Taking Scalps at the Capitol

Who is Keeping Score, and Who Seems to be Winning?

Good morning, friends,

Odds are, by now everyone’s aware of the broad strokes of things on display at the Legislature in Austin, where impeachment proceedings are set to begin against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The basics: On the face of it, Paxton seems beset by a daunting pile of charges, with the hearing possibly scheduled for later this week in Austin. A large volume of Republican legislators in the House of Representatives voted in favor of Impeachment, which is basically the process by which a hearing is enabled— conducted by Texas Senators. So far, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick hasn’t set a firm date for that hearing.

Here’s the CBS News article that basically breaks it all down, in case you haven’t been keeping up.

What catches our eye here at the Dispatch, is the observation by one of our good friends that what’s happening in Austin right now is rather like the parliamentary equivalent of Los Zetas duking it out in the streets with Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación.

A turf war. A battle over influence. Payback. The bullets and bloodshed are only metaphorical, but don’t let that cozen you into believing it is any less of a serious battle. Instead of streetcorners, these gangsters are fighting over serious stuff. Political control. Legislative priorities. The future of Texas.

What we are all witness to right now, whether we know it or not, seems to be the settling of scores between the competing millionaire and billionaire donor class that contributes so heavily to the various political figures around the state— some of whom seem to detest the priorities as expressed by rank-and-file Republican voters.

Some appear to be lined up behind the Attorney General and others behind Dade Phelan, of course— what isn’t clear is where all the other politicos around the state fall into place.

It’s worth noting that Governor Gregg Abbott has been mostly silent. So too has the Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Hard to know where they sit, though there surely are signs that might be more visible to analysts more familiar with reading the tea leaves in Austin.

Here’s a pretty good statement written by Representative Carrie Isaac, on why she voted against the impeachment:

Isaac oversees an area stretching from Northeast Bexar County, up through a large piece of New Braunfels, on into Dripping Springs near Austin, as well as the town of Wimberly.

What’s rather curious to us here, are repeatedly aired objections that the impeachment may even be illegal to begin with— though that doesn’t appear to be stopping the steamroller that has been set in motion.

Reporter Bethany Blankley over at the Center Square has a closer look at an investigation by an outside law firm that seems to exonerate the Attorney General of the charges, but somehow, we don’t expect those findings will be accepted by those looking to collect the AG’s scalp.

Let’s back up a few beats and look back on the chain of events that seem to have led up to this:

Near as we can tell here at the Dispatch, a lot of it probably goes back to the early days of the Legislative Session, when the recently removed Bryan Slaton was one of three Republicans that tried to line up a different speaker of the House. One could argue that they committed the gravest of sins— taking a shot at the King and missing. The king in this case would be House Speaker Dade Phelan, who then set about installing Texas Democrats in various leadership positions— something that has stuck in the craw of many Texas Conservatives.

Why? Well, the official reason seemed to be that Phelan felt that these particular Texas Democrats had certain expertise and that there was no reason to be so partisan as to exclude them.

That all may be true— but one wonders if Phelan wasn’t also sending a message to other Republican Reps about the wages waiting for those who fail to support him sufficiently. Or to put it another way— if politics is about rewarding your friends, and punishing your enemies, Phelan could’ve been accused of purposely signaling to other Republicans that they needed to get a whole lot friendlier.

Along the way, there was plenty of lip service paid to various grassroots causes— causes like border control, anti-trans/alphabet people agenda items, and election reform. But, with the session ending, it seems many of those causes have fallen through the cracks and will be going nowhere, unless called for in a special session.

Weird.

Fast forward to the end of the session, and not only are we witnessing the failure to do much of anything significant in line with State GOP priorities, but Bryan Slaton is basically no more— after getting nailed on the various sex and alcohol related charges that brought him down. There’s no disputing the correctness of the actions taken against Slaton, but one finds it likely that Legislative investigators could find similar charges to bring against several other lawmakers if they wanted, and the main difference between these several others and Slaton is Slaton’s effort to unseat Dade Phelan.

From there, you have the Attorney General taking a very public stance— calling Phelan out for possibly conducting business at the Capitol while inebriated. At the time, it seemed a little bit of a strange thing to do— we privately wondered if the Attorney General had been prodded to do so by the monied donors who’d been investing in Slaton and were perhaps stung by Slaton’s setback. Or, perhaps Paxton had some clue that Phelan was about to spring this impeachment business on him, and his statement was a warning shot across the bow. We’ll never know, of course, but it’s an interesting thought exercise, that leads one to conclude that in Texas politics, warning shots are wasted, and one should just shoot to kill instead.

And that pretty much brings us to the next link in the chain— the sudden announcement of a secret investigation and the impeachment process we are all witnessing.

Was there really much of a secret investigation? Even the most trenchant left-leaning observers have noted that there really isn’t anything new in the investigation’s findings— that nearly all of it has already been out in front of voters who have more or less dismissed it all, several times.

It gives the whole affair a feeling of opportunism, wrapped up in a distraction. No one’s talking about what a seeming joke Phelan’s stewardship of legislative priorities has been, instead we’re all talking about Ken Paxton.

Of course— the criticism of Phelan’s stewardship presupposes a good-faith effort on his part. If his goal was to serve the self-stated interests of Texas Republicans, he’s done a terrible job. If his goal was to quietly sabotage those same interests, however, one would have to salute his seeming facility with the darkest arts of Texas politics.

In an Austin-encapsulated world of knee-jerking reactive political sicarios— of short-sighted and greedy gunmen, Phelan would seem to be a Pablo Escobar— a bloody-handed mastermind, ready to roll up the sleeves and go to the mattresses, but also planning moves out well in advance of what opponents seem willing to credit.

One friend of the newsletter is of the opinion that this can all be tied to old-guard-Texas Republicans, seeking to maintain control over the party and the state in the face of grassroots upstarts— the Trump wing, for lack of a better summary, though most would probably take umbrage with being so casually abbreviated.

In our friend’s words: “Paxton shoulda known better than to try and stand in the way of a Bush trying to get elected!”

Is he right? Who knows. We don’t. But we can’t help but notice a sort of attempt at creating an air of inevitability about this impeachment, that feels so very similar to the attempt at creating an air of inevitability about Bush and the others running against Paxton the last time. Paxton was supposed to be dead as disco. That’s what “they” kept saying at every opportunity. It was like someone was trying to deliver a memo— a memo telling little Kenny Paxton and any other upstarts to lie down and surrender already.

Let’s take a look at what the Texas Tribune is saying, shall we? They’re pretty left leaning, right? Hmm. A lot of Reporter James Barragan’s analysis seems pretty consistent with our own.

The impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton exposed long-simmering and bitter divisions within the Texas Republican Party — infighting that has hindered the ability to unite behind a single vision for the state’s future despite a generation of political dominance.

Just this legislative session, Republicans were unable to find agreement on school choice, stricter immigration laws and other big-ticket promises that could have given Texas bragging rights as a conservative hothouse, on par with Florida.

Nowhere was the GOP chasm more apparent than the fight over Paxton’s future. Hard-line conservatives fought to protect one of their own, criticizing the impeachment process as an effort to overturn the will of voters. Former President Donald Trump also entered the fray, blasting “Republicans in name only” for targeting a patriot and calling out Gov. Greg Abbott for failing to protect Paxton.

It wasn’t enough. About 70% of House Republicans voted Saturday to impeach — 60 of the 85 Republicans in the 149-member chamber. That included a coalition of center-right and conservative Republicans who defied their party’s far right and heeded the call to protect the state from a public official who had abused his office and power for personal gain.

That division will continue to fester as the Senate takes up Paxton’s impeachment trial, with continued pro-Paxton pressure likely to come from Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Party Chair Matt Rinaldi.

—Reporter James Barragan, The Texas Tribune

Barragan keeps going from there— getting into some of the same themes of political payback that we have here, though he rightfully doesn’t go quite so deeply into speculation and conspiracy theorizing as we do.

One other interesting note in Barragan’s reporting: He suggests that it may actually be weeks before Texas Senators take up their end of the impeachment process. We reckoned it’d be a few days, ourselves. Barragan’s probably correct.

Up above in the subheader, we wondered who seemed to be winning in this scalp-taking bloodsport in Austin. Most would tell you it looks like the Dade Phelan camp is cruising toward the end with a comfortable lead— but if Paxton survives, all bets are off.

One imagines the floor tiles outside his office will be worn out with Texas politicos slithering over the threshold to grovel on their bellies to avoid retribution: “Padron! Padron! No Mátame! Por favor!”

For what it’s worth, Paxton has been a champion on the border issue— even going so far as to dispatch staffers with video cameras to the region early on in the crisis, to attempt documenting a portion of the mayhem— all at a time when mainstream press was ignoring things— content to slurp up the thin gruel of complacency and cover offered by the gaslighters and denial artists in Washington.

We’re running out of time this morning, so this will have to do it. We’ll be back again tomorrow or the day after with our usual focus on the Border Crisis, instead of Texas politics.

About a year ago, we published an Independence Day edition of the newsletter, that ended with the following on the subject of George Washington. It is equally appropriate for the subject of Texas politics.

On a personal note— a very unlikely tale about George Washington is the foundation of one of our long favorite jokes about politics. It came to us more years ago than we like to remember, from former Texas Comptroller John Sharp, a Democrat, who was visiting Laredo during an annual event called the Fiesta de los Jueces, or “Judges’ Party.” Sharp is now the Chancellor at Texas A & M.

“A lot of folks don’t know it, but George Washington, the Father of our Country, was born and raised right near here, in Cotulla, Texas. It’s true. One day, George’s father came home to find George had chopped down his favorite Mesquite tree. Dismayed, he asked him, ‘Son, you chop down my favorite Mesquite?’ Young George squared his shoulders and said: “Yes Father, as I cannot tell a lie, I must tell you that yes, I did chop down your favorite Mesquite.” George’s father said to himself, ‘If this kid can’t tell a lie, then we better get back East. He won’t be worth a damn in Texas politics!”

—Former Texas Comptroller John Sharp

As always, the newsletter is an independent work product, kept separately as possible from our day job working for Kinney County. It should not be mistaken for any kind of an official communication. Any misdeeds, errors, tacky comparisons, or stale jokes are entirely our own.

Onward!