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Notes -
Texas politics update: Articles of impeachment are being floated against attorney general Ken Paxton, the most important culture war figure you don't think of very often. Nearly every 5th circuit ruling that granted a conservative victory had Ken Paxton- or someone in his office- as plaintiff, although he's perhaps better known for his 11th hour attempt to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
The specific matter at hand has to do with a whistleblower settlement over a previous corruption scandal, and it's important to note that almost no one disbelieves the allegations, but also that Ken Paxton won reelection by double digits while under indictment for bribery and fraud. For some additional background-
-The first stage of trial, and the impeachment process, is initiated and takes place in the Texas house, the most liberal branch of the Texas government. It's unclear what Dade Phelan's(house speaker) game is; he's already in extreme trouble both with his base and the rest of the republican party and the odds of actually removing Paxton long term are slim. Nevertheless, it is fairly plausible that the house could impeach him; it only takes 50% +1.
-If impeached, the trial moves to the Senate, where a 2/3 majority would be required to permanently strip him of his office. This is unlikely to happen. The senate is far, far more partisan than the house, Dan Patrick(who had previously loathed Dade Phelan) now openly blames the house speaker for a disappointingly moderate session, and republicans control nearly 2/3 of the chamber. Also, Ken Paxton's wife, Angela, is a fairly high ranking member.
-Paxton is one of the few very important elected Texans left to be drawn from the Dallas elite, with Abbott, Cruz, Hegar, Patrick etc cheering on the Astros rather than the Rangers. The most prominent exception is John Cornyn, who is notably sympathetic to Ken Paxton. This is likely coincidence, but it is worth noting that among the movers and shakers in current political elites Ken Paxton generally runs in different social circles and can't expect much support from current elected officials on his comeback tour, even highly ideologically sympathetic ones.
-The day after it became clear that the house would consider drafting articles of impeachment, the dumpster outside the attorney general's office in Austin caught fire. Texas DPS has investigated the fire and declared it an accident caused by an unknown middle aged woman improperly disposing of a cigarette(Austin PD is no longer independent and not under the control of the city of Austin). Whether you believe this is up to you; certainly the people Texas DPS answers to are not very happy with Dade Phelan and the ones stationed in Austin are selected partially for their ability to handle politically sensitive assignments, because as previously noted part of their job is overruling the Austin city council.
-Just before the news broke Ken Paxton called on Dade Phelan to resign on the grounds of being drunk while presiding over the house. This allegation is probably also true and you can look up videos of Dade with his massive fivehead drunkenly calling the house to order. The Texas legislature being sloshed while in session has been an open secret for a while and no one complained until Dade Phelan seriously annoyed his own party by killing a set of conservative bills on extremely spurious procedural grounds(Paxton was not the first to call for his resignation).
-The Texas house has previously this session removed a representative(Bryan Slaton, R, from Royce city{where Dallas turns rural if you go straight east on i30}) for taking his intern's virginity. They also have an open disciplinary proceeding against rep Jolanda Jones(D, Houston) for a laundry list of rather more entertaining allegations, but this one is unlikely to go anywhere. There have been two previous impeachments of major state offices in Texas history- Governor Pa Ferguson in 1917(he successfully got his wife elected in his place and pulled the strings through her multiple terms) and a judge in the 70's.
https://apnews.com/article/texas-attorney-general-paxton-impeachment-1eaccf00ce80d26c4fc94eab1672e1bd
Update: the Texas house voted to impeach 121-23 today(Saturday) at 1 pm. This points to stronger support for impeachment than I’d originally thought, but is still don’t expect the senate to remove him.
Keep an eye on who Abbott picks for acting attorney general- there could be major culture war implications.
What's the dynamic here?
In a Banana Republic, voters tolerate this sort of thing because they know that corruption investigations only happen because of political will. So even if your man is corrupt, caring about it would be unilateral disarmement. In the US, this is more or less the situation already with Trump, but I'd imagine Texas politics is too one sided for that to be the issue.
One-party states can easily be corrupt -- after all there's no effective opposition. But what leads to voters shrugging it off like that? Why are they so desperate to elect this particular man?
Texas is not really a one party state.
The media demand for corrupt Republican one party states exceeds the supply.
I'm sure corruption exists, but it's funny to talk about these mild cases when Baltimore and Detroit exist.
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