Texas House overwhelmingly votes to get impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton. But will the state Senate agree?

Originally published at: Texas House overwhelmingly votes to get impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton. But will the state Senate agree? | Boing Boing

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It’s taking long enough to get rid of this crook.

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Texas is a great example of why and how conservative leadership in the US is corrupt, perverted, dangerous… And hard to escape.

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It ain’t over yet. But I like you’re thinking. Now for the orange one.

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Wait, a Republican saying that another Republican should be held to the law and not allowed to do whatever crimes they feel like? Is he looking to get kicked out of the party or something? There are easier ways that are less likely to get you attacked by angry MAGAtards.

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Most of what I’m hearing is pure speculation – no one has any real idea how things are going to go.

On one hand, it is devilishly hard to get Republicans to turn on each other. And the Texas Senate is considered more conservative than the House.

On the other hand, the vote in the House was 121-23 in favor of impeachment, so there are plenty of Repub politicians willing to throw Paxton into the river. And Paxton isn’t too well liked by anyone. Supposedly both the governor and lieutenant governor deeply dislike him. Trump loves him, but that’s not a guarantee of anything anymore.

I hope he gets thrown out, because Ken Paxton deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. But even if he does, he’ll get replaced by a new AG just as poisonous as he is…

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If it doesn’t work… they need to keep doing it.

He’s a problem and pain to the GOP and they want it to go away. The GoP HOPES it goes away by ignoring it (like usual). The house just need to keep at it until they HAVE to use option two: actually do something to make him (and the nagging) go away.

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From /r/texas, here is the official response from the Republican Party of Texas.

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One hopes this means a real split in the party is happening…

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Has mutated into overt christofascism over time. The corruption was already there; they were just less obvious about it. While the Tea Party in Texas had adherants, flagrant jackassery wasn’t really a thing until Lord Dampnut came along & made the Teepers redundant.

Especially where they control all the branches of State government. They are working to do away with the concept of local government in Texas, starting with the largest cities.
They are in the process of taking over the largest school district in the State, as well.

They probably won’t get kicked out of the party, but they will become RINOs, dangerous radical leftists, etc, in the eyes of the christofascists that are running it.

Paxton seems to have the support of the likes of Lord Dampnut & Ted Cruz.
Seems fitting.
I look for Paxton to try and delay his trial in the Senate, but doubt it will buy him much time. I’ve heard his possible replacement might be one of his primary challengers, Eva Guzman.
She is a former Texas Supreme Court justice; but so was Czar Abbott, so…

The christofascist Lt. Gov. controls the agenda of the Senate; Republicans in Texas are all corrupt and/or fascist to a greater or lesser degree, so calling them ‘conservative’ only serves to normalize their bullshit.
As bad as their legislation has been so far this session, many of the bills that didn’t make it were worse. Today [finally] is their last official day of fuckery.

And Abbott will probably call a special session dedicated to destroying the public education system in Texas…

Not real big on bipartisanship, are they?
Reading that screed shows the authoritarian mindset of the RPoT, but so would any of their official party platforms for at least the past decade or so.
Christofascism has been simmering in Texas for a long time.

The split has been there for awhile; I’m hoping for open warfare between the factions in the party. A divided Republican party is good for the Democrats in Texas [and everywhere else].

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He won’t want to delay unless he knows the Senate will vote to convict. As soon as he was impeached, he was suspended from his office, with his number-two taking over the AG’s office. And the rest of the Lege and state officials will be pushing to finish the trial as soon as possible, 'cause the end of the session is basically now – legislators wanna get the fuck out of Austin, and Abbott wants to order a special session, neither of which can be done as long as a trial is ongoing.

On the other hand, the Texas Tribune says the last time someone got impeached here, it took three weeks to finish the trial…

That’s exactly why Abbott wants a special session. He wants a voucher system approved, and the legislators from rural districts said hell no, 'cause everyone knows rural school districts get fucked hard when voucher systems happen.

FYI, the incredible thing about this session is that the Lt. Gov wanted to get tenure banned at state universities, and the Lege instead passed a bill strengthening tenure.

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Not publicly… and far too many republicans who claim to be in opposition to Trump have just gone along with whatever he wants (see Mitch McConnell). Mittens and Cheney speaking out publicly is pretty much the only public evidence of any kind of split.

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And it doesn’t seem like he’s any better. eeesh.

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Yeah, that makes sense.
You don’t want to piss off the jurors at your trial.

Which should put everyone in a fine mood for the special session.

He has, no doubt, added some names to his shit-list for that. He is as vengeful as Lord Dampnut.

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Yeah, Paxton ran off a bunch of whistleblowers and anyone who wasn’t completely loyal to him.

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My wrongness, let me show you it:

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Does this mean no special session until after then though, or can there be one now that the date is set?

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That I don’t know. This has happened only one other time, way back in the 1910s, so they may be winging it. :confused:

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