As the Texas House General Investigating Committee was airing lengthy details of alleged misconduct by Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday morning, he was on the radio with me responding and doubling down on his call for Speaker Dade Phelan to resign.
This drama ignited over the weekend with a viral video of Phelan slurring noticeably from the podium during Friday night business on the House floor.
Paxton claims to know why: “I think everybody knows he was drunk. … Look at the video. I believe there will be more videos out there.” He then lamented a litany of conservative goals that he feels Phelan has obstructed, from school choice to election integrity measures to limits on Chinese real estate ownership in the state.
Is Paxton’s eagerness to reach the inebriation conclusion fueled by political animus? “It’s pretty common knowledge that there’s a lot of drinking that goes on the House floor, and he’s part of it,” replied Paxton, a former House member. “Has [Phelan] come out and said, ‘No I’m not drunk on the House floor?’ ”
Phelan’s office called Paxton’s charges “little more than a last-ditch effort to save face,” a reference to the committee’s lengthy revisitation of accusations that have hung over Paxton for years, none of which were resolved in court or confirmed by any investigation. The one place they have been repeatedly tested is at the ballot box, where none of the supposed scandals have impeded him in primaries or general elections.
But not all Republicans are Paxton fans, and the current drama seems to be rooted in longtime friction between the more conservative grassroots wing and more moderate factions in House leadership.
While praising the Senate, Paxton went to great lengths to slam the House for failures he lays at the feet of Phelan. “He has an obligation to get as much done for Texas as he possibly can, and if you’re partying at the House, then it’s pretty hard to get good things done,” he said.
I tend to lean toward simpler explanations before embracing the more sordid. My first theory for House sluggishness is not that its members and leadership are regularly sloshed; it is they are not as conservative as the Senate. Actual intoxication would be cause for harsh official rebuke; political differences are not.
But if Paxton is grasping at straws to criticize a Texas House that has frustrated him, Phelan and the investigative committee seem similarly embittered in rolling out a long rehash of matters supposedly put to bed by the February settlement between Paxton and the disgruntled attorneys who left his office leveling various charges of corruption.
Their claims prompted an FBI investigation that has yielded nothing. The $3.3 million dollar settlement signaled Paxton’s desire to avoid a torturous path through what he views as hostile courts; it also proved the whistleblowers’ willingness to accept money to walk away.
But tension remained. Who would pay the settlement? While Paxton, admitting no wrongdoing, viewed it as a cost of doing the state’s business, Phelan made clear he had no intention of saddling taxpayers with the bill, even though a protracted court battle in liberal Austin could have cost far more.
For their part, the whistleblower attorneys, no fans of Paxton’s, pleaded with lawmakers to pay up, arguing that their hesitation might discourage others from coming forth to report wrongdoing.
But Phelan announced his refusal in language that dripped with personal distaste: “Mr. Paxton’s going to have to appear before the appropriations committee and make a case as to proper use of taxpayer dollars,” he told a reporter in February. “He’s going to have to sell it to 76 numbers of the Texas House. That’s his job, not mine.”
Does similar hostility now spur the investigating committee to re-dredge familiar dirt? Chairman Andrew Murr seemed positively annoyed at the prospect of a settlement that robbed him of the spectacle of Paxton on trial.
“It is alarming having this discussion when millions of taxpayer dollars have been asked to remedy what is alleged to be some wrongs,” he said, losing focus on what settlements actually are — an opportunity for both parties to avoid trial.
“We settle cases all the time,” Paxton told me. But a case that involves him personally is quite another matter. Nonetheless, he continued: “If they didn’t want to pay it, it’s in their hands — pay it or don’t pay it.”
So are House members who are unsatisfied with merely sticking Paxton with the settlement bill engaging in political theater aimed at censure or even impeachment? This investigating committee, which deployed facts and evidence mere weeks ago to rapidly expel Rep. Bryan Slaton for a sex scandal, does not have as firm a basis for exhuming various issues surrounding Paxton.
Similarly, Paxton’s call for Phelan’s resignation attaches more strongly to political frustration than to the unproven charge of drunkenness.
Perhaps Paxton’s House enemies should ditch what seems to be a vendetta, so the attorney general can then rescind what looked like a knee-jerk resignation demand. Then, everyone can just get back to work.
Mark Davis hosts a morning radio show in Dallas-Fort Worth on 660-AM and at 660amtheanswer.com. Follow him on Twitter: @markdavis.
