The Texan Podcast - Inside the Impeachment: Paxton on Trial — The Verdict

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

Read more about the impeachment: https://thetexan.news/paxton_impeachment/Today, the Senate voted on the 16 impeachment charges leveled against Attorney General Ken Paxton in an effort to convict and remove him from office by the Texas House.Here’s a recap:Paxton was acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment by the Texas Senate. The House Board of Managers needed to convince 21 senators to sustain at least one of the charges. Most of the charges were dismissed by a vote of 14 to 16.After the votes were taken, Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Granbury) made a motion to dismiss the four articles of impeachment that were held in abeyance and not considered during the trial. The motion passed.Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has been largely silent since the House impeached Paxton in May, took to the microphone after the vote and lambasted the Texas House for pursuing impeachment. “Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this impeachment. 31 Senators and a large Senate staff that made this trial possible have put their family life, jobs, and businesses on hold for 3 months after being here already from January to June,” said Patrick.Patrick announced that he would be conducting an audit to determine “all taxpayer money spent by the House from the beginning of their investigation in March to today.”Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) released a statement, “Over the last two weeks, the Texas House Board of Managers provided the Texas Senate and the people of Texas extensive evidence of Ken Paxton’s corruption, deception and self-dealing. It is extremely unfortunate that after hearing and evaluating this evidence, the Texas Senate chose not to remove him from office."In a press conference after the proceedings, Rep. Andrew Murr (R-Junction), chairman of the House Board of Managers, was asked if in hindsight he would change the approach the House took in the trial. “I would not do anything differently,” said Murr.Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement commending the trial’s proceedings and the jury’s verdict, and said he looked forward to working with Paxton again in his role as attorney general. 

Howdy, folks. This is Mackenzie DeLullo, senior editor at The Texan. Welcome back to another episode of Inside the Impeachment, Paxton on Trial. Today, the Senate voted on the 16 impeachment charges leveled against Attorney General Ken Paxton in an effort to convict and remove him from office by the Texas House. Here's a recap. Paxton was acquitted on all 16 articles of impeachment by the Texas Senate. The House Board of Managers needed to convince 21 senators to sustain at least one of the charges. Most of the charges were dismissed by a vote of 14 to 16.

After the votes were taken, Senator Brian Birdwell made a motion to dismiss the four articles of impeachment that were held in abeyance and not considered during the trial. The motion passed. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who has been largely silent since the House impeached Paxton in May, took to the microphone after the vote and lambasted the Texas House for pursuing impeachment. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this impeachment. 31 senators and a large Senate staff that made this trial possible have put their family life, jobs, and businesses on hold for three months after being here already from January to June, said Patrick. He announced that he would be conducting an audit to determine all taxpayer

money spent by the House from the beginning of their investigation in March to today. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan released a statement. Over the last two weeks, the Texas House Board of Managers provided the Texas Senate and the people of Texas extensive evidence of Ken Paxton's corruption, deception, and self-dealing. It is extremely unfortunate that after hearing and evaluating this evidence, the Texas Senate chose not to remove him from office. In a press conference after the proceedings, Representative Andrew Murr, chairman of the House Board of Managers, was asked if, in hindsight, he would change the approach the House took in the trial.

I would not do anything differently, said Murr. Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement commending the trial's proceedings and the jury's verdict and said he looked forward to working with Paxton again in his role as Attorney General. Enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie DeLulo here and we are here after the Texas Senate voted to acquit suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton on each of the 16 articles levied against him by the Texas House. I'm joined by these two gentlemen from our team that y'all may know, Hayden Sparks and Brad Johnson, who've been following the trial

and we finally have a conclusion. Wow, what a day. Hayden, you were over there. I'll just go ahead and jump right in. You were over there in the Senate chamber. I know it took a while for press to get admitted actually into the gallery to watch the proceedings. Give us just insight into how the Senate chamber felt. Was it surreal? Like walk me through what it was like being there. Today could not have gone better for Attorney General Ken Paxton. And that is the first time that I have said Attorney General Ken Paxton, probably since he was impeached in May. We've been saying suspended Attorney General, but as of a couple hours ago, less than a couple hours ago, Dan Patrick handed Ken Paxton the keys for his office after the Senate acquitted him on all 16 charges and dismissed the remaining

four charges that were held in abeyance. Unlike a traditional trial where the jury retires and makes a group decision, senators arrived at their decisions independently and privately and took the vote in public. So anything that happened behind closed doors would have been a straw poll that they took into the Senate chamber with them. The vote to acquit Paxton was at least a majority on each count. Now, they had to convince 21 senators that these charges were valid. They only had to convince 21 senators one time that one charge was valid to remove Paxton from office. And they did not meet that threshold. Not only did they not meet that threshold, but the House Board of Managers failed to convince even a majority of senators. And in fact,

one of the articles was dismissed with only two votes in favor of it. So this was a colossal defeat for not only the board of managers, but the Texas House and Speaker Dade Phelan. It wasn't a quick affair in a traditional courtroom, in a real courtroom with a real jury. The verdict would have been reached behind closed doors and the clerk would have read, we the jury duly impaneled and sworn find the defendant guilty or not guilty, and they would have just read each vote. But in this case, there were quite literally 30 verdicts on all 16 charges, and then another decision on whether to dismiss the four charges. So it took the whole process took about two hours almost for them to get all of the votes counted and for everyone, including Patrick, to to say what they had to say. And senators didn't say much of anything on the floor.

But Patrick certainly had a lot to say. And I know Brad will probably talk a little bit more about that. But the energy was very quiet. To add to the cinematic value of this, a thunderstorm rolled into Austin right as they were taking the votes. So it almost felt a little bit like I was in a Netflix special or something. You had this cast of characters around all in the Senate chamber, senators taking these votes on the floor, but it was very serious. I think everyone was taking it seriously. It was very quiet. There were no outbursts and they reached a decision on each charge.

And this matter in the court of impeachment of the Texas Senate is settled. And notably as well, we talked yesterday about the articles that would be that have been held in abeyance. Senator Brian Birdwell at the end of the vote made a motion who it seemed as though I can't remember exactly how Lieutenant Governor Patrick framed it at the beginning of the day where he talked about Birdwell or maybe it was Senator Lois Kulkhorst about how Birdwell behind the scenes was the one kind of running a little bit of the deliberation and making sure that communication was happening behind the scenes but Birdwell then was the one to make the motion to dismiss those articles that were held in abeyance which now means that you know and it passed that motion passed so those articles that were held in abeyance, which now means that, you know, and it passed, that motion passed. So those articles are not subject to recall or whatever the verbiage would be, which is also very notable. And that vote was like 19 to 11,

if I'm not mistaken. It was 19 to 11. And I will hasten to add that Ken Paxton's legal troubles are not over. He is still facing the possibility of life imprisonment on first degree securities fraud charges in Harris County. This action by the Texas Senate does not dismiss the whistleblower lawsuit that is still an active lawsuit. And this whole thing started with the legislature declining to pay the $3.3 million settlement. And I say the legislature, the Texas House specifically declined to pay it. They impeached Paxton rather than pay this settlement. There's no indication that they are going to pay this settlement anytime soon. They're not in session. If they are called into session, it would have to be placed on the agenda by Governor Abbott to pay

this settlement. And Abbott has not, to my knowledge, signaled that he's going to do that. So this whistleblower settlement is still pending against the OAG. While that is not a problem for Paxton personally, it is a problem for the OAG. And he, of course, is now back at the helm of the OAG. Paxton is still facing complaints against his bar license because of his actions after the results of the 2020 presidential election. So there are plenty of ways that opponents of Paxton could still take him down, but those avenues will take place in real courtrooms with real judges and real juries. And Paxton still has a lot of challenges to fend off, not only in the litigation that he will undoubtedly resume against the Biden administration on many fronts, but also

those who are still seeking vindication against him personally for their accusations against him. Brad, I want to ask a little bit and we'll both delve into a little bit of the votes here that went down. And Hayden mentioned that one of the articles was defeated 28 to 2, which means that all but two Democrats voted to dismiss that charge, which was pretty unbelievable to see that go down. Up until that point, I mean, the votes had been pretty in lockstep and we're all very similar. Two Republican senators were often voting to sustain some of these articles. Talk to us a little bit about the political dynamics at play with these votes. So it was Senators Robert Nichols, Republican from Jacksonville, and Senator Kelly Hancock, Republican from North Richland Hills in the DFW area, who joined the Democrats, the 12 Democrats on most of the

accounts. They didn't vote for all of them, but I don't have the total in front of me, but it's probably like 10 to 12 of the 16 that they voted for. And those two have been in the Senate for a long time. But one of the interesting political dynamics here is that both of them drew four-year terms after redistricting. When districts are redrawn, senators have four-year terms, and so that doesn't fit neatly into the decade. And so they have to pick who has to run two years after redistricting and who has to run four years after. It's a major reshuffling. Right. And both of them drew terms that end in 2026. in the distant future and that they will not have to potentially um deal with some of these repercussions as other senators do who are running more uh in a closer timetable to when these this

vote took place and every republican who uh drew a 2024 who has to run for re-election next year voted against every one of these articles and so you, you know, that's one aspect of this. That's not to say that that was what made them decide which way they voted and probably it wasn't the predominating factor, but you know, that's, that's something in this political situation, that's something that members are keeping in mind, undoubtedly. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's go ahead and jump in Hayden, any other political dynamics at play that you saw with these votes that were notable to you? It was a highly partisan

vote. Other than Nichols and Hancock crossing party lines on a few of those charges, it came down to Republican versus Democrat. And Ann Johnson, the vice chair of the General Investigating Committee, pointed that out in a news conference that just concluded. In her opinion, the decision to acquit Paxton was a partisan decision, and Murr expressed a similar sentiment as well. The decision to impeach Paxton was supported by members of both parties, and the votes to convict him also came from both sides of the aisle. But the Republicans in the Senate supported Paxton's acquittal much more than the Republicans in the Texas House opposed his impeachment in the first place. So the prevailing narrative for those who are probably going to try to save face after this ordeal is that this was a partisan decision against their impeachment. Because I said this to somebody as soon as the

decision was announced, I don't know how the Texas House saves face after something like this, because this could not have been a more resounding rejection from not only the Senate, but by Patrick, of their efforts over the past three months, or four months to remove Ken Paxton. And I say three or four months, they've been working on this since February. It wasn't until May that the General Investigating Committee recommended impeachment, but they began investigating in February after he requested the settlement. So Paxton has been in the crosshairs of the House for almost the entire year. And here we are getting close to fall or where it's fall and getting close to primary season. Candidates are already announcing. And now the House has to clean up over, clean up after this colossal defeat. And then in the next

legislative session, they may face the same choice again of having to pay out the settlement. There's been a lot of moral posturing over this impeachment over the past few months. And the Senate just said that the argument that the people of Texas elected Ken Paxton, and Ken Paxton should be making the calls at the OAG, that argument carried the day. And the House's efforts were completely rejected. So the House is now obviously doubling down on the impeachment and saying that this was a partisan vote. And Paxton supporters are going to say that the Senate's acquittal proves that the decision to impeach him was an effort by Phelan and others who dislike Paxton's opposition to what they call the establishment, that is going to be their position going forward. So I think this decision will entrench everybody in the view that they already had. I think a conviction would have done that as well. So the political dynamics probably didn't change other than Ken Paxton is now back at the OAG and he is emboldened and empowered by this complete vindication. And there really is no

other way to describe it. So let's go through the whole day here. 9.30 a.m. around that time is when we got word from the lieutenant governor's office that the vote would be taking place at 10.30. So we had about an hour's notice, which was generous. We thought we'd have 30 minutes. 10.30 comes around. An announcement is made in the Senate chamber that will begin at 11.10. 11.10 comes around. The proceedings begin. Senator Lewis Colcourse offers some words of thanks to the Lieutenant Governor and Senator

Birdwell. Praise opens. The vote begins. The vote concludes. Senator Birdwell motions to remove or dismiss those articles that were held in abeyance. Then the Lieutenant Governor takes the microphone. And I want to talk about this because this is something that is unbelievably notable in that the Lieutenant Governor has largely been silent, completely silent since the House impeached

Paxton in May. And since it was even announced that the House was pursuing this in the General Investigating Committee. Brad, what did the Lieutenant Governor have to say? He had a lengthy and fiery response to the House specifically after this ordeal. He basically said it was a shame that this was brought in the way it was. The house presented no evidence, he said. And the amount of, they spent millions of dollars in taxpayer money to bring this up and to try and remove an elected official in the state. And so he also called for reforms to the impeachment process in Texas, specifically the one provision that automatically suspends the impeached official after the House vote until a resolution on conviction is decided. So Ken Paxton, for the

last three months, has been suspended from his role as the Attorney General of Texas. Patrick likened it to, contrasted it with the federal impeachment and specifically that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were allowed to remain in their positions until there was a final verdict on impeachment from the Senate. And so he wants to see that changed. He also called for an audit of everything that was spent both by the House and the Senate during this trial. And it is going to be very interesting to see how much money was spent on both sides of this i think it was just the house that he called he said he said he would evaluate the sentence too okay yeah um now obviously the arrow was pointed at the house but um he also noted that they would tally their own costs as well so um he basically picked up his sword uh in the with Speaker Dade Phelan, where it left off from the property tax fight.

And this is just turned up to 11. Like the relationship between those two has never been worse. And then we saw the speaker respond in kind. Yeah. So what did the speaker say? He said, first he commended the House members who voted for this and the sitting attorney general and said this was a shame that it ended up this way and the Senate should have convicted. He also took aim at the lieutenant, specifically for his speech that he gave after the votes. Um, he said something like, you know, Patrick has tried to maintain this impartiality as

the presiding officer of the court of impeachment. And then he just blew it all away with that speech. And he is very, it's not happy, just like the all away with that speech. And he is very, it's not happy, just like the Lieutenant governor is not happy. So those two are going to be headbutting continuously for the next, well, however long they're in their spots.

And we've seen a ton of that basically since the electricity repricing standoff after the ERCOT power grid collapse in 2021, it has been animosity between them ever since with a side of constitutional carry yes and the heartbeat act um so but my gosh that seems like so so long ago doesn't it uh where they were at least mostly cordial in public and no longer these two are it's an all-outwl. I don't know if this is the type of thing that elected officials can move past. We're not just talking about next legislative session.

We're talking about the next 10 years worth of legislative sessions. Hayden said when he walked back in to the office that we're in a new state politically. Texas history has changed forever. I truly believe that when this part We're in a new state politically. Texas history has changed forever. I truly believe that when this part of the century is taught in Texas history, there will be two parts before Ken Paxton was acquitted and after Ken Paxton was acquitted. There nothing, nothing politically will be the same after today. And we are 171 days from the March primary.

My gosh. politically will be the same after today and we are 171 days from the march primary my gosh so and before then we have a school choice special session coming which has already been an issue that the house and the senate have been very reticent to agree on yeah and they've been working the house has been working to try and find a compromise you know probably stuff everything school choice plan the um teacher pay raise in the school, potentially a school funding increase. Stuff it all into one omnibus. That way you're having one vote and not separate things. But now, from the House's perspective, what incentive do they have? Those members who voted against school choice plan before, those rural members who ended up, most of them voted for this impeachment, what incentive do they have to work with the Senate on a school choice plan?

They really don't. So, you know, any chance of the Senate getting what it views as a sufficient plan for school choice basically went out the window today. And its chances were already pretty slim. views as a sufficient plan for school choice basically went out the window today and um its chances were already pretty slim as we've seen it fail constantly in the house before this but you know obviously this is a different issue but it will have massive implications for when we convene next month on this education stuff yeah it's not very far away that we will be convening for a school choice special session i do want to, you know, one thing we've been talking about is the political dynamic at play and how, you know, the senators were really just the wild card in this. We didn't

know where they stood. There were so many unanswered questions and we got a lot of those answers today. I do want to make note, you know, I think a lot of the rhetoric and prediction that we've heard from, you know, insiders, piders pundits whoever and we even kind of thought about this around the office was okay this vote is either going to be incredibly incredibly close or there's going to be a pretty wide margin by which the attorney general is incredibly close to convict yes or a wide margin to acquit yes that was the general thought process and part of that is just due to the senate's typical ability to be in lockstep with each other, particularly the Republican caucus. And even in the property tax fight with Patrick V. Phelan a few months ago, we saw repeatedly that the lieutenant governor was able to rally his senators, all 31 of them, too, at the end there at a press conference. And that's very typical of the Senate and very, very much not how the House works. And again, that's in part because the House has 150 members.

And if you think it's easy to wrangle 31, 150 is a whole different story. Right. And they still got 121 votes for impeachment on this massive issue that is incredibly divisive. Can I can I make an observation on that as well? votes for impeachment on this massive issue that is incredibly divisive. Can I make an observation on that as well? Because in the House, only a majority is required to impeach. And I don't know how true this is, but I'm seeing reports that Senator West said to somebody that the reason it was a party line vote is some of the Republicans knew that there weren't going to be enough votes to convict. So they they voted for acquittal. That may have went on in the House as well because they only needed 76 votes to impeach.

So a lot of Republicans may have pondered to themselves, what do I gain from opposing the speaker on this if it's going to pass anyway? But if the vote threshold to impeach had been two-thirds, Phelan would have had to work much harder to convince more Republicans to be on board, and it might not have received the support of 121 votes. So the Senate, the task of the board of managers was a lot more difficult in the Senate. And you can't, these votes don't happen in a vacuum. Those political considerations do come into play. So I was trying to make sense of my mind. How does an impeachment article that received overwhelmingly 121 to 23 in the House get rejected overwhelmingly in the Senate? And I think part of that is they knew what was going,

they might have known what was going to happen in the House. And so they thought, you know, I'm not going to go out of my way to oppose my colleagues on something that they support. Kind of like in a jury, if you have the two or three holdouts, they might go, well, if everyone else feels differently than me or almost everyone else, then maybe I'm wrong and I should go with the other people. So anyway, I just thought that was kind of a fascinating thing that played out. No, absolutely. And Senator West gave the statement and Renzo Downey from the Tribune is who has put this out on Twitter. This is West's full quote. The fact is that once it was

real clear that we weren't going to get 21 votes, I believe that some Republicans that wanted to support impeachment decided to vote against impeachment. And I think, I mean, this is in part how politics works, too. Right. I mean, there is, just like Hayden is saying, real life consequences for voting against a majority. And in the House, you know, if the threshold had been two thirds, the minority would have been a lot more powerful in that regard and they just weren't as and there was a different it was just very different and in the senate we've heard rumors repeatedly that there are doubts on republican senators minds that you know today we did not see in terms of the votes it was very different story um although you know we and hancock and nichols i do want to also reiterate that they are also very different politically um very very different politically and don't typically align on a lot of these kind of big partisan votes.

Nichols tends to be very like centrist in how he approaches policy. Hancock usually goes with the majority of the Senate Republican caucus that tends to be a little bit more conservative. So it's just a very interesting dynamic to see those two also in lockstep on this issue. But Hancock also, you know, I mentioned the repricing fight. Hancock was kind of a maverick on that. He did not run, he did not tow the Lieutenant Governor's line and it cost him politically. He had a chairmanship that was stripped because he opposed lieutenant governor on that issue so he's got a track record of you know not just falling in line um did that apply here obviously he didn't fall in line here but um but behind the scenes we don't know yeah exactly and i don't want this to get lost either it wasn't totally partisan

on the other side either a couple of times democrats voted to to acquit even progressive democrats i think miles voted no on one of the charges i can't say that for sure so y'all don't quote me on that but i there were a couple occasions where they did switch over the dems did switch over and vote and it wasn't just on that one charge where almost everyone voted no. There were a couple other charges where the Democrats, there were a couple Ds in the acquit column.

Yeah, and Miles did vote no on one of the, at least one of the charges. I was remembering correctly. And I will say too, there is, yeah, on two of the, well, no, on one of the charges. I do want to say also that we have a piece that Brad wrote that details the votes taken on every single article and who, what the vote breakdown was, how the senators voted.

Yeah, you're nice. So definitely go check that out at the Texan news. It's a great piece to kind of give us a rundown. And the Senate website, as we know, is not the most comprehensive or user friendly interface. Most of the votes ended up 14 to 16, 16. So not as exciting as we thought it might've been, but yeah, absolutely. Okay. So then let's move on to, we had kind of already ran through Phelan's statement. Let's go to then on a press conference after the house board of managers said, Hey, we're

going to hold a press conference about 30 minutes after the vote is a little bit more regardless. Representative Andrew Murr, who's the chairman of the house board of managersagers and the chairman of the General Investigating Committee in the House that pursued these charges in the first place. And Representative Ann Johnson, a Democrat, who's a Republican and a Democrat up there. And Ann Johnson has been in lockstep with Murr on a lot of these issues. And Murr has been the primary spokesperson, but Johnson has also been up there a lot making statements. Tell us about that press conference, Brad, and let's run through a little bit of their reasoning. So Murr essentially doubled down on the charges brought against Paxton

despite the outcome in the Senate that was obviously unfavorable to him. He defended the whistleblowers, these conservative attorneys who... Which I also will say brickman and maxwell anybody else in the in the senate gallery hayden i know max vassar was in there for a while and i'm sure there were others i saw when they delayed the vote maxwell was with margaret moore who was the da of travis county and she testified in the trial they were in there together and they left when there was going to be a delay, and I saw Maxwell again.

I didn't see more, but that doesn't mean she wasn't in there. So I think there were lots of people in there. I saw somebody kind of patting Maxwell on the back after one of the acquittal votes. Obviously, it was a total loss for them as far as senators believing their testimony. I think they probably were hoping that the Senate would side with their version of events and they clearly did not. Yeah. Well, and senators, which we'll get into and we'll have a piece up soon about the reactions from folks just regarding this acquittal today but senators and I think it was Kulkhorst who specifically said this was a

very heavy burden of proof and it was just not met so maybe there was like a lot of reasonable doubt that was there about the whistleblowers a testimony but they were like hey we don't have documentation we don't have a lot of hard evidence like that it kind of seems to be the sentiment that we're hearing from senators is okay like this standard of this burden of proof was very high and it was just not met in their minds and i mean to be totally honest the whistleblower testimony or the former employee's testimony it did not go particularly well on certain days of the yeah that's, that's very true. The Murr, when he was giving his press conference statements, he was asked if he would do anything differently, and he said no.

It'd be interesting to see if that changes at all. Obviously, in the immediate aftermath, of course, he's going to say that. And there was a huge pause, a very pregnant pause, between when that question was asked and when he answered. I think that the thoughts going through all of their minds a huge pause a very pregnant pause between when that question was asked and when he answered i think that the thoughts going through all of their minds as they go to sleep tonight will probably be different than that oh yeah naturally they're going to be going over in their minds what they

could have done differently how they could have approached it oh my gosh it's so far even for us to debrief this right now there's so much to process as soon as he says uh you know yeah maybe we could have that that's gonna just open the door wide open for for people to say, see, even he knows that he screwed up. Right. So he's not going to say that in front of the cameras right after verdict. But back to your point, he did pause for quite a long time before he said that. A couple other things he said was, you know, in tandem with defending these whistleblowers. He said that Ken Paxton is, I believe, quote, the most corrupt public official in the state. I think Johnson said that.

Or maybe they both did. I don't know. They both made similar statements, right? And also he said something about the minority of senators that decided to acquit paxton now what he's referring to there is what royce west said about behind the scenes the vote was a lot closer to the two-thirds threshold and then when it came time for the public vote a bunch of republicans moved to vote against the the articles so um i have a feeling we're going to hear a lot more about that um if only just from the house's side uh they believe they were a lot closer than what the actual numbers show but that's not what matters right what matters is what's going to be on paper for the

next 100 years or however long yeah in this recorded vote my gosh it's unreal and i will say also you know governor abbott another official that has stayed largely silent on this and no he's not present he did not preside in any way over the proceedings no role in appointing the interim yes the interim attorney general who took paxton's spot while he was suspended now abbott like yeah largely silent didn't issue any statements we were unsure of where he's at we're're still pretty unsure. After he issued his statement today, there wasn't too much, but he commended the trial proceedings and said that he looked forward to working with Paxton again in his role as attorney general. And I think he specifically mentioned combating the Biden administration and the border as two issues that they've worked together on and will continue to do so pretty notable this is the most notable political event in a long long time in texas and probably will be for a long

long time it's the super bowl of political proceedings it was over a century ago what what else has happened that is this significant politically or divisive in the past few decades i mean we were talking about this in slack the other day that's when uh the managers made their statement in closing that this is the most telling senators is the most impactful or important vote you're ever going to take and you know policy has a more lasting impact, right? The vote on passing constitutional carry, passing the abortion ban. Policy-wise, that's going to have far bigger impacts. It's going to impact more people. Yes.

Symbolically, in this very tight-knit political world, this is going to have so many ramifications. Yeah. And it starts next year although these could be famous last words because and we never know what's right around the corner well this legislative session was already so crazy like if you look back at everything that happened this session with a member literally a house member being expelled the general investigating committee going crazy on some investigations behind the scenes one of them ended up being the impeachment of the attorney general i mean it's all wild

and then to end up now in september yes september where this is our reality is just unreal yeah sorry to take it back two years we have a new speaker We have a massive power grid collapse. The policy effort to try and respond to that, the fight between the House and the Senate on one of those issues, the repricing, the abortion stuff being passed, the elections bill that led to two quorum bus, multiple special sessions. Then we finally get to hear this session. And clearly from right off the bat, the House Speaker and Lieutenant Governor are at odds on virtually everything. We have two special sessions over property taxes. We take many pieces of legislation down to the wire on signy die during the regular session and that barely got across the line and now we have this yeah in

addition to slayton uh getting expelled like this four years in texas politics has been insane yeah well now we have a statewide elected official who has now returned to office is in power who just faced impeachment charges and literally has a list of names of people in both chambers who have voted to oust him which depending on your perspective on Paxton, that, for some people, is probably very scary at this point. Yeah. Because if you believe that Paxton is not guilty of any corruption, then obviously that doesn't bother you. But if you believe Paxton is the corrupt person that the board of managers and the Texas House says he is is then you're sitting there probably very fearful at the power that this man now has absolutely again man it's just wild and now school choice is on the horizon the animosity between the leaders of the two chambers is at an all-time high it's going to

be wild imagine if they ever do a phone call with each other i'm sure they will i'm sure there were many four-letter words on that phone call i would pay all of my money to be a fly on the wall for that conversation it just seems like everything continues to escalate i was just listening to brad's recap of the last few years and every single thing that you said was oh i miss covid my bad exactly i miss covid but in covid covid was global and then it had texas political implications this is something that is just specific to texas it's so isolated and the political infighting not in the republican party it Party, it continues to escalate. It continues to get more heated.

It really does make one wonder what could happen in the future. At what point has it peaked? At what point is it going to simmer down? And it probably, I don't have a crystal ball, but today I think is not the end. Today is just the beginning. The primary season is going to be absolutely not, not like the special session. Yes. But the primary season is going to be insane.

When, uh, when Warren G Harding declared for president, he, his slogan was returned to normalcy. That ain't happening. There is none of that on the horizon there's no normal to go back to after ken paxton gets acquitted after being overwhelmingly impeached in the house there's just that they're after today everything everything that happens in texas politics after today will happen because of the decision the senate just made and will be compared to the vote breakdowns the political implications like everything will be compared to how this vote breakdown went down and then in 2026 we have a bunch of statewide elections and there is very possibly a lot of musical chairs being

played with you know let's say governor abbott decides not to run again imagine that vacuum does ken paxton run for attorney general or for governor very well could very well does angela paxton run for a statewide after this how's that affect all the other people that have been positioning themselves to run for these positions for years if the paxtons were a political power couple before this which they were then they are even more so today because they have all of the vindication of what just happened propelling their political careers now and their supporters are galvanized angela paxton has probably gained a lot of political capital for this as well,

because she's been posting about, she's been posting scripture verses about perseverance and resilience. And I think everyone probably, I think many people probably empathize with her position. And she has definitely made lemonade out of lemons with the situation and her political strength has probably grown so the paxtons are still on an upward trajectory and if paxton if mr paxton attorney general paxton is able to defeat these residual legal challenges that he's facing then he very well could become

governor. Well, and with the two, I also want to say with the two chambers leaders at such odds right now, even if members who are members of the Republican party in the house and in the Senate, respectively, agree on many of the policy issues that will come before both chambers, there is a culture difference that and with the leadership being so at odds there will be a huge difference in how republican members who may agree on a lot of policy issues will respond and react to different political happenings and then something not entirely unrelated but not in the political world there is still the case against paxton for the securities fraud allegations yeah like hayden said um also the fbi um has been

circling well they do anything they haven't done anything for years so we don't know there's that um and then the the grand jury that was assembled that we don't really know the details of yeah which the whole defense for paxton or one of or one of the main pillars of the case against Paxton was the idea that the investigation of the FBI was illegitimate. So imagine how much credence in the eyes of those who agree with today's verdict, imagine how much credence that argument would get if the FBI acted against Paxton after his acquittal in the Senate. That would only add support for their contention that the FBI acted corruptly against Paul and then would, in the view of Paxton supporters, act corruptly against Paxton. would in in the view of Paxton supporters act

corruptly against Paxton that would only feed into that point well and then you know depending on what evidence they present it could go the other way right like if it's damning stuff then it'll it would go things can change right so who knows I feel like after this trial i think the we realize there's a lot we don't know the evidence that was presented obviously did not convince the senate that there should be a conviction um and there's just like i said a lot we don't know i think brad your tweet yesterday which was nobody knows what's going to happen could not be more timely than it is right now as we're sitting here talking about the verdict being issued.

Unreal. Well, gentlemen, I so appreciate y'all covering this so thoroughly and so well. We appreciate it. Listeners, thank you so much for bearing with us the last few weeks. We'll probably have one more episode where we recap things at large, talk more about reactions and aftermath of this acquittal today. Thank you so much for listening,

and we will catch you on the next episode. Thank you so much for tuning in to Inside the Impeachment, Paxton on Trial. For access to all of our team's coverage on this historic proceeding, visit thetexan.news and subscribe today. Thank you.