Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters
The most substantial and meaningful bipartisan act of government in the 88th Texas Legislature occurred last weekend: the historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Warren Kenneth “Ken” Paxton, Jr.
Paxton—as a state representative, state senator, state attorney general, Trump ally, and Biden (and previously Obama) administration antagonist—has exercised ever-increasing power over his two-decades in office, but that prideful run came to a sudden halt at 5pm Saturday, May 27, when he was impeached and immediately suspended from office in a stunning 121-23 vote in favor of the Texas House twenty-count Articles of Impeachment.
First Assistant AG Brent Webster now leads the Office of Attorney General in Mr. Paxton’s absence. His suspension from office will continue until Mr. Paxton is either acquitted on each of twenty-counts in the Articles of Impeachment or he is convicted on one or more counts. The last Texas official to be impeached, District Judge O.P. Carrillo in 1975, faced ten counts, and Carrillo was finally convicted and removed from office on one count only. In the matter of impeachment and conviction, once is indeed enough.