AG to shift from litigation to lobbying
Paxton says his office will reach out to incoming president about policies
With Donald Trump set to become the president, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he plans to shift his focus from suing the federal government to lobbying it.
Paxton said his office has begun reaching out to Trump’s transition team to suggest which policies should be unraveled first, including Obamacare, guidelines on transgender bathroom access in schools and environmental regulations.
“The Obama legacy is going to be wiped out with a stroke of a pen,” Paxton said. “When you slam it down people’s throats, when your turn is over, they tend to want to come back and fix it fast.”
Paxton, a Republican with tea party ties, built a national reputation around his dogged pursuit of lawsuits against Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration. His office has filed 15 suits since he took office in 2015. Texas has sued the federal government 46 times since Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
The attorney general planned to keep up that legal pressure had Democrat Hillary Clinton won, in an effort to defend against what he said amounts to federal overreach.
Nearly 20 Texas lawsuits are still pending, including a challenge to the Department of Justice’s guidelines for schools with transgender students, a fee associated with the Affordable Care Act, mandatory overtime pay and several clean air and water regulations. Meanwhile, the state is engaged in legal fights in Texas over requiring voters to show photo IDs and challenging local government decisions on issues such as banning guns in certain government buildings.
Some say the office should be spending its time lobbying Congress
or the president. The attorney general should be focused on protecting Texas families, said Manny Garcia, deputy executive director for the Texas Democratic Party.
“Tuesday night was obviously a night that many families awoke the next morning fearful for what the future holds,” he said. “Texas is on the forefront of these voting rights cases, these human rights cases, cases on whether or not our air and water is going to be clean, and on every single one of these instances, Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republicans has been against Texas’ majority, Texas’ family.”
With Trump’s swearing-in a little more than two months away, Paxton said he wants to take a proactive approach to help the Trump administration undo the policies once he takes office in January.
“We’re going to have to encourage Trump and Congress to eliminate many of the rules and regulations issued by the agencies under Obama, including a lot of those rules we’re suing over. Those don’t just go away. They have to be either changed by the agency or Congress has to step in,” Paxton said.
Having Trump in the White House gives Texas an opportunity to be heard by an administration it perceives as friendly to its cause. However, Trump’s lack of a track record in public service makes predicting his decisions difficult.
The attorney general said that doesn’t worry him.
“It’s exciting to have the ability to stop this stuff in a more effective and efficient manner and not take years to get it done. I’m really excited about the opportunity. Hopefully in the next year, a lot of those cases will be resolved in our favor,” said Paxton who expects to file few lawsuits against the federal government under the new president.
Attempts to reach the Trump campaign were unsuccessful late Friday.
Paxton said he plans to press the administration and members of Congress — including those beyond the Texas delegation — to repeal the Affordable Care Act and create a method to prevent government overreach, Paxton said. His office also will urge Trump to appoint a conservative to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.
“I’m actually excited about the future, the possibilities. It opens actually more doors than it closes from the standpoint of what my office will be doing,” he said.