The Texas Report 5/24

The Texas Report 5/24

What’s Happening:

• Texas Attorney General vs. House Speaker Dade Phelan

• Last days of the Texas legislative session

• Today, is the one year anniversary of the shooting at Robb Elementary School. (More here) (More here)

• Governor Abbott hosts other Governors on Texas’s border response. (More here)

In some of the craziest news of the legislative session further detailed below, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called for House Speaker Dade Phelan’s resignation Tuesday afternoon alleging the Speaker was presiding over the floor “in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication.” It gets even more complicated because a spokesperson for Speaker Phelan said that this is really a “last ditch effort to save face”, by the Attorney General who was made aware that he was the focus of an investigation by the House General Investigating Committee.

Yesterday, was the last day for the Texas House to move bills on second reading. Which essentially means yesterday was the last opportunity for a significant amount of legislation to potentially become law. The clock ran out for dozens of bills at midnight, and Democrats did everything in their power to slowly move through the process to ensure the maximum amount of bills died.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited the Texas Capitol on Tuesday, for an “economic development” trip. (More here)

Texas Attorney General vs. Texas House Speaker

This is a complicated situation that I’m going to do my best to summarize fairly in layman’s terms. (Helpful timeline from Brad Johnson)

• At around 2:30 pm yesterday, the House General Investigating (GI) committee announced a 3 pm meeting.

• Attorney General (AG) Ken Paxton releases a statement calling on Speaker Phelan to resign. (Statement)

• 3:00 pm, GI convenes in an executive session.

• 3:10 pm, OAG tweets a photo of a letter to GI requesting an investigation into Phelan.

• 4:40 pm, GU announces two subpoenas in “Matter A” and a meeting notice for today beginning at 8:00 am.

• House spokesperson Cait Wittman released a statement that the General Investigating Committee had been investigating Paxton since March, examining the events tied to the firing of whistleblowers by the AG and other alleged illegal conduct. “Paxton’s statement today amounts to little more than a last-ditch effort to save face.”

So the AG released a statement calling for the resignation of the House Speaker on the grounds that he was presiding while intoxicated. Significant because these are two of the most important politicians in the entire state of Texas.

Recent unsubstantiated rumors have swirled that the Speaker was intoxicated while presiding over the floor last Friday. (Attached is the video and additional context for right after and before) The video was taken well into the night (around midnight) following several long days of the legislative session. (Videos and the specific clip on Twitter.)

• Following the statement by the AG, it becomes apparent that the House General Investigating (GI) Committee has been looking into the AG’s conduct and recent whistleblower suit since March. Additionally, the committee had sent subpoenas and requests to the OAG to ensure no relevant document destruction. To some onlookers, it appears that this was a move by the AG to divert attention away from the upcoming hearing by GI on his conduct.

• Fast forward to today, House GI is in the process of hearing invited testimony from four investigators who combined have well over 100 years of investigatory and prosecutorial experience from across the state. The District and County Attorney’s Association said GI “rolled out an all-star line-up of former white collar and public integrity prosecutors and investigators as the witnesses at this hearing. “

The legal issues surrounding Paxton are well documented, including a recent $3.3 million settlement for a whistleblower lawsuit that came from four of his former deputies who accused Paxton of misconduct and claimed they were fired in retaliation for reporting Paxton’s alleged misconduct to federal investigators. Lawmakers in both the Senate and House balked at the idea of using state/taxpayer dollars to pay for this lawsuit.

The alleged misconduct is Paxton improperly used his position to benefit his friend, real estate investor Nate Paul, who had donated $25,000 to Paxton’s campaign and hired a woman Paxton was having an affair.

The investigators are currently laying out the details around the misconduct, but to summarize, they’re testifying that the AG essentially used his office to protect Paul by helping gain documents related to 2019 searches by state and federal authorities, providing a mechanism for Paul to delay foreclosure sale of his properties, essentially “hijack the office of the Attorney General.”

AG Paxton even created a position for a lawyer recommended by Paul to subpoena dozens of entities, essentially at the request of Paul. To attempt to gain information related to a restricted federal investigation.

Per the Attorney General’s website, the main responsibilities of the office “are defending the State of Texas and its duly elected laws by providing legal representation to the State, serving the children of Texas through the enforcement of the state’s child support laws, securing justice for Texans, protecting Texans from waste, fraud, and abuse, and safeguarding the freedoms of Texans as guaranteed by the United States and Texas constitutions.” (More here)

More and more information is being laid out by the investigators for the General Investigating Committee, and we are going to try and do an even more detailed brief of the situation on Friday.

The big question in my mind, is what potential action will the House take following this investigation? The House and General Investigation has the ability to propose Articles of Impeachment.

To summarize:

• The top elected prosecutor for the state of Texas allegedly used state resources and his office to assist his friend, donor, and personal investor Nate Paul. By obtaining investigatory information that should have only been used in a law enforcement capacity.

• Attorney General Paxton calls on the resignation of House Speaker Dade Phelan, alleging he was intoxicated while presiding over the Texas House.

• Paxton has two homes currently under Texas homestead exemption, while he should only have one.

• Paxton intentionally tried to circumvent and even delay an FBI investigation into Paul.

Additional context:

TEXAS LEGISLATIVE UPDATES

Where things stand?

Yesterday was the last day for the Texas House to move bills on second reading. This means yesterday was the last opportunity for a significant amount of legislation to become law. The clock ran out for dozens of bills at midnight, and Democrats did everything they could to slowly move through the process to ensure the maximum amount of bills died.

Some of the big pieces of legislation that died:

• S.B. 1515 by Senator Phill King (R-Fort Worth), which would have required the 10 Commandments in Classrooms

• S.B. 177 by Senator Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) would have ended COVID vaccine mandates for private or public entities.

• S.B. 1318 and S.J.R. 44 by Senator Joan Huffman (R-Houston) are two of Governor Abbott's major priorities for bail reform. These bills were intended to clarify legislation passed during the 87th session for overhauling the bail system. This legislation was intended to add new rules for magistrates for releasing defendants, like prohibiting a magistrate from releasing on bail a defendant charged with an offense punishable as a felony unless the defendant has appeared before the magistrate and the magistrate has considered the public safety report prepared for the defendant.

• S.B. 11 by Senator Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville), the Senate's school safety bill. (The two chambers will now negotiate their school safety priorities on the H.B. 3)

Public School Funding

Public school funding got a lot more complicated this week after the Senate inserted language for school vouchers into H.B. 100 by Representative Ken King (R-Canadian), which would have provided pay raises for teachers and other school finance provisions.

Following the Senate's decision to add voucher language, the Texas House began loading up the Senate's teacher bill (S.B. 9) with several other House priorities. Ten amendments were added to S.B. 9, and the negotiations for public education funding have become more complicated.

Teacher pay raises hang in the balance, and it remains to be seen how hard the Senate wants to push vouchers because the votes aren't there in the House, and that has the potential to sink teacher pay raises.

Other legislation of note

• S.B. 12 by Senator Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), sponsored by Representative Matt Shaheen (R-Plano). This legislation is set to be passed out of the House today and would add new punishments and penalties for businesses exposing children to sexually oriented performances. When passed out of the Senate, it included any show involving a "drag" performer, but the House took out this language and narrowed it to just sexually explicit performances.

• S.B. 17 by Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) and sponsored by Representative John Kuempel (R-Seguin) would ban public institutions from establishing or maintaining offices of "diversity, equity, and inclusion." Along with preventing those factors from being considered in hiring or employment practices.

• H.B. 12 by Representative Toni Rose (D-Dallas) and sponsored by Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) would provide 12 months of postpartum Medicaid coverage for women in Texas. This bill passed out of the Senate yesterday, and they added language related to abortions.

• H.B. 7 by Representative Ryan Guillen (R- and Senator Brian Birdwell (R-Waco) is a major priority bill by the House on border security. This legislation is in the process of being passed, by the Senate.

Governor Abbott hosted fellow Governors for a Border Security Briefing

Tuesday, nine Governors joined Governor Abbott for a border security briefing to update on the ongoing crisis and share insights into Texas' response.

The Governor was joined at the briefing by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Idaho Governor Brad Little, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Governor Abbott also recognized the states of Idaho and Florida for sending assistance to Texas and urged his fellow governors to help provide more personnel to support Operation Lone Star following the Biden Administration's decision to end Title 42 earlier this month.

Major General Suelzer highlighted efforts by Texas National Guard soldiers deployed to Operation Lone Star and showed maps of barriers being constructed by guardsmen along the border. Additionally, Suelzer outline how other state's National Guard troops could be integrated into Operation Lone Star.

Following the decision by Idaho and Florida to send assistance, multiple other states are expected to follow suit. (More here)