Showing posts sorted by relevance for query paxton mail-in. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query paxton mail-in. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Fight the Future (especially when that future is a purple Texas)


You remember that.  Yeah, it wasn't so long ago.  And I mentioned the Harris County Clerk Diane Trautman (the official in charge of elections in the most populous county in Texas) had said people who wanted to vote by mail for fear of catching the coronavirus, could do so.  Here is exactly what she said:

“The procedure for mail ballot applications has always been to honor any request from a voter who checks the disabled box. We are not going to question someone's disability,” added Trautman. “Any ability to expand the Ballot-By-Mail program will need to be granted at the state level.”
That's some high-grade sneaky shit there, to be honest.  She agrees she must comply with state law, but she lets voters in on a secret:  nobody is going to investigate your claim of a "disability" that keeps you from appearing at a polling place.  Wink wink nudge nudge knowutImean? And she can do that because, as we shall see, Texas law puts the responsibility for approving applications for mail-in ballots on the Country Clerk.  Once approved they are, by law, assumed valid unless some government lawyer wants to investigate each and every mail-in ballot in all 254 Texas counties (or just a few in the most populous counties, but then we'd be back to court on the definition of "disability," so yeah, this is a circular process.).

Well, even that may not be necessary:

State District Judge Tim Sulak of the 353rd District Court in Travis County said he will issue a temporary injunction allowing voters who fear catching the new coronavirus to qualify for mail-in voting through the disability clause in the state’s election code.

The lawsuit was filed by the Texas Democratic Party and several voting rights groups who are concerned that voters in upcoming July elections, including the primary runoffs, could catch the virus if access to mail ballots is not expanded.

If you think you hear echoes of the Wisconsin case, you may.  But Texas law is not Wisconsin law, so the legal issues may be different.  And yes, I still think the law must be upheld over any expediency one party may claim suspends the law "this time."  Because next time may be a time you don't want the law suspended, but what about that precedent?  But what does Texas law require?  That's what the fight is gonna be about.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he was “disappointed” that the court had “ignored the plain text of the Texas election code to allow perfectly healthy voters to take advantage of special protections made available to Texans with actual illness or disabilities.”

“This unlawful expansion of mail-in voting will only serve to undermine the security and integrity of our elections and to facilitate fraud," Paxton said in a statement. "Mail ballots based on disability are specifically reserved for those who are legitimately ill and cannot vote in-person without needing assistance or jeopardizing their health... My office will continue to defend Texas’s election laws to ensure that our elections are fair and our democratic process is lawfully maintained.”

Which may well be true, but does every mail-in ballot have to include a notarized doctor's note that Suzy can't come to the polling place today because she's sick?  I looked up the application, and the answer is:  No, you don't.  It does say "giving false information is a crime," (more on that in a minute) but it doesn't define "disability."

Here is what the Texas Election Code does say:

Sec. 82.002.  DISABILITY.  (a)  A qualified voter is eligible for early voting by mail if the voter has a sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place on election day without a likelihood of needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter's health.

(b)  Expected or likely confinement for childbirth on election day is sufficient cause to entitle a voter to vote under Subsection (a).
It is, quite honestly, a helluva leap from section (a) to Paxton's conclusion, as stated in the news article:

“Based on the plain language of the relevant statutory text, fear of contracting COVID-19 unaccompanied by a qualifying sickness or physical condition does not constitute a disability under the Election Code,” Deputy Attorney General Ryan M. Vassar said in a letter to Fort Worth state Rep. Stephanie Klick.

I take it from that they have no court cases to stand on.  The plain reading of the statute, which includes a specific provision that pregnant women are "disabled" for purposes of the statute, is that one is eligible to vote by mail if the voter can't appear "without a likelihood...of injuring the voter's health."  I have no idea how that doesn't apply to people fearful of contracting coronavirus by standing in line to vote. I  also can't see how checking the "Disability" box on the form is a crime under Texas law.  Chapter 84 of the Election Code (sorry, I'm trained as a lawyer, the thouroughness can't be beaten out of me.) makes it a "state jail felony" to "(1)  knowingly provides false information on an application for ballot by mail," but I can't for the life of me see a jury prosecuting a voter for checking the "Disability" box for fear of contracting coronavirus.  More likely they'd prosecute the government lawyer who wasted their time.

As County Clerk Trautman said, the County Clerk's office is not going to investigate disability claims on ballot applications.  Chapter 86 of the Election Code puts the onus on the County Clerk to decide whether or not to accept the application for a ballot, and once done, that's pretty much the end of it.  Is Paxton really going to investigate every mail-in ballot application and determine who was "disabled" and who wasn't?

I think they know they don't have a leg to stand on, which is why they're insisting their interpretation of the statute is the only one that should be allowed.  They want to scare people, in other words, and get County Clerks to discourage, or even reject, applications where "disability" is checked just to be on the safe side.

I don't trust the Texas Supreme Court, but here's hoping Paxton's weak legal reasoning gets the treatement it deserves.
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Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Nope.

I’d like this to be true, but: nope.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said former President Donald Trump would have lost in Texas in the 2020 election if his office had not successfully blocked counties from mailing out applications for mail-in ballots to all registered voters. 
Harris County, home to the city of Houston, wanted to mail out applications for mail-in ballots to its approximately 2.4 million registered voters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the conservative Texas Supreme Court blocked the county from doing so after it faced litigation from Paxton's office. 
"If we'd lost Harris County—Trump won by 620,000 votes in Texas. Harris County mail-in ballots that they wanted to send out were 2.5 million, those were all illegal and we were able to stop every one of them," Paxton told former Trump adviser Steve Bannon during the latter's War Room podcast on Friday. 
"Had we not done that, we would have been in the very same situation—we would've been on Election Day, I was watching on election night and I knew, when I saw what was happening in these other states, that that would've been Texas. We would've been in the same boat. We would've been one of those battleground states that they were counting votes in Harris County for three days and Donald Trump would've lost the election," the Republican official said.
Besides, Paxton was bragging to Steve Bannon. Reality was harsher:
Although the [Texas Supreme] court sided with Paxton's interpretation of what constitutes a disability, it indicated that it is up to voters to assess their own health and determine if they meet the state's definition. 
"We agree, of course, that a voter can take into consideration aspects of his health and his health history that are physical conditions in deciding whether, under the circumstances, to apply to vote by mail because of disability," the court ruled.
The high court also rejected Paxton’s request to prevent local election officials from sending mail-in ballots to voters who were citing lack of immunity to the coronavirus as a disability. Those officials denied they were operating outside the law and argued they cannot deny ballots to voters who cite a disability — even if their reasoning is tied to susceptibility to the coronavirus. 
When voters cite disability to request an absentee ballot, they're not required to say what the disability is. The voters simply check a box on the application form, and if their application is properly filled out, locals officials are supposed to send them a ballot. The state ultimately conceded that officials can't reject those voters.
I remember this case, and though I’m too lazy to search my archives, I remember it wasn’t a victory for Paxton. He tried to spin it into one, but the Supreme Court threw all his legal theories into the shredder. He’s not belatedly confessing a crime here. He’s bragging about something he bragged about 2 years ago. And his brag has all the substance of Trump’s brag that he built the border wall.

Sorry, but there’s no there, here.
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You Know….

...freedom of speech... ...is also the freedom to say really dumb things. And just because Democrats don’t stop them from saying it, and don’t unleash the flying monkeys onto Twitter immediately after something is said, doesn’t mean “they win and we lose!”

Really. Get over the zero sum game reasoning. Granted, nobody’s paying attention to DeSantis right now (beyond political Twitter). But right now he’s nothing more than one more declared candidate for the GOP nomination for president.

And I gotta tell ya his outreach, even to MAGA, sux.

As much as I enjoy it, political Twitter is getting real hard to take seriously. This one, for example, is only a few hours old, and already it's running away with itself:
No. Just: no. Paxton is bragging a la Trump's "border wall" pronouncements. There are no facts here, not as he describes the case. Calm down. There is a reason criminal investigations are long and complicated while internet memes spring up in a few hours and become "true" in less time than that. As I mentioned before, what the Texas Supreme Court said was that voters could mean "covid" when they said they had a "disability" (the term in the statute) and needed a mail-in ballot.


The respondents do not have a ministerial duty, reviewable by mandamus, to look beyond the application to vote by mail. Moreover, while the State has alleged that the Clerks are accepting “improper application[s],” there is no evidence in the record that any has accepted a faulty application.

The Clerks have assured us that they will fully discharge their duty to follow the law. We are confident that they will follow the guidance we have provided here. Accordingly, we conclude that issuing the writ of mandamus to compel them to do so is unwarranted.

Got that?  Paxton asked for a court order (mandamus) telling county clerks not to accept mail in ballots because the "disability" was covid, even though the box only says "disability," not "...and which one?"  The court said, explicitly (last sentence) they wouldn't issue such an order.

That's what Paxton asked for.  That's what he didn't get.  The court did, in dicta, say counties can't send ballot applications to all and sundry, but only to those who request one, again per the statutes.  The court also said covid was not a "disability" under the statute; but the county clerks didn't have to check on what voters meant by "disability."  So whether or not covid was the reason, was a moot point.  Paxton spun that bland statement into a "win!"  It wasn't.  What I said in 2020 still holds:

(My suspicion is Paxton's office said "Hey, we won!" and reporters were stupid enough to take their word for it.  The opinion isn't even that hard to read, and surely they have access to lawyers if they stumble over "mandamus" and don't understand that's what Paxton was asking for and didn't get.  We the people really are not well served by our institutions, including the "fourth estate."  My daughter The Golden Child scion of a lawyer would understand this ruling better than that, and she might ask me what "mandamus" meant anyway.  Ignorant reporters reporting on legal decisions are the worst.) 

Let me put it in plain sentences.  Paxton sued to get a court order.  He didn't get his court order.  Lawyers call that "losing."  Paxton says he won, anyway.  Paxton is a liar spinning things to his own advantage, a la Trump.  End of story.

Except now, instead of credulous and ignorant reporters, it's people on Twitter who think Paxton is telling the truth (for once?), and has given away the game.  He's mini-Trump, however, and he's not even lying.  He's just full of empty braggadocio, which in this case is not a crime.  He didn't win that issue.  He didn't suppress any ballots in Harris County.  He didn't do anything but waste taxpayer money on a case that he took to the Supremes, who wouldn't touch it with a club.

Now please get over it.  Please.  I remember when the important thing in on-line political discussions was to be the "fact-based community."  Whatever happened to that? 

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Friday, August 28, 2020

Voter Suppression, Texas Style

This is very high-grade bullshit.

In a letter dated Aug. 27, Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Texas secretary of state, told Harris County to “immediately halt” its plans to send every registered voter in the county an application for a mail-in ballot for the general election. Ingram demanded the county drop its plan by Monday to avoid legal action by the Texas attorney general.

Sending out the applications "would be contrary to our office’s guidance on this issue and an abuse of voters’ rights under Texas Election Code Section 31.005,” Ingram wrote, citing a provision of state law that gives the secretary of state’s office power to take such action to “protect the voting rights” of Texans from “abuse” by local officials responsible for administering elections.

The "abuse" is making it easier for voters to vote.  I'll just cut to the nub.  The Texas Supreme Court basically sided with Harris County (and other counties) against Paxton's argument that fear of coronavirus contagion was not grounds for requesting a mail-in ballot.  Yes, the Court agreed covid-19 was not explicitly covered in the Election Code, but it agreed with Harris County's argument that the clerk could not investigate requests for mail-in ballots based on disability.  They had to take the voter's representations at face value, and assume good faith.  So while it ruled covid-19 fears were not sufficient to establish a "disability" under the Election Code, it also ruled that investigations of any claim of "disability" on an application for a mail-in ballot were not required before the "disability" could be claimed.

So what Harris County is doing now is simply mailing out applications (which are readily available on-line; it's how I filed my application for a mail-in ballot) to all registered voters, with the information I used in filling out my application.  If that "confuses" voters, the confusion is in the Election Code and the language used by the County Clerk to notify voters of how, and if, they can use a mail-in ballot instead of voting in person.

Which is pretty much what Harris County said to the Texas SOS:  a very polite "fuck you very much."

I like the County's odds in court.

ADDING: early voting in Texas starts October 13, 2020.  If the AG goes to court on this and can't get an injunction to stop the mailing of applications, case closed.  If the AG can get an injunction, all those applications already mailed out, don't get clawed back.  I seriously doubt the AG could get an injunction, but he'd better hurry if he's intent on trying.  The applications already in the mail are beyond the court's reach, and every day that passes means more applications going out.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2020

So, here's the thing


Microbiologists fret about bacteria on every surface of everything your come in contact with.  Well, a few do.  Lawyers are trained to assume the worst case and do everything they can to prevent it or prepare their client for it, just in case.  However, the analysis in this article about the November election starts off with the most unlikely scenario possible (the state legislatures decide to appoint electors for the Presidential election as they see fit), a true "Constitutional crisis" that no legislature would ever try to engage.  And then it plunges on to this:

One of the hottest issues now in litigation, which was not on the radar until about two months ago, is that in the one-third of states which require an excuse to be able to vote by mail, what counts as a valid excuse? Some states have said that if you're worried about getting the coronavirus and you don't want to be out in public, that's a good enough excuse. Others, like Texas, are fighting that. Their attorney general is threatening criminal prosecution against people who would claim fear of the coronavirus as a reason to want to vote by mail. So that's being litigated now. I actually think litigation is a good thing now, because it's better to have clarity about what the rules are well in advance.

To be fair to Ken Paxton, the link in the article provides information that directly refutes that statement about Texas and criminal prosecutions:

“We conclude that, based on the plain language of the relevant statutory text, fear of contracting COVID-19 unaccompanied by a qualifying sickness or physical condition does not constitute a disability under the Election Code for purposes of receiving a ballot by mail.”

The very end of the threat from the Texas AG’s office says, “Please note that as discussed above this response is not an official opinion of the Office of the Attorney General issued under section 402.042 of the Texas Government Code, nor is it an exhaustive memorandum of law; rather, it is an informal letter of legal advice offered for the purpose of general guidance.”

Paxton wrote a letter to Stephanie Klick, chair of the Texas House Committee on Elections.  As AG he was giving an opinion on the statute, an opinion I disagree with.  But he wasn't, as he said in the letter, giving an official opinion of the Office of the Texas Attorney General.  Such opinions do not have the weight of law, but can give persons and entities, including government agencies, legal cover when there is a dispute about how Texas law should be applied absent a court precedent.  As I mentioned before, the issue of absentee ballots in the time of coronavirus is before a state court.  If that court rules against Paxton's interpretation, even an official opinion of the AG's office would fall to the court order.  So what Paxton wrote was literally nothing more than "an informal letter of legal advice." It's not even "threatening criminal prosecution," as it was portrayed in the media.  Not that Paxton is bothered by that misrepresentation, mind you.  Voter suppression is usually done by suggestion, not direct action.

But you know, if we're gonna run in circles, scream and shout, we should at least know what we're worried about, and have those facts right.  And I still hold with my opinion, and the opinion of Harris County Clerk (largest county in Texas, and deep blue now):  nobody is ever going to investigate someone who checks the box on the form that claims a "disability" means they need a mail-in ballot.  It's not really the same thing as insurance fraud on an injury claim, after all.
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Tuesday, March 16, 2021

When The Objective Is Simple, The People Are Getting Screwed

Other counties, including Hidalgo County on the border, sent applications to request a mail-in ballot to voters 65 and older who automatically qualify to vote by mail under the state’s tight eligibility rules. But Texas Republicans’ ire fell on Harris County when it moved to send applications to all 2.4 million registered voters in the county with instructions on how to determine if they were eligible for mail-in voting. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately blocked that effort.

The county also fought back against Republican efforts to toss out nearly 127,000 votes cast during early voting at the county’s 10 drive-thru polling places. State and federal courts rejected Republicans’ broader efforts to challenge the validity of the novel voting mechanism, though the county ultimately shuttered nine of those locations on Election Day because of continued legal challenges. Ten percent of Harris County's in-person early voters cast their ballots at the county’s drive-thru locations.

Harris County also set up several days of extended early voting hours. Its 122 early voting sites stayed open until 10 p.m. — three hours past their usual 7 p.m. closing time — for three days, and the county offered 24-hour voting at eight locations for one day.

The context here is that Gov. Absent was in Houston (Harris County) on Monday to announce his push to “protect the integrity” of Texas elections.  While there, he said this:

"Our objective is very simple," Abbott said. "And that is to ensure that every eligible voter gets to vote. It's also to ensure that only eligible are the ones that count at the ballot box. The integrity of elections in 2020 were questioned right here in Harris County with the mail-in ballot application process." Tired of ads? Want to support our progressive journalism? Click to learn more. Later in the press conference, Abbott was asked how "voter fraud influenced election results" in the 2020 Texas elections.

He admitted he knew of no fraud in the 2020 elections. And all Harris County (and other counties) tried to do was to ensure every eligible voter, voted.  Their actions were upheld by state courts.  There was no evidence, indication, or hint that voter fraud occurred as a result of what Harris County did.  And, significantly, there seems to be no proposal to change Texas’ mail-in voting laws, which the Texas Supreme Court actually liberalized (oddly, nobody is complaining about that).  

And, oops:

They're really hoping nobody in Texas is paying attention. Odds are, they're right.  I mean, I agree with theWaPo editorial board: But honestly, the catalyst is going to be how the Lege fixes, or doesn't, ERCOT and the Texas electrical grid.  The pressure for that is going to come from voters but, more importantly( to the Lege), from businesses. Elon Musk may build giant batteries he hopes will keep his offices and factories opened in the next deep freeze, but how many businesses, and their employees, want to live, or keep living, in a third-world country?

This is the visceral issue in Texas politics right now; which is why Gov. Absent and Lite Guv Patrick Crazy want to talk about anything else (Patrick shoved an idiotic bill through the Senate he runs ordering a rollback of the excessive fees charged during the storm.  Even if the House were to pass it, how, exactly, would it work?  Nobody knows, including the senators who voted for it. Patrick is in a round room trying to shit in the corner.  It’s that, or go blind.) How long these conditions prevail in Austin this session is anybody’s guess.
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Thursday, August 27, 2026

After The Press Conference…

...he’s going down to the shore to stop the tide from coming in. No, seriously. He really is. He told Canada “Give us absolute authority over your international trade, and don’t make us write in French.” Canada’s a NATO country, but Trump says Canada is defenseless without us. 🤷‍♀️ 
Reporter: SCOTUS ruled on mail-in ballots. There are states like North Carolina that have ballots going out next week. How are states supposed to implement this in time?

Trump: They’re able to figure it out. North Carolina is great. I won at golf three times.

Reporter: Why do you keep voting by mail in ballot—
Follow the captions on the video. Trump has no idea what the Supreme Court ruling meant. It was not a ruling on the merits, as the lawyers say. It’s a double super secret sanction that nobody knows about. Included the people who are supposed to enforce it! Who’s going to tell him even Paxton quit using “Talafreako” when Talarico put it on a t-shirt and sold out of them? 
Trump’s net approval rating in Texas is -22 points. So please, come spend a lot of time campaigning with Paxton.

Talarico is leading Paxton, 48% to 42%. I’m sure Trump can widen that gap. Especially among Republican voters.
Q: Has the data centers issue made you willing to vote for James Talarico or is this just about voting against Abbott?

Lifelong TX Republican: I would vote for the devil before I voted for Abbott. Abbott's not going to get my vote. He's just spewing rhetoric. I've been listening to Talarico. I've been listening to for the first time in my life, a lot of Democrats..
Hopefully Trump will come to Texas and campaign on the importance of data centers. 😈 Canada makes cars? I know they make a lot of car parts for American manufacturers like Ford and GM. Toyota and Mercedes have factories here, too (and probably many others. Trump’s brain is frozen in 1970), and may use parts made in Canada. Tariffs on those car parts are only going to raise the price of cars. And repairs. Once again, tariffs are taxes. They don’t put money in anybody’s pocket, just in government coffers.

The man is thick as a brick. 🧱 
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Friday, March 11, 2022

This May Not Be The Winner…

...Abbott’s campaign thinks it is. In more ways than one:
“The recent attempt to criminalize a parent for helping their transgender child access medically necessary, age-appropriate healthcare in the state of Texas goes against the values of our companies,” the letter said. “This policy creates fear for employees and their families, especially those with transgender children, who might now be faced with choosing to provide the best possible medical care for their children but risk having those children removed by child protective services for doing so.”
Meanwhile: It's terribly cynical to say it now, in this context, but: if that caption isn't a campaign ad for Beto, it's political malpractice.  (The Lege specifically declined to legislate on this issue AT ALL in the last session.  For the AG to now declare it a criminal act is, once again, a bit beyond the reach of the AG's authority; to put it in terms the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals would recognize.) And it turns out Paxton is Trump, too: This is your reminder that Paxton is a lawyer, and should know better.  But winning his primary run-off is apparently all that really matters.  Also your reminder that's not the only thing going on in Texas: Mail-in ballots are now almost exclusively the province of those over 65, who presumably predominately vote Republican. "Election integrity" is going to bite the Texas GOP in the ass (this round was only primaries). Expect it to be completely overhauled in 2023. That's not going to be an unalloyed winner, either. Nobody ran on in it in the primaries, but I expect it to be an issue in the generals. Stack all this up and you've got some seriously ugly shit to throw at the GOP in Texas.  Does Abbott really want to be the governor of criminalizing families because of how they provide medical care to their children?  That argument worked when the idea was to keep government (schools, counties, cities) out of the decision of whether kids needed masks.  Now the government decides how children are offered medical care, and whether that decision is criminal?  Even people who wanted their kids to wear masks weren't investigated for child abuse.

Almost 12,000 people lost their votes because the new rules for mail-in ballots were too damned complicated?  (I'm a lawyer, I heard about the problems early on and tackled the new, complicated process just to request a mail-in ballot, then studied the new, complicated process for mailing it in correctly.  I can understand how 12,000 people screwed it up.  It was designed to create errors.)  That's gonna go over, as we used to say, like a flash flood in a Fizzies factory.  (Fizzies?  Think colored Alka-Seltzer without the salt, but with not much more flavor.  I dunno, we ate a lot of dumb things as kids.  It wasn't all worth being nostalgic over.)

I expect the judge to enter a state-wide temporary injunction, which gets turned into a permanent one if the courts don't overrule her.  I don't really imagine they will, despite the Texas Supreme Court ruling on SB8, because this one is based on Paxton's half-assed opinion that doesn't have a shred of credibility to back it up.  Which is the point of that hearing this morning.  Without strong factual grounds, Abbott's opinion gets tossed in the shredder.  If it takes his political career down with it, so much the better.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2020

I Stand By My Analysis The Texas Supreme Court actually agreed with my analysis

Yes, that's what the court ruled, but that ruling means you can still mark "disability" on your application, because nobody's going to investigate it.
1) The application for a mail-in ballot doesn’t require a doctor’s number te ir substantiating medical records; 2) Who’s going to check?

We agree with the State that a voter’s lack of immunity to COVID-19, without more, is not a “disability” as defined by the Election Code. But the State acknowledges that election officials have no responsibility to question or investigate a ballot application that is valid on its face. The decision to apply to vote by mail based on a disability is the voter’s, subject to a correct understanding of the statutory definition of “disability”. Because we are confident that the Clerks and all election officials will comply with the law in good faith, we deny the State’s petition for writ of mandamus.

...

The State has conceded that “Respondents have no discretion to do anything but determine whether the voter is entitled to vote by mail and process the application accordingly.” The State acknowledges that the Election Code does not require election clerks to “investigate each applicant’s disability.” Indeed, the Legislature rejected the requirement of a physician’s proof of disability for mail-in voting applications when it amended the Election Code in 1981.  And the application form provided by the Secretary of State requires only that voters check a box indicating whether the reason for seeking a ballot by mail is a disability. The voter is not instructed to declare the nature of the underlying disability. The elected officials have placed in the hands of the voter the determination of whether in-person voting will cause a likelihood of injury due to a physical condition. The respondents do not have a ministerial duty, reviewable by mandamus, to look beyond the application to vote by mail. Moreover, while the State has alleged that the Clerks are accepting “improper application[s],” there is no evidence in the record that any has accepted a faulty application.

The Clerks have assured us that they will fully discharge their duty to follow the law. We are confident that they will follow the guidance we have provided here. Accordingly, we conclude that issuing the writ of mandamus to compel them to do so is unwarranted.

That is what winning in court looks like.  The Texas Supreme Court didn't act to protect its four members up for re-election.  It said "No, fear of contagion is not a "disability" under the law, but nobody's going to investigate what "disability" means, so fuggedaboutit!"  Which really should be the takeaway from this, if the media wasn't so legally illiterate.  And why did Paxton lose?  Factual grounds:

The [County] Clerks [who were parties to the case, including Harris (Houston) and Travis (Austin) counties] contend, in part, that they lack a duty to “police an individual voter’s claimed disability.” The Clerks also defend their speech before the commissioners courts as accurate attempts to convey information about rapidly changing electoral conditions. The Clerks argue that the State has failed to identify ministerial duties that the Clerks have ignored.

Paxton got poured out, in other words.  The Clerks didn't do anything wrong and are free to accept all applications which claim a "disability," so long as they don't tell voters fear of contagion is a disability.  Yeah, it's half a loaf, but it's better than none, and not the decision reported by the media (even the Texas Tribune got it wrong).  The Texas Dems are already fundraising (or rather fear-raising) on the widely accepted but erroneous interpretation of this decision.  If they had any brains, they'd be telling voters what the County Clerks can't:  claim a disability and stay home this November where it's safe!

(And no Slate, Texas voters don't face prosecution now and we don't need more court rulings on this issue.  a) those prosecutions would have to come from county attorneys following complaints from county clerks.  The Texas AG has bugger all to do with it.  B)  We need better understanding of what the court said, and somebody who isn't a government employee to explain it loudly and repeatedly to Texas voters!)

(My suspicion is Paxton's office said "Hey, we won!" and reporters were stupid enough to take their word for it.  The opinion isn't even that hard to read, and surely they have access to lawyers if they stumble over "mandamus" and don't understand that's what Paxton was asking for and didn't get.  We the people really are not well served by our institutions, including the "fourth estate."  My daughter The Golden Child scion of a lawyer would understand this ruling better than that, and she might ask me what "mandamus" meant anyway.  Ignorant reporters reporting on legal decisions are the worst.)

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Tuesday, March 06, 2018

So, here's the thing....

No, it's still an anti-litter campaign.  To me, that's the humor.

Stipulated:  the Texas Attorney-General is a dick.

In January, Paxton said busing students to polls can't be done unless it serves an educational purpose, according to the Denton Record-Chronicle.

A month later he issued cease-and-desist letters to the school districts in Clute, Holliday and Lewisville, stating in a news release, "These school districts used taxpayer resources to distribute messages to their staff and the public advocating for or against certain political candidates and measures."

Wait, it gets better:

Brazosport Superintendent Danny Massey, for example, has tweeted in support of Scott Milder, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. That tweet was retweeted by the Brazoswood High School Twitter account, according to Paxton's letter.

Scott Milder is running against Dan "Bathroom" Patrick for the Lite. Guv. nomination of the Texas GOP.  Milder has sent e-mails to every school district in Texas (there are 1,247 school districts in Texas, in case you were wondering) asking for the votes of their employees in the primary in order to unseat Patrick, who still wants to tell Texas school districts that they can't have bathrooms for transgender students because it offends Dan Patrick's delicate sensibilities (Patrick is also no fan of funding Texas public education.  He literally wants to destroy it and replace it with private school for those who can afford it.  For the rest?  He doesn't care.  No, I am not kidding.)  There's nothing vaguely illegal about such an e-mail, but Paxton is well aware of Milder's efforts.   Milder's e-mail explains this:

The Collin County school district is among several in Texas that have received open-records requests from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office asking for — among other things — emails from its superintendents and principals pertaining to voting and elections. Mesquite and Grapevine-Colleyville ISDs also confirmed receiving similar requests.

It's actually Paxton who is trying to electioneer, using the power of his office to do so.  He's scared of Milder's e-mail, because it threatens the candidacy of Dan Patrick (Texas has open primaries, anyone can vote in either (but not both!) of them.  For the first, and hopefully last, time in my life I voted in a GOP primary.  Now if it was just worth it.....).

Why would I make such a bold declaration?  Because of Texas law:

His law required principals or other designated registrars to circulate voter registration forms and notices to eligible high schoolers at least twice a year.

Still on the books 34 years later, the law might look like a compelling rebuttal to arguments that Texas does little to encourage civic participation among its racially diverse student population. But many high schools have apparently failed to comply with the law in recent years, and election turnout among young voters has remained chronically low — less than half of Texans age 18 to 24 are registered to vote.

Now, as voting rights groups decry that lack of progress, Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos is bypassing principals — and turning to their bosses — in hopes of boosting compliance for a law that carries no penalties for those who flout it.

The school districts didn't decide to get political, in other words; the Texas Secretary of State apprised them of this dusty law, and urged them to get the vote out.  And that has Paxton, and Greg Abbott, scared shitless.

Heh.  Mighty reckless, indeed.....
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Tuesday, July 07, 2026

Any Illegal Voting Activity, And Other Electoral Matters

Meanwhile, every accusation is a confession:
Two weeks before this year’s primary elections, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the creation of a tip line for the public to report people or groups suspected of voter fraud.

“Free and fair elections are a cornerstone of a thriving republic, and with the authority granted to my office by the Legislature, we will stop at nothing to uncover and stop any illegal voting activity,” Paxton said in a February news release announcing the tip line.

The announcement linked to guidance from his office about election laws in Texas, which included a requirement to be a U.S. citizen, a prohibition on collecting mail ballots on behalf of others and a warning that “it is illegal to misrepresent your residence on election records or to establish a residence for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election.”

“You must register to vote using the address where you reside,” the attorney general’s guidance stated.

Despite his own warnings, Paxton appears to have used an address where he did not live while voting in six elections in the past two years, including in May’s runoff that made him the Republican nominee for U.S. senator, according to records obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune.

State Sen. Angela Paxton said in a 2025 divorce filing that Paxton, whom she accused of adultery, moved out of their Collin County home a year earlier. But Paxton continues to list the home’s address in the northern Dallas suburb on his voter registration. Angela Paxton declined to be interviewed. A source close to the Paxtons said the attorney general has not moved back into the home since leaving.

It is unclear where Paxton has lived for the past two years, but reporting by ProPublica and the Tribune has linked him to a home in neighboring Denton County since February.

Three election lawyers told the news organizations that Paxton may have violated the same Texas laws his office cautioned about in its news release.
“Any illegal voting activity” that isn’t Ken Paxton’s.  And what does the Paxton campaign say about it?
Campaign spokesperson Madison Cercy did not answer the questions from the news organizations. Instead, she issued a statement saying that the attorney general has been “a national leader on election integrity, with a long record of defending Texas elections.” Cercy said that “attempting to insinuate otherwise and tear him down with a baseless, lie-filled tabloid story is not real reporting.”

Asked twice to provide specifics about what they believed was inaccurate, the campaign did not respond.
I’m just suspecting the electorate has had it with corruption and hypocrisy. Trump has pretty much wrung the tolerance for that out, for awhile.
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Tuesday, September 01, 2020

Election Follies


I don't know if the Texas AG is seeking injunctive relief, but he'd better hurry.  Early voting starts in six weeks.

The AG's argument, per this article (I haven't seen the pleadings) is "there is no statute empowering County Clerks to send applications to vote by mail to voters who have not requested such an application."  But here's the Texas Election Code regarding mail-in ballots.  It doesn't specifically "empower" County Clerks or the Secretary of State to provide an application for a mail in ballot on-line.  But the Secretary of State has one.  I know Harris County has one; I used it to apply for my mail-in ballot, which I used in the July primary run-off earlier this year.  So the AG's argument is that it's okay to to what the Legislature didn't "empower" when we don't mind it, but it's not okay when we do.

The difference between an on-line application and one sent to you in the mail, with all the information about how to use it that is required by the Election Code?  Convenience, apparently.  Especially since Harris County is bright blue, and the Texas Secretary of State and AG are both Republicans.

Given how the Texas Supreme Court poured out Paxton last time, I don't think a Harris County judge is going to be that persuaded by the AG's arguments.  Especially since he's making an even weaker version of it this time.
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Tuesday, September 17, 2024

Legal Matters

No surprise, except the article doesn't say "more charges are expected." Although I'm sure they are. What it does say is:

The counts include possession of a firearm while a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.  

Not suprised by either (both federal violations, not state).  Arraignment is set for Sept. 30; any other charges will probably be filed by then, and depend heavily on Routh's cooperation and/or his social media. 

The two charges are fairly easy to prove, and rather difficult to defend against, provided the DOJ can prove Routh is the one who left the gun there (that is an assumption at this point).  Then again, if they can prove that (from Routh's statements; I don't think there were eyewitnesses who could identify Routh with the gun in his custody or control), they might have a leg up on an attempted murder or assault charge.  But that gets a bit dicier; not impossible, just tougher to establish than these two charges will be.

IOW, these two charges could be a 10-minute bench trial.  Proving more serious charges would require stronger evidence, which may, or may not, be as readily available. 

Speaking of which:

The basics here are: Bexar County (just pronounce it "Bear" like we do) voted on September 3 to award a contract to mail out voter registration forms to unregistered persons in the county. On September 4, Paxton sued to enjoin (i.e., get an injunction) to stop them.  What Paxton didn't do, is request a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order).

In a suit like this, you always ask for a TRO and a hearing on same even before the defendant has been served with the suit.  You do this because you need to stop the defendant from doing whatever they are doing, and a TRO freezes them for 10 days (at most), while they can get to court and argue against the TRO being turned into a temporary injunction (one pending until the case goes to trial).  Paxton didn't do that.  And then he went one step further:

Ryan Kercher, deputy chief of the special litigation division in the attorney general’s office, argued that the plan could result in ineligible people registering to vote. Paxton appealed the decision on Monday evening, claiming Bexar officials "expedited" the mail out to take place before the hearing.
 Kercher is: a) an incompetent boob, or b) didn't seek a TRO on purpose.  The correct answer is "b)."  Paxton didn't even try to make an argument that an emergency existed.  He could have had a TRO on September 4, except he didn't want one.  By the time this got to court on a motion to dismiss (which was granted):
“The target of the mailing — qualified individuals who recently moved to or within Bexar County — have received those forms, and perhaps have already returned them,” said Bexar County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Robert W. Piatt III.

Which was, in no small part, probably why the judge dismissed the case.  Did Paxton know he had no chance of getting a TRO (it's not that hard to do, if you have grounds for an injunction.  Whether you can keep it is a bit tougher, but a TRO is usually granted ex parte, that is, without other parties at the hearing.  But that's why it only lasts 10 days.)?  My guess is, he did.  Which effectively means he had no grounds for this suit (that would be why the judge dismissed so quickly, too.  Paxton was dilatory, and didn't present any persuasive legal argument for his claims.) sdBut he filed suit anyway, just as he's now appealing.  His audience is not the judges on the appellate bench, it's the MAGA boobs in the hinterlands who think brown people are going to illegally put Democrats into office.

Paxton isn't being a lawyer.  He's just playing one on TeeVee.

I think the DOJ will do a better job against Mr. Routh.  Although I'm still not sure his intent (if he effectively confesses) is enough to combine with his actions (poking a rifle through a fence and then running away) to create a crime.  Mens rea is part of it, but the actus reus is necessary, too.  And considerieng he never had line of sight on Trump, never pulled the trigger, just poked a gun he shouldn't have had (felon in possession) through a chain link fence; well, I don't know if that meets the elements of any charge for attempted....anything.  Eh, we'll see.d 

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Thursday, April 21, 2022

Imagining Steven Hotze As The Baby Screaming "Help Me!"

Steve Hotze is the guy behind this insanity from several years back.


That was the year the entire Democratic slate of district judges (highest level of trial court in Texas) for the county was elected:  all black women.  I'm still surprized Hotze didn't plotz over that one.

He's also the guy who sued the city for shutting down the Texas GOP convention in the city-owned convention center.  He went to the Texas Supreme Court on that one.  He lost every step of the way.

This new story goes back to December over a year ago (I have archives, I'm not afraid to use them).  Here's the version from the Tribune article:

The charges stem from Hotze’s hiring of more than a dozen private investigators to look for voter fraud in Harris County ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

One of the investigators, former Houston police captain Mark Aguirre, was arrested in December 2020 and charged with aggravated assault. Prosecutors said Aguirre used his vehicle to run an air conditioning repairman off the road before dawn on Oct. 19, 2020.

Aguirre then detained the repairman at gunpoint and ordered an associate to search his truck, according to court filings. When a Houston police officer happened upon the scene and stopped to investigate, Aguirre said the truck contained 750,000 fraudulent mail ballots prepared by Democrats.

The truck contained only air conditioning parts and equipment. Hotze’s investigators have not produced any credible evidence to support allegations that Democrats orchestrated a wide-ranging mail ballot scheme in Harris County during that election.

Yes, "ahead of the 2020 presidential election."  Any voting by Democrats is inherently fraudulent, you know. And: "Hotze’s investigators have not produced any credible evidence to support allegations that Democrats orchestrated a wide-ranging mail ballot scheme in Harris County during that election" just proves how good the Democrats are at pulling off their fraud.  Why they aren't this effective in the rest of the state remains a mystery.

So, Aquirre's actions were insane on a very large level; like the guy who invaded Comet Pizza to find not only no kids, but no basement.  The connection to Hotze is the interesting part, and so far, he doesn't present a very good defense on the facts:

Polland said the charges against Hotze are “outrageous” and his client had no knowledge of the roadside incident until he read media reports of Aguirre’s arrest. He said Aguirre asked Hotze for funds to investigate alleged election fraud, Hotze agreed, and that was the extent of his involvement in Aguirre’s affairs.

“All I know is Hotze didn’t aid or abet this in any way,” Polland said. “The donation of funds was for a righteous activity of rooting out ballot fraud.”

Grand jury subpoenas in Aguirre’s case show that Hotze paid Aguirre $266,400. Most of that sum, $211,400, was paid to Aguirre on the day after the alleged holdup. (emphasis in original)

I don't know about you, but I'd like to get paid over $250,000 for just following random trucks around.  I'd skip the actual ramming one to pull it over and threatening the driver at gunpoint to open the back doors.  If Hotze is so free with his money as to hand it over to random people even after he knows they've been arrested for criminal assault charges, maybe he needs my e-mail address or something.  Sounds like I just need to talk nuts to him.

If that's the story.  Somehow I don't think the grand jury thought it was.  Which is not to say Hotze is guilty of the charges.  But he ain't a babe in the woods either, or a kindly old man handing out large sums to strangers because he's so charitable.  The grand jury seems to think dropping 200 large on Aguirre the day after the incident (and two months before the arrest) indicates some knowledge and approval of Aguirre’s actions. And Hotze is quite sure Democrats are only winning in Texas because of fraud (how the Republicans overcome that fraud in so much of the state is not explained).

Hotze, however, plans to continue monitoring election activity in Houston. At a “Freedom Gala” fundraiser Hotze hosted on April 2 with Attorney General Ken Paxton, Hotze said donations would be used to investigate voter fraud in Texas.

Also attending the event was Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has promoted the baseless theory that former President Donald Trump was the rightful winter [sic] [but metaphorically sound] of the 2020 presidential election.

Polland said Hotze does not plan to alter his plans because of the indictments.

The rest of us hope the indictment will alter his plans for him.
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Monday, September 18, 2023

The Corpse At Every Funeral

Trump (as if you couldn’t tell):
Yes, it is true that my intervention through TRUTH SOCIAL saved Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from going down at the hands of Democrats and some Republicans, headed by PAUL RINO (Ryan), Karl Rove, and others, almost all of whom came back to reason when confronted with the facts. Ken has been a great A.G., and now he can go back to work for the wonderful people of Texas. It was my honor to have helped correct this injustice!

Ken Paxton, mini-Trump.

Texas AG Ken Paxton said yesterday that if he hadn’t been successful with lawsuits to block mail-in ballots, Trump definitely would have lost the election in Texas.
Every word he says is a lie, especially about mail-in ballots in 2020. (His primary target in that quote is Harris County, the most populous county in the state. But still, as goes Harris County is not how Texas goes, or Paxton would be unemployed today. This is the sickness rotting out the Texas GOP today. Tiny men trying to be Giants of History looking for dragons to slay as great men once did and not even finding horny toads. So they fight each other over Purity Of Essence.)
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Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Remember When.....?



After flagging tens of thousands of registered voters for citizenship reviews, the Texas secretary of state’s office is now telling counties that some of those voters don’t belong on the lists it sent out.

Officials in five large counties — Harris, Travis, Fort Bend, Collin and Williamson — told The Texas Tribune they had received calls Tuesday from the secretary of state’s office indicating that some of the voters whose citizenship status the state said counties should consider checking should not actually be on those lists.
The burden here is still on the counties; the Texas SOS can't tell them what to do, no more can the Texas AG; but the big counties can look into it carefully, and it's clear they will:

In Harris County, which encompasses Houston, the Texas secretary of state’s office initially flagged 29,822 names as potential noncitizens on the rolls. But Douglas Ray, a county attorney, said state officials told them those names included people who initially got a driver’s license as noncitizens and then registered to vote at the DMV after becoming naturalized. State officials had validated the citizenship of those people, Ray said, and they were erroneously included on the list.

Ray could not provide an exact number but said county officials believed a “substantial number” of the people flagged by the secretary of state’s office met those criteria. 
What we have here, as the fella said in "Cool Hand Luke," is a failure to communicate:

It’s unclear at this point how many counties have received these calls. County officials said Tuesday they had not received anything in writing about the mistake. It's also unclear how many people will be removed from the original list of approximately 95,000 individuals flagged by the state. The secretary of state's office did not respond to questions Tuesday about how much this would reduce the initial count.
Better known as a clusterfuck.

Smaller counties, unfortunately, aren't waiting around:

Most of the counties with the most registered voters in the state said they were holding off on sending “proof of citizenship” letters to the voters who were flagged. Just Galveston County officials said they were dropping some letters in the mail Monday, starting a 30-day countdown for voters to provide proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate, a U.S. passport or a certificate of naturalization. Voters who don't respond will have their voter registration canceled.

Galveston County officials did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. 
And for those who think this is all about fraud and the destruction of our democratic way of life:

His office hadn’t determined how many voters would be removed from the list of flagged voters, but he noted officials had found two noncitizens on the rolls. In both of those cases, the individuals had indicated they were not citizens on their voter registration applications but were mistakenly added to the voter rolls, Oldham said.

“That happens,” Oldham said. 
No doubt, no doubt.  And that's why we have courts, and lawsuits:

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Antonio, lawyers for the League of United Latin American Citizens' national and Texas arms alleged that Texas Secretary of State David Whitley and Attorney General Ken Paxton violated a portion of the federal Voting Rights Act that prohibits the intimidation of voters.

They point to an advisory issued Friday in which Whitley’s office said it was flagging individuals who had provided the Texas Department of Public Safety with some form of documentation — including a work visa or a green card — that showed they were not citizens when they were obtaining driver’s licenses or ID cards. The state put the number of registered voters who fell into that category at approximately 95,000 — 58,000 of whom had voted in one or more elections from 1996 to 2018.

In its announcement, the secretary of state’s office said it had immediately turned over the data to Paxton’s office. On the same day, Paxton posted the news on Twitter prefaced with “VOTER FRAUD ALERT,” the lawyers noted in the lawsuit.

“These two Texas officials have carefully crafted and orchestrated a program that combines an election advisory ostensibly directed at ensuring that all those registered to vote in the May election are citizens eligible to vote with the use of data that is suspect on its face and a blackout on public access to the data,” LULAC’s lawyers wrote in the complaint.

The secretary of state's office declined to comment, referring a question to the attorney general's office.

The same AG who started this turkey walk.  Heh.  I'd say again that Paxton is a clown; but I say again, it's a representative government.  Because the voter registrar of Travis County is right:

“These allegations of widespread voter fraud are premature and irresponsible. I certainly stand by that statement,” he said. “The story has changed significantly, and we haven’t even started to investigate yet. We don’t know where this is going to end up. It could be we have a serious issue in Texas and maybe we don’t. But statements like that only serve to undermine the integrity of our elections.”

It's bad enough when the Russians are doing it to us; but when we do it to ourselves....

You get what you vote for.
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Saturday, May 09, 2020

Miscellany on a Slow Day



He really is the dumbest person on the planet.

This would be the day salons in Texas were allowed to open.  Brave, brave Sir Robin.

Well, yeah, but he has absolutely nothing to say about it.  There's no sense in giving him credence for nonsense like this.*

Let this be a lesson to others.

In more important news;

The innovator. The originator. The emancipator. The architect of rock 'n' roll. R.I.P.

*BTW:  Texas AG Ken Paxton sent a letter to all county clerks in Texas insisting (without authority or issuing an authoritative opinion) that fear of coronavirus was not a "disability" under Texas law.  The Harrs County Attorney (most populous county in Texas) said all such applications claiming a 'disabilty' would be honored in Harris County.  The form doesn't ask for details or a doctor's note or anything.  You just check a box.  Probably gonna be a record number of mail-in ballots in Harris County this year.  Over 1.2 million votes were cast in Harris County in November, 2018. I wish Mr. Paxton luck investigating 1 million or so votes in 2020 for fraudulently claiming a disability.
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Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Hope Springs Eternal

Hmmmm....

According to The Daily Beast, the Republican Party of Minnesota had a paltry $53.81 in cash, juxtaposed with a significant debt of $335,781.36. This financial state, as pitiable as it appears, is not unique to Minnesota. The Arizona Republican Party’s savings have plummeted to below $50,000, a stark descent from the $770,000 it boasted four years ago. Moreover, the Colorado Republican Party is purportedly bankrupt and is currently undergoing eviction from its office.

Such dire straits are symptomatic of larger rifts within the party, both ideologically and in terms of leadership. Politico highlighted a significant downturn in financial health for the GOP, especially in battleground areas. The ramifications of this decline extended beyond mere numbers; they revealed deeper chasms over the party’s ideology and direction.

Colorado and Michigan serve as glaring indicators of these internal conflicts. As reported by Axios Denver, the leadership change led to considerable upheaval within Colorado’s GOP. Concurrently, Michigan’s GOP was grappling with its very essence and identity, as portrayed by The Hill. But it’s not just about money; it’s about uniting a fragmented base and setting a clear direction.

Texas, traditionally a Republican bastion, displayed one of the most alarming declines. As covered by The Texas Tribune, intra-party battles reached such a fever pitch that impeachment discussions for key figures were initiated. These weren’t mere political skirmishes but indicators of profound ideological rifts mirroring the national divide within the GOP. 

An e-mail today from Beto O'Rourke:

The Texas Senate’s acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton proved to the entire state and nation what you and I have known for a long time: The Texas GOP is the party of corruption and impunity.

Before the verdict came down on Saturday, many Texans — Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike — believed that the evidence against our corrupt, twice indicted Attorney General was so damning that Senate Republicans had no choice but to convict him.

But when they let Paxton walk scot-free on a national stage — despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption and abuse of public office — they firmly established the corrupt and self-serving direction of the Texas GOP.

Robert, this is our chance to capitalize on Texans’ hunger for true leaders who will hold corrupt politicians accountable. We can show Texans that Democrats stand for democracy and the rule of law — and win over the voters we need to produce change in this state. 

Yeah, a pitch for money; but there's blood in the Texas political water, the like of which I haven't seen since Bill Clements beat Mark White to retake the Governor's Mansion for the GOP (1987, if you're wondering). 

In the run-up to the 2024 elections, as per Yahoo News, the GOP’s state-level disarray had national implications. With traditionally Republican strongholds showing cracks, the ability of the national party to present a unified front was compromised. The party’s divisions were no longer hidden in state committee rooms but were played out on national stages.

Financial strains also played a role in magnifying the national consequences. MPR News highlighted the financial troubles of Minnesota’s GOP, indicating that gearing up for the upcoming elections would be a herculean task. When state parties, traditionally responsible for significant fundraising efforts, are cash-strapped, the national party must compensate, redirecting resources that might have been used elsewhere.

One of the more visible fractures that epitomized this tumult was the impeachment fight surrounding Ken Paxton, as discussed by The Texas Tribune. This was not a mere state issue. It showcased the broader challenges the GOP faced in presenting a cohesive stance on pivotal matters. This infighting, rather than presenting a unified opposition to their political counterparts, illustrated the GOP’s internal strife to the national audience.

Yes, I'm focussing on Texas because that's of greater interest to me.  Unstated, and therefore understated and completely missed, is the effort Trump now claims he put into getting Paxton off the hook for a thoroughly justified impeachment.

In light of Machiavelli’s keen observations on leadership and manipulation, the GOP’s trajectory appears to be influenced, in no small measure, by the overpowering presence of a divisive figure. Whether one sees Trump as the “deceitful man” Machiavelli described is subjective, but the upheaval and redefinition within the GOP under his shadow cannot be denied. The party’s path, as it approaches the 2024 elections, will undoubtedly be a crucial chapter in the annals of American political history, with lessons to be gleaned for generations to come.

I think the only thing missing in this analysis is the bold stroke of recognition that the Republican Party is no longer a political party.  The infighting is the two rumps of what was once the "GOP" squabbling over the carcass and who has possessory interest in the bones.  The Trump side of the "party" has no interest in governance, no interest in issues of corruption and abuse of office, except as the concepts can be clubs to beat on their enemies:  Democrats first, and when those aren't available, Republicans who are not of pure enough essence (yes, the reference to "Dr. Strangelove" is intentional).  MTG and Boebert and Gaetz and the "Freedom Caucus" don't want to govern, they simply want attention.  Ken Buck of CO is sounding rational when he condemns MTG and Boebert and Gaetz as bomb throwers, but he still votes to restrict spending to levels he approves of, and nothing will shake him from the purity of his cause. He just wants to keep his essence pure from the fluoridation represented by Gaetz and Bimbo Boebert and barking ape Greene.

And the GOP?  I honestly believe, after Trump loses again in '24 (I think he gets the nomination by default, not by virtue; but I still think he gets it.  It's a rigged game for him.), the question won't be "whither the GOP," but:  "Where is the GOP?"  Gaetz is making noises he wants to beat DeSantis in Florida, because he's tired of beating on McCarthy.  Boebert is now the representative for Colorado 3rd base; I don't think her excuse that is was their first, and last, date is having the effect she expected it to have.  And Greene?  What is she worth, really, in a House that is no longer controlled by the crazies in the GOP?  Back to wandering the Capitol grounds looking for a TV camera?

It might be fun to watch a major political party dissolve before the nation’s eyes. Something to tell the grandkids, anyway…

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