It looks like Texas GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton wants a head start on seizing the title of most hated Senator from fellow Texan Ted Cruz. Not a single Republican wanted Paxton as the nominee but as you know Trump doesn’t care what they think so he boosted Paxton. MAGA was enough for the primary but the general election is another matter. The almost inexplicable Hispanic support for Trump and the GOP has been shrinking every week. He’s underwater with them again, and Paxton’s latest stunt will make Trump, Paxton and other Republicans even more vulnerable. Paxton is ignoring a court order and engaging in voter suppression with Hispanics in Texas!
I can’t help but think of that line from Blazing Saddles when Hedly Lamar offers badges to a group of bandits signing up for his army of thugs – their leader declares “Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” That’s Paxton when it comes to what laws and court orders he will or will not enforce. Despite a court order telling him to stand down Paxton is proceeding with a scheme blocked by a federal judge at the beginning of this year. Even though this is in Texas with an appeals court that is friendly to conservatives the order blocking enforcement of that law banning modest assistance to helping voters register and vote remains in force. As this short article from Raw Story tells us Paxton has contemptuously ignored the court.
As far as he’s concerned he’s Ken By God Paxton and doesn’t have to obey any judge! (No wonder Trump loves him) A couple of legal analysts recently discussed what Paxton is doing on a podcast. Here’s what’s going on:
Attorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian discussed a recent New York Times report on Paxton’s efforts to disrupt Latino voting groups in Texas in a new episode of their podcast, “Civil Action.” That scheme included criminalizing acts such as providing stipends to volunteers to drive elderly and disabled voters to the polls, and investigating people who run organizations that offer bilingual voter registration services.
Yes, the GOP legislature in Texas and Paxton think is just AWFUL to go helping people vote. Well, at least some types of people. At times Texas has made pushes to reach out to Hispanic voters and along the border in particular have utilized a network of conservative clergy (mostly Catholic) with abortion and LGBTQ issues and convince them to vote Republican. They have also played on the ‘I’m here legally who are these new people crossing the border without waiting their turn?’ sentiment to great advantage. I find that attitude arrogant to the point of sometimes being despicable.
An awful lot of these self-righteous asshats are descendants of parents or grandparents who came here without going through the immigration process. Hell, when you think about it unless you’re Native American ALL of us are descended from ‘illegal aliens!’ The point is that thanks to birthright citizenship lots of Hispanics in Texas and other border states who get all high and mighty would be “illegals” themselves. Maybe Trump’s push to get SCOTUS to overturn the birthright citizenship provision in the 14th amendment has gotten their attention. As has ‘de-naturalization.’ Just speaking, or even ‘looking Hispanic’ has gotten countless people detained by ICE.
So it’s not surprising Trump and the GOP’s support with Hispanics has tanked everywhere but south Florida this year. What both offends and scares Paxton and other GOPers is that these people have been known to vote in strong numbers for Democrats in some elections. Faced with the prospect of Stephen Miller egging Trump on every single day and ICE again ramping things up elected Republicans don’t want any part of people like Texas Gov. Abbot or AG turned Senate candidate Paxton tossing more flaming turds into the punchbowl.
Yet that’s exactly what Paxton has chosen to do. While the linked article covers the impact in Texas from where I sit it could become a problem for GOPers in a lot of other states and races this November. As for Texas I still have Charlie Brown apprehension – as in Lucy being Ken Paxton’s sister holding the football. Still, Talarico is polling ahead although not be nearly enough to say he’s a good bet to flip that Senate seat to Democratic. That makes me wonder if Paxton’s internal polling is telling him he’s in deep doo-doo.
If his and Abbott’s enthusiastic implementation of every Miller/Trump immigration cruelty means Hispanics are going to come out huge for Talarico then vicious voter suppression is the only chance Paxton has. As the linked article notes Kabateck said Paxton’s scheme is likely to the GOP back by “generations” with Latino voters in Texas. Karnikian describes Paxton’s scheme as “crazy stuff.”
Kabateck noted that a federal court found the scheme illegal in late January, but Paxton appears to have taken a page from the Trump playbook and defied the order.
“Paxton doesn’t care,” Kabateck said. “He goes out, and he says, ‘That’s fine. I’m going to keep doing it. I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing,’ because the ultimate goal here isn’t the individual who’s served with an indictment or a search warrant or whatever. It’s the chilling effect.”
It remains to be seen whether that ‘chilling effect’ will happen, or if instead it will backfire on Paxton. The rational part of me says even Ken Paxton still has a bit of common sense left and knows he’s playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in the gun and only one empty chamber. But another part of me knows rational and Ken Paxton mix together about as well as oil and water. IF he thinks there’s no way he can avoid losing by a relatively narrow (less than five points) to Talarico he might just want to blow his race up. And take other Republicans down with him. After all, they are pissed they don’t have Cornyn as the candidate in the race because for all the money they’d have had to spend to win, Paxton will cost far more.
What if it’s being signaled to him he’ll get endorsements and some positive statements but not the hundred million (at least) he’d need to have a chance at winning? He might as I’ve suggested do the whiny ‘If I can’t have what I want then nobody else can either’ routine with his fellow Republicans and make a point of losing BIG. Enough so to take some of them out too. Yes, Paxton’s that much of an asshat just like his pal Trump. Regardless the cold, hard fact is that Paxton’s made it harder on himself with a key voting bloc. Every bit of effort and money GOPers have to expend to help him is money they’d counted on being able to use elsewhere. North Carolina. Maine. Ohio. Iowa. And it’s not just Senate races that will be affected! Voter suppression is an ugly thing and we have to fight it head on. Not just Hispanics but other minorities and yes, white folks (like me) too.
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