On this issue, Ken Paxton is the clear progressive in Texas Senate race | Opinion
It’s almost graduation season, and Ken Paxton seems like he’s really into it.
Wrapping up his 12th and final year as Texas attorney general, Paxton is like that senior who coasted for too long and is now scrambling for makeup work and extra credit as he hopes to finally walk the stage and advance, in his case to the U.S. Senate. Nearly every day brings news from his office of a new lawsuit, settlement or sneering threat to some public entity or private company about the way Paxton wants things done.
The cumulative effect is a smoke screen designed to obscure the decade of mismanagement, absenteeism, personal abuse of power and poor leadership that has damaged any number of cases and causes. It’s also the kind of arm-twisting befitting the mafia more than state government. Paxton, facing a May 26 runoff with incumbent John Cornyn for the Republican Senate nomination, will bluster, intimidate and threaten almost anyone to get the headline he wants.
The ultra-conservative voters who have carried him for so long used to hate this kind of thing — and many still do, when it’s an attempt by liberals to dictate what kind of car you drive, stove you use or how much meat you can eat.
But when it’s something like Paxton threatening Lululemon over possible “forever chemicals” in the company’s overpriced activewear, far-right voters can’t get enough state-power crusading.
In April alone, Paxton has bragged about taking Houston leaders to court over what he deemed “sanctuary city” policies on immigration; taken credit for a multi-state consortium’s victory over concert ticket vendor Live Nation; crowed about doing legal work on behalf of conservative media outlets; and taken on the scourge of solar panel businesses.
Paxton uses tactics that Republicans have mocked when plaintiffs’ attorneys go after an industry or company. In the Lululemon announcement, the AG’s office says the action is based on “emerging research and consumer concerns [that] have raised questions about the potential presence” of dangerous chemicals.
“Emerging.” “Potential.” In the legal world, those are synonyms for gone fishin’.
When Paxton presses cities, you pay the bill — twice
He’s costing you money, too. Paxton demanded that more than 1,000 local governments provide documents so he can look for some violation of a state law requiring them to make audits publicly available. That kind of transparency is good, but Paxton seems convinced that mustache-twirling mayors are scheming to secretly raise property taxes.
Cities will bury him in a mountain of information, and you pay the legal bill on both ends — compliance costs for your local government and salaries for lawyers that have to pore through all that much.
Paxton is even kicking it old school. On Thursday, he announced a broad investigation into streaming music services such as Spotify and Apple Music over accusations of “payola,” payments accepted to promote certain songs. His news release sternly warned the companies to comply with his “Civil Investigative Demands.”
If payola sounds vaguely familiar, it was a big scandal involving radio stations three generations ago, exposed by a congressional investigation. (You might remember a quick mention in the 1959 section of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”)
Democrats often accuse Republicans of wanting to go back to the 1950s; Paxton is actually doing it!
It’s not like Paxton is always a vigorous defender of the duly passed laws of the state. We still don’t know the full story of how the federal government came to question Texas’ law providing in-state college tuition rates for some immigrants in the country illegally and how the AG’s office immediately struck a deal to abandon any defense of a law on the books for a quarter-century.
Whatever Paxton is doing as Texas AG, it’s not conservative
Some of these investigations are no doubt worthy. We want the attorney general’s office policing fraud, ensuring state law is followed, and protecting transparency in government. It’s just that anyone who has paid attention to Paxton’s neglect and degradation of his office’s core functions is forced to wonder: Why is this dude suddenly so interested in doing his job in such a sweeping manner?
Ronald Reagan famously said that the “nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ” With Paxton, they are: “Turn over all your documents, and don’t make me mad.”
One is conservative. One is MAGA, national conservatism or, if you prefer, the “new right.”
There’s a better label for using the power of the state and courts to bully institutions, public or private, into complying with policy that can’t win at the ballot box in the legislative process, though.
It’s progressivism. When it comes to exercising raw state power, Ken Paxton is the unabashed progressive in the Texas Senate race.
