Ken Paxton Says He’ll Never Quit Fighting. Neither Will We.

Source: Democracy Docket, Marc Elias
Photo: wikimedia.org

On Jan. 6, 2021, hours before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a man addressed a crowd of angry Trump supporters near the White House.

“If you look at Georgia, they capitulated, they consented. We kept fighting in Texas,” he said. He closed with a promise: “We will not quit fighting.”

That man, Ken Paxton, has been terrorizing Texas for years, first as a member of the state Legislature and then as the state’s attorney general. Now, as he closes out his campaign for the U.S. Senate, he wants to take his reign of terror nationwide.

Paxton is one of the country’s most outspoken and active election deniers, and it’s not hard to imagine how disastrous he would be as a senator. Just look at his record.

Like Donald Trump, Paxton does not accept election results he doesn’t like. And like Trump, he believes in wielding power by weaponizing government.

As Texas attorney general, he sprang into action to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He even bragged about the failed attempt in his Jan. 6 speech:

“We sued four states over the ballot fraud and not following the Constitution, not following state law, and we took it directly to the Supreme Court. And they should have heard our case.”

Let me be clear: In no world should the Supreme Court have heard Paxton’s case.

With Election Day less than two weeks away, Ken Paxton should worry all of us. Marc Elias lays out what Paxton is likely to do if he loses, and the one way we can make sure he can’t subvert the results.

James Talarico is polling narrowly ahead, and control of the Senate could come down to Texas.