 20 egregious examples of crummy conduct.
He not only chased away his top assistants — all fellow conservatives — when they tried to report him. In one of the more shameless moves ever by an Austin politician, he also came to the House and Senate claiming the $3.3 million bill should be on the taxpayers’ tab.
And that’s not even mentioning the investigators’ findings about Paxton’s recurring extramarital affair with a former Senate aide in the San Antonio area, or his entanglements with an Austin developer, or his harassment of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Read the report yourself. If even half the 20 articles are true, it’s outrageous behavior for any state official, much less for the leader of the state’s law firm.
How’s that DQ slogan go?
That’s what I like about Texas.
This story was originally published May 30, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
