Texas Attorney General candidate Sen. Ken Paxton made his way down to Houston this week and was the featured speaker at the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club.
Being a fan of Speaker Joe Straus, I haven’t been very flattering to Sen. Paxton in the past. But that was then, this is now, and the Attorney General position is extremely important, so I was very curious to know what issues he was going to put forth and just as important, how he would be received by the club’s members and guests.
Background
Sen. Paxton started with a bit of personal background. After graduating from Baylor, he and his wife Angela came to Houston, where he worked for Arthur Anderson for two years. He then went to law school at the University of Virginia. After completing law school, he moved to McKinney, TX, where he has lived since. He has been married 27 years and has four children. For the last 11 years, he has been in the state legislature, first as a State Representative and since 2012, as a State Senator.
Reason for running
Paxton’s stated that his reason for running for Attorney General is because he believes that the state is under attack and needs someone that is willing to stand up and fight. The attack is coming from two fronts: an economic attack by the feds and a political attack by the Democrats.
I thought one of his comments was interesting. He stated that during his time in state government, the focus has moved from state issues to fighting the federal government. He thinks that this started when the Obama administration tried to withhold federal funds for education. I think he was talking about Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s attempt to withhold federal stimulus money but he didn’t say.
Economic attack
As for the economic attack on Texas by the federal government, Paxton ticked off a list of grievances:
- EPA attacks on the oil & gas industry, the coal industry, and the fishing industry
- IRS attacks on Republican business owners
- Agressive OSHA enforcement
Paxton stated that the reason for these attacks is that California, New York, Illinois, and Michigan are complete failures after one-party rule by Democrats. Texas, he said, is an embarrassment because of our success.
Political attack
The Democrats are using these economic attacks in coordination with a political attack to turn Texas blue. The political attacks are on three fronts:
- Voter ID – Paxton thinks the latest lawsuit against this law is designed to help Wendy Davis in next fall’s election.
- Redistricting
- Obamacare
Choosing a candidate
After laying out these reasons for running, he told the full house they need to be very careful in selecting statewide candidates next year because their choices not only affect Texas but the entire country. If Texas turns blue, Republicans are doomed to fail in presidential elections for the foreseeable future. He then listed two things that people should focus on in when choosing candidates:
- Record – if you look at his record over the last 11 years, you will not find a more consistently conservative one.
- Endorsements – since he can’t meet every voter, you need to look at who is endorsing him. He then listed off a long list of endorsements.
He finished up with a very good point – only 5-6{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of Republicans will decide who the nominees (and probable winners) are. That means that your vote counts for 20 people.
Use the player below to listen to his opening speech:
Reason for voting against the budget
During the question and answer period, I asked him if he would explain why he voted against the budget. Basically, he thought that the budget spent too much, the tax cuts weren’t deep enough, and he wanted to fund water and transportation projects from the budget and not via the rainy day fund.
You can listen to his answer:
Commentary
During his opening remarks, he mentioned that he hasn’t been back to Houston in two decades. This showed in his reception. It was warm but not the kind of reception that David Dewhurst or Dan Patrick would receive. It takes time to get to know people and I suspect we’ll see a lot more of him in the next four months. He made sure that people knew that he liked Ted Cruz, mentioning his name frequently.
Like I said earlier, I wasn’t real happy with him when he was attacking Speaker Straus. But he came off in this meeting like a nice enough guy that truly believes what he says. It’s hard to see him standing up to the Obama administration as forcefully as Greg Abbott has. He’s very soft spoken and didn’t seem to have a boatload of energy. But I completely understand the long days of statewide candidates and can write that off to being tired if he corrects it. After all, I said the same thing about Ted Cruz and he sure enough fixed it. The good news on that front for his supporters is that, at least in Houston, he has a first rate campaign team – I was a bit surprised that he managed to land Jessica Colon to help him. She’s one of the best in Harris County and he should listen to her.
I would have liked to hear him talk more about state issues regarding the Attorney General position. One questioner asked him if he would be open to changing the current system of child support and he indicated that he would be. But other than that, everything was about Obama and the feds. I’m certain that there are many issues that he could have talked about that directly related to the state – public information requests, consumer protection, the criminal justice system, etc. But I’m also a realist and understand that the candidates are all trying to run over the right-field fence.
And that’s a wrap.