On this date in both 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who prior to winning that office in the 2014 elections, was a member of the Texas state legislature for over a decade. While there’s no shortage of Texas Republicans for FRED to have profiled through the past few years, Ken Paxton earned our notice not just for the usual Fundamentalism you see from members of the Lone Star State GOP, but for the fact that while he was tasked with enforcing the law in Texas, he was simultaneously fighting an extended legal battle while being accused of committing securities fraud.
Again, this is the guy responsible with the law being enforced in Texas. Although, his interest in what the law actually is seems hyper-focused on partisan politics, as Paxton has encouraged state officials to ignore the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, chastised school districts for respecting the gender identity of students trying to use the bathroom, and at one point, Paxton sent a “cease and desist” letter to Texas public schools for busing students eligible to vote to the polls, which has been encouraged previously in Texas since the Civil Rights movement passed over half a century ago. It seems Paxton is terrified of the thought of young people having access to our democracy.
Paxton is threatened by a great many things, and will flat out make things up to feign outrage over, like the time he accused a Texas school district of creating a “Muslim-only prayer room”, which was in no way a part of reality. Or it could be just that Ken doesn’t see that well out of his droopy eye, or something.
Maybe none of this should come as much of a surprise, because when you look at Paxton’s career in the Texas state legislature, there were signs he was a fanatic, like when he co-sponsored HB 3678, a bill aimed at allowing students greater expression of their religious beliefs in public schools, like say, when a teacher dared to mention that evolution is a thing. He also co-sponsored SB 14, a bill to suppress the vote in Texas via stricter Voter ID laws, voted for bills that attempted to nullify federal firearm regulations, co-sponsored legislation that would enact the failure of a conservative policy of drug testing welfare recipients, and voted against HB 950, which would have guaranteed equal pay for women in Texas.
In spite of all the indictments that have held against him for years now, as well as his long track record of extremist lunacy, Ken Paxton decided not to bow out of the 2018 elections, and only narrowly won re-election, barely cracking the 50% threshhold. His trial for securities fraud had yet to begin, and his wife, Angela Paxton, became a Texas State Senator trying to draft legislation that would exempt her husband from facing jail time for the crimes he’s committed (really).
In his second term in office to do such effective things such as launch an investigation into the city of San Antonio for refusing to open a Chik-Fil-A in their airport because of the company’s history of anti-LGBTQ activities, because Paxton feels they may have rejected the chicken franchise due to “religious discrimination”. (Remember Texas, he’s spending taxpayer dollars on that investigation.)
As, ever so slowly, the trial date approaches for Ken Paxton, and yet he’s still not resigned, using his office during one of the more pressing times in American history in some of the most corrupt and bizarre ways. Like how Paxton intervened on behalf of one of his political donors out of state in Colorado to try and get them an exception against a “stay out” order for non-residents of a resort community during the Covid-19 outbreak. Or how he’s been trying to fight against calls to vote by mail during the pandemic to prevent the spread of the virus and getting more people infected. He’s aligned so much with the Texas GOP’s insistence on “reopening the economy” that he paid the fines of a Dallas salon owner who ignored orders to keep her business shuttered during the outbreak.
None of that was keeping the state of Texas calling for Ken Paxton to be bounced out of office, and put in jail… so he decided to go for a Hail Mary in December of 2020… after Donald Trump lost the election, he needed a state attorney general who could be leveraged into appealing the results of the 2020 presidential election to the U.S. Supreme Court… and Ken Paxton, desperate to get a pardon for securities fraud, obliged. Spoiler Alert: Like practically every legal challenge Trump had filed on his behalf, it failed (We’ll also note it left Paxton the target of an ethics lawsuit). But Trump never rewards people for failure, so… no pardon for Ken Paxton.
However, because he’s a corrupt, selfish prick, now Trump’s most fanatical followers had the fuel needed to inspire an attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and are still holding onto “Trump won” as a conspiracy theory. To which, Paxton claims that the attackers were not Trump supporters, but “busloads of Antifa”.
In 2023, still facing criminal trial, Paxton is floundering on Fox News whenever they’ll have him with some fake conservative outrage about immigrants, or onto Newsmax to whine about Critical Race Theory like the white nationalist whose policies he's embraced, or to attempt to assemble a list of transgender citizens for some unknown and nefarious purpose. He’s turning his back on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for all the wrong reasons, and, but of course… he keeps getting charged with new cases of securities fraud.
In January of 2022, Ken Paxton faced new charges, this time after the editors at Texas' five largest newspapers noted that under Texas’ open-records law, Paxton was required to disclose materials — including emails and texts — related to his January 2021 trip to D.C., which OF COURSE he doesn’t want out to the public, what with all the conspiracy and sedition charges that would likely be revealed if he did. We’re at a point where Ken Paxton’s corruption is so brazen and consistent that he’s become the target of federal investigators at the Justice Department. And while the subordinates who reported Paxton for corruption were vindictively fired by him, they successfully sued him for $3.3 million, a settlement which Paxton hopes won’t be his problem, and he can connive his way into forcing taxpayers to pay off. He's been in the news for fleeing from his own home rather than receive a subpoena from the process server attempting to deliver it to him.
Again, this is the ATTORNEY GENERAL of a state.It’s not a question of if, but when Ken Paxton goes to jail. And for which of the many crimes he’s been indicted on.
One Year Ago, May 20th, 2022: Ken Paxton (TX)… 2022 Update
Two Years Ago, May 20th, 2021: Ken Paxton (TX)… 2021 Update
Three Years Ago, May 20th, 2020: Ken Paxton (TX)... 2020 Update
Four Years Ago, May 20th, 2019: Ken Paxton (TX)… 2019 Update
Five Year Ago, May 20th, 2018: Ken Paxton (TX)… Original Profile
Six Years Ago, May 20th, 2017: Mark Reed (CA)… 2017 Update
Seven Years Ago, May 20th, 2016: Mark Reed (CA)… 2016 Update
Eight Years Ago, May 20th, 2015: Mark Reed (CA)… Original Profile
