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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to oust a Democratic leader received unexpected opposition from a reliable hard right ally: Lone Star State Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“You had last night a bit of a circular firing squad among Texas Republicans,” Democracy Forward’s CEO and president Skye Perryman explained in a Substack Live interview this morning.
Over the past few days, Texas Rep. Gene Wu and dozens of other Democratic lawmakers fled the Lone Star State in an effort to deny Republicans a quorum to redraw the congressional maps. Abbott and other Republicans have tried to pressure Wu to return to the state with threats of arrest and expulsion, working together with Donald Trump.
Now, two of the state’s top MAGA Republicans are locked in a turf war over who will carry out those legal threats.
“Abbott files his paper with the Texas Supreme Court, and then Ken Paxton comes out with a statement that was actually challenging what Abbott did because he's gone through the wrong procedure,” Perryman noted.
Paxton, who unsuccessfully tried to help Trump overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election with a failed Supreme Court lawsuit, wasn’t defending the principle that Texas citizens should decide which lawmakers will represent them. He just wants to be the one leading the charge against Wu.
“Paxton has also said he wants to have these lawmakers removed from office,” Perryman said. “So it is just a moving, very dynamic situation in Texas.”
As the leader of Democracy Forward, Perryman has filed lawsuits across the country opposing the Trump administration’s agenda, and she wrote a blistering letter to Abbott before the governor escalated the redistricting standoff.
“You are not a King,” Perryman told him, in a letter to him emphasized in boldface text. “You have no authority to remove lawmakers elected by their communities in Texas from office.”
Her Aug. 4 letter to the governor was a shot across the bow.
In 2021, Democracy Forward sued when Abbott used his veto power to eliminate the funding of Texas’s legislative branch of government.
“He actually sought to line-item veto the legislature, which is controlled by his own party, when it didn't do what he wanted it to do,” Perryman said. “So this is the autocratic playbook that we see.”
Trump has threatened to send in the FBI to arrest the Texas Democratic lawmakers, who left the state for Illinois, New York and other locations.
“Of course, you have an administration that has wanted to operate and use its power and weaponize the federal government against people,” Perryman said.
In the full video, Perryman describes the expanding redistricting battles across the country and the state of Democracy Forward’s litigation. You can read her full letter to Abbott here.
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