Paxton seeking $43M to fight Google
Senate panel OKs restoring cut funds
Texas lawmakers are preparing to arm Attorney General Ken Paxton with $43 million to fight Google in court.
A key committee in the state Senate on Wednesday amended its proposed budget for Paxton, restoring most of the cuts members had threatened and giving the Republican extra money to hire outside attorneys to pursue an antitrust case against Google Inc.
“This case has the potential to bring down significant dollars to the state,” state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, said Wednesday in advocating for the revised budget plan.
The move came as Paxton increased the political pressure on the Legislature to restore funding for his office. On Twitter on Wednesday as the committee was meeting, he called on the public to push lawmakers to restore his office’s budget after lawmakers originally had proposed slashing nearly $90 million and cutting 154 positions from his 4,000-person workforce.
“Fellow Texans: Ensure your legislator is FULLY RESOURCING my Office. Any cuts are a loss for TX and in turn a loss for USA,” Paxton wrote to his 128,000 Twitter followers and on Facebook to more than 286,000 followers.
Paxton is also getting help from outside of Texas on that push. Yesterday, a group called Conservative Action Project sent
a letter to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan pushing for restoration of the money and helping fund the Google lawsuit.
“Any reduction to the Office of the Attorney General’s budget will result in tremendous harm to the state and nation,” the letter signed by 15 prominent Republican lawyers, including former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese III. “The cause of liberty and justice cannot afford that.”
Though the Legislature is dominated by Republicans like Paxton, key players in the Senate were upset with Paxton for violating his budget authority by moving $40 million in his budget to cover pay raises that were not authorized by lawmakers.
“I wish we had done that one differently,” Paxton conceded during a committee hearing in when legislators chastised him for the move.
That appears to have been enough for the Senate to alter its initial budget proposal and give Paxton most of everything he requested.
Google calls case ‘baseless’
The $43 million cost of the litigation stems from Paxton’s decision to use outside attorneys.
Jeff Mateer, Paxton's former top lieutenant who resigned in October, told the Associated Press in January that the office initially intended to put together a team for the Google case from the 700 lawyers attorneys on the AG’s staff.
But then eight of Paxton's top aides, including Mateer, accused Paxton of corruption and all were fired or resigned, including the attorney leading the Google investigation, former Deputy Attorney General Darren McCarty.
But Paxton in February disputed that he intended to rely on in-house lawyers for the case.
“There was never anybody in my office that could handle that alone,” he told the Senate Finance Committee in February. “If Google is going to have the very best lawyers that know antitrust, we wanted to be able to compete on the same playing field.”
Paxton is suing Google, claiming it has built a monopoly on online display advertising. In court documents, he says Google chased off competition using a variety of methods, including conspiring with Facebook to manipulate auctions where ads were sold.
“Google’s monopolization of the display-advertising industry and its misleading business practices stifle innovation, limit consumer choice and reduce competition,” Paxton said last year after he filed the suit. “Texas and its coalition of allied states bring this action to lift the veil on Google’s secret practices and secure relief to prevent it from engaging in future decep-February tive and misleading practices.”
Google officials have called Paxton’s case baseless.
“Attorney General Paxton’s ad tech claims are meritless, yet he’s gone ahead in spite of all the facts,” a Google spokesman said. “We’ve invested in state-ofthe-art ad tech services that help businesses and benefit consumers. Digital ad prices have fallen over the last decade. Ad tech fees are falling too. Google’s ad tech fees are lower than the industry average. These are the hallmarks of a highly competitive industry. We will strongly defend ourselves from his baseless claims in court.”
The move to restore Paxton’s budget still has a long way to go in the Texas Legislature. The Texas Senate and House both have to agree on a two-year budget to run the state government before the session ends on May 31.