Choose Your Adversary!

Actual statement from @KenPaxtonTX: "Last year’s election cycle shows us that officials in our most problematic counties will simply let election fraud run rampant."https://t.co/bvIIeuUf3h

A state-run audit literally concluded otherwise ... on Friday: https://t.co/p7z8J1T0Y3

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) January 3, 2022

Paxton wants the Court of Criminal Appeals to reverse its decision that the Texas AG doesn’t have the authority to try criminal cases. Arguing he does because “exigent circumstances” is not a winning Constitutional argument. There is no “except in cases of election fraud” doctrine in Constitutional interpretation.

Besides, he has no facts to stand on. (And he knows it; this is just rube bait.)

The Court wrote a very sound opinion interpreting the Texas Constitution. It was an 8-1 decision. Paxton isn’t getting anything from them.

(This is my favorite reaction to that ruling:

Reacting to the ruling, a Republican state representative, Briscoe Cain, said he would file a bill the next time the Legislature convenes that would let prosecutors in neighboring counties go after election cases.

"If the attorney general can’t, and a county won’t, then prosecutors from an adjacent county should be able to do it," the Deer Park lawmaker tweeted.

I gotta big picture of local DA's telling their voters they are protecting them by prosecuting fraud in a neighboring county.  One advantage to electing DA's is they don't go looking for fights that don't win them electoral support.  What county wants to pay its DA to poke around in another county's business? Especially since nobody can find any evidence of voter fraud in the first place. Prosecutors don’t file cases they can’t win.)