trip<\/a>ping over his words while announcing a bill.<\/p>\nOn Thursday, as the House General Investigations Committee withdrew to consider impeachment charges on the set of blockbuster allegations revealed against the attorney general\u00a0a day earlier, a Paxton supporter\u00a0out to The Hill\u00a0to double down on the intoxication story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The email contained a photo of a man working a bar in an official-looking hallway, with the \u201cCome and Take It\u201d cannon flag\u00a0visible\u00a0over his left shoulder as he mixed drinks.<\/p>\n
Conservative state Republicans \u2014\u00a0which in Texas have always included a large teetotaling Baptist contingent\u00a0\u2014\u00a0have also pointed to the accusations about Phelan being intoxicated\u00a0as a means of explaining why\u00a0House\u00a0Republicans haven\u2019t passed a raft of\u00a0Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Dan Patrick\u2019s (R)\u00a0hard-right priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlcoholism has run rampant throughout the Texas Legislature,\u201d the\u00a0Paxton supporter\u00a0wrote\u00a0to The Hill. \u201cIt\u2019s disappointing and largely explains why no effective bills have been passed this session.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hill has reached out to Phelan for comment. On Wednesday, the Speaker dismissed Paxton\u2019s statement as \u201ca last-ditch effort to save face.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paxton\u2019s multi pronged defense \u2014 and the willingness by Trump-aligned Republicans to accept it \u2014 comes amid a broader array of conflicts between\u00a0Texas\u2019s\u00a0Republican leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That has spilled into a broader pileup in\u00a0legislation due to ongoing disagreements between the\u00a0state\u00a0House \u2014 which Phelan had built into an independent bulwark against Patrick and Abbott \u2014 and the Senate,\u00a0of which Patrick is the president and in which he exercises a great deal of authority.<\/p>\n
Conservative Republicans are frustrated that the House has routinely mothballed conservative legislation sent by the\u00a0Senate\u00a0\u2014 or passed it in sufficiently watered-down form as to neuter its original intent.<\/p>\n
In May, for example, the House passed a bill banning sexual performances in front of minors \u2014 a\u00a0type of legislation\u00a0other states have used to target all-ages drag shows, or events like drag queens reading stories at public libraries.<\/p>\n
On its face, this looked like a victory for Patrick, for whom the bill had been a priority.<\/p>\n
But unlike those other state bills, the final bill passed by the\u00a0Texas\u00a0House stripped the\u00a0legislation\u00a0of its specifically anti-drag language \u2014 which had originally defined \u201csexually explicit\u201d to mean\u00a0\u201c<\/strong>a male performer exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male,\u201d the Texas Tribune reported.<\/p>\nOther conservative priorities that have stalled\u00a0in the Texas legislature\u00a0include a raft of energy bills that seek to disadvantage the state renewable energy industry \u2014\u00a0one of the crown jewels of Republican rule in Texas\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 in favor of fossil fuels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a proposed school voucher system that would allow families to pull their money out of public schools along with their children \u2014 something that is anathema to even highly conservative rural districts, where public schools are a backbone of the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In\u00a0state\u00a0House deliberations on Thursday, discontent\u00a0in the body\u00a0bloomed into open acrimony as bill after bill returned to the chamber from the Senate laden with new amendments \u2014 leading to angry calls by representatives that the body was being disrespected.<\/p>\n
This reached such a pitch that one representative \u2014 presenting the Senate amendments on his own bill \u2014 pleaded with his colleagues not to \u201cchoose violence,\u201d and begged them not to automatically vote his bill down.<\/p>\n
The independent nature of the\u00a0House\u00a0has made the body\u00a0a major\u00a0obstacle to\u00a0legislation considered must-pass by both Abbott and Patrick,\u00a0and one\u00a0significant\u00a0unknown is whether the two \u2014 who have yet to speak publicly on the matter \u2014 will come to the attorney general\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n
On the one hand,<\/strong>\u00a0Paxton has been their staunch ally \u2014 repeatedly suing blue states and the Biden administration for taking climate action or softening Trump-era immigration laws, and\u00a0taking\u00a0his pursuit of Trump\u2019s claim that the 2020 election was stolen so far that the Texas Bar Association filed an official misconduct claim against him.<\/p>\nAt the same time, he has been increasingly viewed by state GOP leaders as an \u201cembarrassment,\u201d veteran Austin journalist Harvey Kronberg told The Hill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the 2022 Republican primary, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the state\u2019s leading GOP Political Action Committee, supported his opponent, former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman.<\/p>\n
That was a sign of broader frustration with Paxton among state GOP leaders \u2014 because the PAC is a key part of Abbott\u2019s coalition,\u00a0Kronberg\u00a0said.<\/p>\n
Whatever Abbott\u00a0decides to do,\u00a0the recommendation to impeach\u00a0from the House commitee\u00a0was\u00a0a clear shot across the governor\u2019s bow,\u00a0Kronberg added.<\/p>\n
The recommendation \u201cis a middle finger salute to the governor and the lieutenant governor that establishes the independence of the house \u2014 and the fact that the House is not to be trifled with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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