The Texas Senate on Tuesday rejected all of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to dismiss the articles of impeachment against him, moving forward with the first removal proceeding against a statewide elected official in more than a century.
The pretrial motions required a majority vote. The most support a motion to dismiss received was 10 out of 30 senators.
As someone who live in Texas for thirty years, I am genuinely shocked that the Texas GOP has managed to find someone who is too corrupt even, for them. I wouldn’t have said that was possible.
I wouldn’t be surprise to find out this is some kind of attempt to scapegoat him and draw the eyes away from the rest of their corruption. That’s just the cynic in me thinking out loud though.
Removed by mod
I think it’s simpler.
As things are in Texas right now, anyone he is replaced with will be a conservative republican. There is zero political risk to republicans in removing him. His only constituency within the party is the furthest right loons… but they tend to abandon “losers” quickly and will happily latch onto the newest far right loon. All while keeping him around does represent a political cost to republicans. That cost has gotten high enough that they’re willing to consider removing him.
They can remove him with no risk to their power and get rid of a headache at the same time.
The tipping point is that he tried to get the party to pay for the coverup for his crimes. He was spending their money instead of raking it in, and they decided to turn off the tap.