Editorial: Ken Paxton’s bullying of Texas high court fails.

Any flash of integrity among Texas state officials these days is worthy of mention, but particularly when it involves the rebuffing of the most scandalous scoundrel in their ranks.

Attorney General Ken Paxton was so smug earlier this year when he encouraged his supporters to go after an all-Republican panel of judges on the state’s highest criminal court after they ruled against him .

The case involved Paxton’s authority to unilaterally prosecute Texans for voter fraud — a favorite pastime for the attorney general even if he has few convictions to show for it . But the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals had ruled in December that the Texas Constitution doesn’t allow the attorney general’s office, which handles civil matters, to bring criminal cases, which is the job of county district attorney’s offices acting on behalf of the state.

Paxton, you may recall, has been under years-long federal indictment for fraud and only this week was caught playing catch-me-if-you can with a process server trying to deliver a subpoena in an ongoing case against his office.

So it was only moderately surprising when he began denouncing his fellow Republicans on the high court, riling his supporters to hound them, and sounding alarms that their ruling could

pave the way for a fraud-fueled liberal takeover of Texas.

Don’t feel bad if you’re confused at this point. Paxton never explained why conservative Republican appellate judges would be helping the Democrats.

“Call them out by name,” Paxton said in an interview on the show of Mike Lindell, My Pillow CEO and prominent supporter of President Trump. “I mean, you can look them up. There’s eight of them that voted the wrong way. Call them, send mail, send email.”

In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” first reported by the Austin American-Statesman, Paxton urged Texans to pressure the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals to give him a re-hearing.

“We’re going to make them all famous, and they have to understand they’re going to be made famous. Very famous,” said Bannon, who subsequently came under indictment himself for fraud. What a pair.

“That’s awesome,” Paxton replied. “That’s exactly what they need.”

People did call and email the judges in droves, leaving messages that spanned from outrage to direct threats that were forwarded to law enforcement. Some were no doubt prompted by a robo-message , obtained by Hearst Newspapers, from Houston Republican activist and kingmaker Dr. Steven Hotze, who provided a phone number for the judges to tens of thousands of Republicans, urging them to: “Leave a message that you want the court to restore Paxton’s right to prosecute voter fraud in Texas,” Hotze said. “If this decision isn’t reversed, then the Democrats will steal the elections in November and turn Texas blue.”

Hotze, incidentally, was also indicted this year on charges of unlawful restraint and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for his part in a voter-fraud-hunting scheme that went awry. Terribly awry. See a pattern here?

Apparently, many Texans don’t. They keep believing this bunch of unscrupulous, conspiracy-minded scoundrels simply because they call themselves “Republican” and because Donald Trump may occasionally return their calls.

But luckily, the Republicans on Texas’ highest criminal court stuck to the facts, and the law, and didn’t allow themselves to get bullied into violating the Texas Constitution.

In an opinion Tuesday , the court reiterated that Paxton doesn’t have the power to prosecute voter fraud all by himself and must get permission from local county prosecutors to pursue cases on issues such as voter fraud.

Of course, Judge Scott Walker noted in a concurring opinion that the Legislature could always amend the Texas Constitution, and seek voter approval, to give the attorney general the right to prosecute such cases.

“The remedy is not for the courts to water down the Texas Constitution from the bench,” Walker wrote. “To do so would be a violation of our judicial oath.”

Oaths don’t mean much to Paxton, a guy who thumbs his nose at Texas open records laws and is being invested by the FBI after whistleblowers in his own office accused him of bribery and other corruption. Paxton did everything he could to overturn the 2020 presidential election, even filing a baseless lawsuit rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court quicker than you could say “BS” in its original form.

Incidentally, Democrats quickly pointed out another positive consequence of the CCA limiting Paxton’s role in criminal cases: the same reasoning would preclude Paxton from pursuing criminal cases against women and doctors across the state who seek or perform abortions. Local prosecutors can still bring cases under Texas’ extreme abortion ban but not the attorney general.

With regards to “voter fraud,” Paxton’s zeal for prosecuting it isn’t so much about securing Texas elections as securing his own position in Texas politics.

No Texan who cares about our state and our democracy supports voter fraud or the lenient treatment of it. People who intentionally lie, or vote twice on purpose, or try to manipulate somebody else’s vote should be prosecuted and punished.

But the fact is, voter fraud is exceedingly rare and even Paxton hasn’t been able to find much for all his looking on the taxpayer’s dime.

What he was seeking in the case he lost at the Criminal Court of Appeals was the power to prosecute weak or baseless voter fraud cases that no self-respecting district attorney would allow him to bring. Cases such as the one Paxton has pursued against Hervis Rogers , a 62-year-old Black man from Houston who voted in the March 2020 Democratic primary just a few months before completing felony parole and having his voting rights fully restored.

It stands to reason that Rogers didn’t know he was doing anything wrong or else he probably wouldn’t have embraced all the national media attention he got after waiting six hours, until 1 a.m., to vote at Texas Southern University on Super Tuesday 2020.

Paxton not only charged Rogers with a crime that could send him back in prison for the rest of his life, the attorney general abused his statewide power by forum-shopping the case, charging Rogers in mostly white, conservative Montgomery County, as opposed to Harris County where Rogers actually lived and committed the alleged voting “crime.” Paxton pulled the same stunt the previous year, trying to indict a Harris County Democratic election official in Montgomery County on allegations that he had obstructed a poll watcher.

Nothing about this week’s decision stops local district attorneys from pursuing credible election fraud allegations, or even from inviting the attorney general’s office to join the case. You wouldn’t know that from Paxton’s statement of outrage.

“The CCA’s shameful decision means local DAs with radical liberal views have the sole power to prosecute election fraud in TX — which they will never do,” Paxton tweeted. “The timing is no accident — this is devastating for the integrity of our upcoming elections.”

Again, we’re not quite sure why an all-Republican court would be in cahoots with “radical liberals” to sway the November mid-term election, but that’s Paxton for you. Conspiracies are mother’s milk. Integrity is a dietary allergy.

Meanwhile, we applaud the CCA judges who sided with the Texas Constitution over Texas politics. That’s all we ask. It’s a simple request of public officials — and yet so rarely honored.