Texas politics have long been rancorous, unscrupulous, and, in recent years, marred by bitter lawfare — weaponizing the legal system to circumvent election results.
Consider LBJ’s theft of the 1948 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, which his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, Robert Caro, confirmed was due to ballot box stuffing in south Texas’ corrupt Jim Wells County. Other examples abound. More recently, Democratic prosecutors in Austin, the seat of ultra-liberal Travis County, have filed baseless criminal charges against a series of Republican elected officials, including then-state Treasurer (and later U.S. Sen.) Kay Bailey Hutchison, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and even sitting Gov. Rick Perry.
Not all of the attempts to kneecap political opponents involve Democrats attacking Republicans. Some of the nastiest donnybrooks were initiated by “establishment” or “moderate” Republicans against conservatives. The vindictive — and unsuccessful — impeachment proceedings brought against reform-minded University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall (who was appointed by Perry) in retaliation for his exposure of an influence-peddling scheme at crony-ridden UT is one example. Another is the ongoing campaign to remove from office conservative Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Texas voters overwhelmingly elected in 2014, and enthusiastically reelected in 2018 and 2022.
Paxton’s real “crime” is that he threw his hat into the GOP primary for the AG race in 2014 after the anointed establishment candidate, moderate Dan Branch, thought he had the Republican field to himself. In Texas, the AG position has often been used as a stepping stone to higher office
