Paxton Suffering from Ethics Problems As Four-Way Primary Races to the Far-Right

Washington, DC — The Washington Post’s David Weigel traveled to Texas this week and covered the race for the GOP nomination for Attorney General. In the Lone Star State, GOP candidates for AG have been attacking each other for months in one of the messiest primaries of the cycle. For these candidates, it’s not about debating who will put Texas first, but rather a contest for who can align themselves with extremist, far-right policies that hurt Texans.

Weigel writes, “The attorney general race hasn’t seen the same accusations of weak conservatism, because Paxton’s opponents don’t substantially disagree with his agenda. Instead, a group of Republicans, including Bush, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, have run as conservatives who’ll oppose the left and the Biden administration, but haven’t been accused of bribery like Paxton. (Last summer, Paxton’s office cleared him of bribery allegations made by former staffers.)”

He goes to say, “And when it comes to Paxton’s best-known decision, to sue to challenge Pennsylvania’s electoral votes on the grounds that the state’s bipartisan vote-by-mail reform violated the state’s Constitution, the challengers say that the incumbent had the right idea and the wrong skill set. Gohmert has criticized Paxton for not pursuing other voter fraud allegations earlier; the attorney general’s office spent over $2 million last year while closing just three fraud cases.”

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