The Texan Podcast - Texas Attorney General Candidate Mayes Middleton on Local Prosecutors, Open Records

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

State Sen. Mayes Middleton, the Republican running against Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson to succeed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, joined The Texan's Senior Reporter Holly Hansen to discuss public safety-related issues like local district attorneys and a potential statewide prosecutor, as well as open records issues at the Office of the Attorney General.Listen to more interviews from The Texan wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, follow us and leave a review.

Good morning. We have Senator Mays Middleton with us today. He is the Republican nominee for a Texas Attorney General. Senator Middleton, welcome and thank you for joining us at the Texan News. Hey, thank you for having me on today, Holly. Appreciate it. You bet. We're interested to hear about your campaign, but also about some of the specific issues that you will be in charge of should you be elected Attorney General of the state of Texas. And I'm going to jump on an issue that's been in the news for the past week or so based on a Texas House hearing that occurred recently where they talked about crime and the problem of prosecutors who may not be as enthusiastic about prosecuting violent criminals. Specific attention, for example, was on the Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza in a possible relationship with the progressive reform group. There were some cases mentioned, such as a murderer for whom there were eyewitnesses to a shooting, but the murder charges were dropped. So there has been a lot of discussion about what can be done. And our question for you is, under the current Texas statute and constitution, could you, as attorney general, do more to address or investigate either these specific criminal cases or the behavior of some of these district attorneys?

Or do we really need some reforms and possibly a new state office to handle this issue? Well, this is a really important question here. You know, Macy and I, we're blessed with four little ones, three boys, one little girl. And that is my daily reminder of what we're fighting for here. Because one of the most important things that we do, especially in this office that I'm running for, Attorney General, is keep our children safe. And I am the law and order, tough on crime candidate for AG. And one of the most important things in that is enforcing our laws, right? And that's why I want to start a dedicated task force division devoted to attacking and rooting out organized crime and the evils of human and sex trafficking, right?

We've seen that all over the state. And I've got zero tolerance for that. Accountability matters. and the criminals need to be prosecuted and locked up. And, you know, you see these DAs right there, 12 million Texans that live under a week-on-crime, rogue George Soros District Attorney. That's a lot.

You know, who's the backup there? Who is going to be the backup? Well, the backup has got to be, of course, the AG's office. And we passed important tools two sessions ago to allow rogue prosecutors to be held accountable. And I'm going to make sure that they are enforced because like our laws, our constitution, these are not suggestions. And I'll point out, especially on human and sex trafficking, I fought to change the law and add to the prosecutorial powers of the AG's office. We got it done. And so now the Texas Attorney General's office can prosecute

human trafficking related crimes, and I will as AG. Okay. And so you think a lot of those things can be handled from the AG's office. What about the issue of creating another prosecutor? I support all of the above, right? Because we've got to have accountability. I support Governor Abbott's plan of a statewide prosecutor. I would also like to see prosecutorial powers in the Attorney General's office grown. for example, waste, fraud, and abuse, corruption. You know, government doesn't have any money.

It is all taxpayer money. And I've got zero tolerance for those that are stealing. I've got a simple rule. If you steal from taxpayers, you go to jail. And I would like the AG's office to have the power to prosecute all of that, all corruption-related crimes and waste, fraud, and abuse-related crimes. Because, you know, we've seen it happen all. over the state. And you know, you've got to ask, are those 12 million people that are living under

George Soros-D-A is going to see justice? And I hate to say, but the answer a lot of times is no. You know, speaking of public corruption and holding government accountable, and sometimes are government officials, another function of the Texas Attorney General's office is that open records and public meetings enforcement division. And last month we had another House hearing in which a rep from the Attorney General's office said the division issued 45,000 rulings on request from governments to withhold information last year. And they receive about 300 complaints every month from citizens and journalists about governments not cooperating, but they have limited staff right now for handling those complaints. So increasingly there's frustration from not just the journalist class

like ourselves, but also citizens who are trying to hold these officials accountable. So what can you do as the Attorney General to improve government compliance, keep some of these entities from becoming even more brazen in the face of limited ability to enforce these laws? I mean, what are the options for you if you're elected Attorney General? Well, look, open, records are a cornerstone of our republic here. And these records belong to taxpayers. And what I just talked about, waste, fraud, and abuse and corruption. Well, how are you going to discover that if these documents are hidden from you as a taxpayer? And that's why this is so fundamental. I mean, the roaches aren't going to scatter unless you turn the lights on. And open records, that's turning the

lights on to corruption and government. And this is a huge priority of mine. It's something I've been fighting for years. And on the other side, oftentimes it's our own tax dollars, right? It's taxpayer-funded lobbyists that are going to Austin to lobby against stronger open records laws that are going to Austin to lobby against disclosures. I mean, one of the things that we saw, you know, when we were fighting with Kima, Holly, you and I, was they were copying the city attorney to try to exempt. And TML, which is a taxpayer-funded lobbying group, was training him on this, to try to try to exempt these records from open records disclosure, that is wrong. Got zero tolerance for that, and I'll make sure that that open records division is working hand in hand with my anti-organized

crime and corruption task force that I will create in the AG's office, because this belongs to you, these records belong to you. This is the light that needs to be shined, and it should be easy, right? You shouldn't have to hire a lawyer. You shouldn't have to spend a lot of money. to get a hold of these things. And we've seen the reaction as well where, I mean, you know, parents going to school boards and being shut down and, you know, their time being limited and being silenced and then they can't get a hold of records. And this is where their child goes to school. I mean, these are basic things, you know, just as a dad and as a taxpayer, people deserve the right to see. And so does that division need more staffed? They need more, you know,

tools to enforce the rules? What exactly, you know, would be some of the remedy there? So what I want to make sure happens is the laws that are the bills that I filed regarding open records and the things that we've worked on together to increase access, lower costs, make it easier, make it faster, are put into practice and policy in the AG's office. So I will change that on day one to make sure that the presumption always needs to be that it's open, right, that it belongs to you, that the record should be disclosed. You know, it should never be the other way around where some of the taxpayer-funded lobbyists were training people on how to say no first and then reluctantly yes later. In my office, it's always going to be yes first unless there's some valid, you know,

law enforcement exception or there's some others that you don't want to compromise a criminal investigation, like in the DA's office. I mean, there's some very valid ones, but the presumption should always be yes. Okay. And you sort of preempted my next question because as a senator, you fought to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying, and you mentioned that in your answer about open records, sometimes taxpayer-funded lobbying is done through some of these government associations that don't seem to be subject to those transparency laws, what else can you do as the Attorney General to perhaps curtail or the use of these taxpayer-funded lobbyists or at least promote more transparency about the process and what actually happens there for the taxpayers?

Well, obviously, the AG's office has broad investigatory powers, especially in regards to political subdivisions of the state, local government. I mean, you've seen not that long ago those charges in Mission ISD and LaHoya ISD for bribery and bid rigging. That's exactly what I'm talking about and that's exactly what I'll go after. And I'll point out that things like that are usually exposed by a taxpayer whistleblower that gets a hold of these open records documents. right, man, we are the police here, right? I mean, our taxpayers are the ones that are watching this,

and they're the ones that need to be heard, and it needs to be easy for them to do that. I mean, they paid for this. You know, the things that we're talking about, the documents we're talking about, were created with taxpayer dollars, period. You know, this should be common sense and easy. Well, one of the things that the Attorney General does, of course,

is to file lawsuits, and also on the other side of that, defend lawsuits that have been filed against the state of Texas or one of our state agencies. One case that maybe wasn't top line news, but a lot of Texans knew about is a case in which the Texas Department of Transportation's work on interstate 10 caused the flooding of family farms and branches. Yes, you and I have talked about this case, the DeVilleur case, that's been to the Supreme Court and back, and it's still pending, so we won't go into too many particulars here, But how much discretion does the Attorney General's office have? And what would be your criteria in deciding which cases you're going to mount a really robust defense? And how do you balance those cases with the defense of Texans constitutional rights, such as the Fifth Amendment right compensation if the government damages the property? Right. You know, and that is why the AG's office is there to protect and defend your God-G.'

granted freedoms and your constitutional rights. And of course, that's life, liberty, and property. And we're just talking about property right now, private property. Obviously, people's homes, their farms were impacted by government action, and they deserve compensation for that. And I want to also make sure that these corporations, you know, that are trying to harm taxes and insurance companies are held accountable, too, when they hurt the moms and dads and sons and daughters of this state. I want to make sure that Texans have a remedy there. And the AG's office is really there to protect those who cannot protect themselves, right, who cannot defend themselves. And that's one of the most important roles in this office. Of course, we, you know,

we just went through hurricane season. I think it's over. But, you know, a good example of that is disaster price gouging. Where after a hurricane, these fraudsters, you know, we'll try to go knock on a door and extract cash from someone who just had their roof blown off or charge them $500 for a case of water. That's wrong. And I've got zero tolerance for it. I'll enforce our laws to protect Texans from harm like that. And we'll end with one final question about your predecessor who's held the office for, I think, 11 years. So what do you think Ken Paxton did really well as Attorney General? And what things might you do a little differently? So, I mean, we saw in the four years where Texas was under attack, you know, 2021 through 2025, where we were being flooded with cartels. We were being flooded with criminals with fentanyl. And our attorney general fought back. Paxton fought back and helped secure our border and protect Texans from harm, you know, and make sure that we weren't just going to get run over with no redress. And that's what was happening in the left, you know, at that point, you know, for example, James Salarico running.

He said the border should be like a front porch. That's ridiculous. You know, we've got to put our citizens first here. And some of things that are really, you know, important to me, of course, are making sure that all the sons and daughters of our great state are safe. So that's going to be a big priority mine, of course, protecting children. That's why I authored and passed the Save Women's Sports Law, which stops men from competing in women's college sports. And I will aggressively enforce that law, right? to keep not just fairness, but safety for our daughters and our female athletes.

And I'll point out a contrast here. You know, the Save Girl Sports Act, that's something that my Democrat opponent voted no on. He said, that's just fine to let a man play little girl sports. And, you know, also on public safety, which is a cornerstone of common sense, good government. It's a core function, right, of government. He voted to defund the police. He voted no. My Democrat opponent voted no on harsher penalties for human traffickers, sex traffickers, and stash houses. And he donated. He supports this anti-law enforcement group called Tops, which said jails are racist and outdated and need to be abolished. You know, all of that is just disqualifying, frankly. And we've got to make sure that we keep Texans safe. And Tops being Texas organizing projects.

That's right. The X-Organizing project, which was famous and infamous in Bear County for bailing somebody out, a violent criminal out, and murdered five more people after that. I mean, so, I mean, this is dangerous stuff, you know, that the left is pushing. Well, thank you very much for your time. We really appreciate it, and we will see you on the campaign trail. Holly, I appreciate you having me on today. I'm grateful to the Texan. onward to October 19th and then November the 3rd.

Good deal. Thank you.