Ken Paxton

The attorney general's office is charged with defending state agencies when they are challenged in court. But Paxton will not defend a commission sued after it issued a public warning for a Waco judge who refuses to perform same-sex marriages.

From The Texas Tribune:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will not defend a state agency being sued for its decision to sanction a Waco judge who refuses to perform same-sex marriages.

Justin Nelson, a Democrat running for attorney general, is positioning himself as the champion of protections for pre-existing conditions, one of the most popular provisions of the landmark health care law.

From The Texas Tribune:

Texas and Kansas stand to be repaid over $400 million in lost health care funds if a late-August Federal ruling stands.

As The Austin American-Statesman reports, a federal court in North Texas has ruled that the federal government improperly charged Texas, Kansas, and a few other states millions of dollars in Medicaid fees, in an effort to help fund the Affordable Care Act.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he plans to continue his crusade to curb what he calls an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas, reports The Texas Observer.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General remains under felony indictment for allegedly violating state securities law. Paxton sent a letter to the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Election Integrity this week, in which he outlined his plan to purge voter rolls of non-citizens and to ensure that voters aren’t registered in multiple states.

Texas may soon throw a monkey wrench into the works of a deal to save DACA recipients from deportation.

Some relief came last week for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants across the United States who came to this country as children, as President Donald Trump said he would consider a deal to let these so-called “dreamers” stay in the country if Democrats meet his demands for a border wall and work to restrict future “chain migration.”

A new lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton could open the door for nuclear waste storage in the Lone Star State.

As The Austin American-Statesman reports, Paxton is suing the federal government to force a decision on whether Texas can store high-level radioactive waste within its borders.

A federal judge has now ordered Texas officials to create several plans to fix the systemic problems that have plagued the state’s foster care system for years. Some of the proposed fixes will be due in as little as three months from now.

The Texas Legislature gavels in its 2017 session today. To get the new session rolling, let’s take a look back at the biggest Texas political stories of the 2016 session.

A database has been made public that reveals the files of over 5,000 people who have died in police custody in Texas, reports The Houston Chronicle.

This week Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office launched an online initiative known as the Custodial Death Report database. This makes readily available the files that a police agency creates when someone dies in custody.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is once again facing accusations of fraud from investors, reports The New York Times.

The State of Texas is suing the Obama Administration once again, reports KTSA.

This time the lawsuit centers around a new federal overtime pay law. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he’s “constantly” having to sue the government because he and his colleagues feels the Obama Administration is making new laws. And he insists that the Executive Branch’s job is to enforce laws, not write them.

Last week, voting rights advocates accused Texas Republicans of mounting a procedural end run around a panel of federal appeals court judges.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife accepted an invitation to dinner last week at the home of a third-grade transgender boy.

Amber and Adam Briggle of Denton invited Paxton and his wife, Angela, to spend a little time with them and their transgender son MG last week, to put a face on transgender issues.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a southeast Texas county that’s trying to ban guns from its courthouse, reports The Los Angeles Times. 

The US Supreme Court remains evenly divided with four conservative and four liberal justices. This provides Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton with a legal method of getting his way relatively consistently.

Last month a federal appeals court ruled that Texas’s controversial Voter ID law discriminates against black and Hispanic voters. Now, reports The Dallas Morning News, the Lone Star State is appealing the decision with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 2018 midterm election could be an interesting one in Texas, reports KHOU.

Some Texan officials who will be on the ballot are already in a strong position. Gov. Greg Abbott already has almost $30  million in the bank. Other Lone Star lawmakers look less invincible. Attorney General Ken Paxton is facing federal securities fraud charges and is under criminal indictment in state court.

Ken Paxton has been embroiled in controversy for months, but the Texas Attorney General doesn’t seem to be having trouble paying his legal bills. Paxton is facing federal and state securities fraud charges and is under multiple indictments. But, as The Texas Tribune reports, Paxton has received six figures worth of donations from “family friends” to help pay his massive legal debts.

Amid the refugee crisis last year Texas filed a lawsuit seeking to block Syrians from settling in the Lone Star State. But now a federal judge in Dallas has denied that claim. US District Judge David Godbey ruled that Texas officials failed to make “a plausible claim for relief” from refugee settlement, reports The Austin American-Statesman.

The State of Texas has sued the Obama administration 40 times since the president took office in 2008. All told, the lawsuits have cost taxpayers over $5 million. So, The Texas Tribune wondered, what is the Lone Star State getting for its money? Texas has definitively won 15 percent of its cases, or six of them. The state has lost 10 of its challenges. And the state withdrew eight of the cases.