Paxton blasts House voting rights bill
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday condemned the voting rights bill that the U.S. House passed this week, saying the issue should be left to the states and calling it “one of the worst pieces of legislation, maybe the worst, I've ever seen.”
Paxton in December tried to overturn the election results in four battleground states where President Joe Biden had won because he took issue with those states' election practices. The case was almost immediately tossed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that Texas did not have standing to challenge elections held in other states.
“Our Founding Fathers intentionally excluded Congress and gave state legislatures the authority to run state elections. Instead, this Act flips the Constitutional script and empowers the federal government to act as the election regulator for states,” Paxton said in a statement.
Democrats were quick to point out the conflict between Paxton's 2020 lawsuit and his take on the new federal legislation.
“It's ironic that indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is pushing ‘states' rights' when he wasted Texans' taxpayer dollars to attempt to overturn the results of the election in four states,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa. “There is no rhyme or reason with Paxton. The only thing we know about Paxton is he will disenfranchise millions of voters through his frivolous attempts to overthrow an election or through opposing common-sense reforms like HR1.”
The For the People Act, also known as HR1, which was approved by the House on Wednesday, would prevent states from restricting access to mail ballots and require them to use independent redistricting commissions to draw congressional districts, among other measures. It contains a multitude of ethics provisions, including requiring super PACS and “dark money” groups to publicly release donation information and the president to disclose his or her tax returns.
Paxton was among 20 Republican attorneys general who signed a letter Wednesday denouncing the bill.
“As introduced, the Act betrays several Constitutional deficiencies and alarming mandates that, if passed, would federalize state elections and impose burdensome costs and regulations on state and local officials,” they wrote, saying under the Constitution, “states have principal—and with presidential elections, exclusive— responsibility to safeguard the manner of holding elections.”