More now on the high drama in the Texas
statehouse, which has just voted
to send
articles of impeachment
against Attorney General Ken Paxton
over to the Senate for a trial
he has been impeached.
Rosa Flores
joins us with the latest,
along with Scott
Braddock, editor of the Quorum
Report in Austin.
Rosa, this vote means that Ken Paxton
that's it.
He's been
suspended right from office
until the end of a Senate trial.
Give us the latest
You know,
you're absolutely right,
because under Texas law,
as soon as an individual
is impeached in the Texas House,
that means that Ken Paxton,
the attorney general, is no longer
the attorney general.
He has been suspended
as of the moment that that vote was made
in the Texas House.
Now, Texas
Governor Greg Abbott
now can appoint a replacement
and that replacement
is pending
the results of the trial in the Senate.
But let me take you inside the Texas
House House, because here's the moment
when that vote came down to take a look.
Every 121 hours
and 23 nays to present, non-voting,
three absent.
The resolution is adopted.
The chair directs
the chief clerk
to notify
the governor of the House's action
The chair directs
the Committee on General Investigating
to prepare
any further resolution requirements.
Now, as you heard there,
the House speaker specifically said
that that decision
was going to be sent
to the governor of Texas.
And that's specifically why,
because now the governor has the power
under the Constitution of Texas
to appoint a replacement.
Now, before all of this,
there's been hours, hours of debate
with a lot of the proponents
and opponents
of this impeachment
going forward
and explaining their positions.
Take a listen.
I'm not here to defend Ken Paxton.
And what you're being asked to do today
is to impeach without evidence.
It is all rumor it is all innuendo.
It is all speculation is.
Let me tell you,
I don't think today is about
whether there's guilt or innocence.
It's about the process.
I have heard from
for many of my friends and constituents
during the last 48 hours,
I'm sure many of you had
the speed and
transparency of
this process
has been described in their emails
using such words.
And these are their words
as being a political set up,
steam rolled sham political whack job
weaponized, political prosecution
railroaded.
These are not my words,
but the words of concerned citizens.
Our citizens are concerned.
They want fairness
We have a decision
to make here today.
Do we listen to our colleagues?
A bipartisan committee
that sat and listened
to hours of testimony
that held that investigation
since March to come before you?
Members of the highest integrity,
Representative Mercer,
Representative Johnson,
representing Gloria, represents Spiller.
I've never been lied to one of them once
by one of them. Never.
In fact,
I hold them to the highest regard
I tell you
that.
I've have faith in them.
I have faith in you.
Fear not politics.
Fear corruption.
Now, the ending vote was 121
for and 23 against the only needed 75.
So what happens next?
Now the articles of impeachment
go to the Senate.
And in the Senate,
the lieutenant governor is the judge.
There are 31 senators
who will be the jurors.
And in the Senate, a two thirds
vote of those present is required.
And Jim,
this is a historic moment
in the state of Texas.
There's only been two impeachments prior
to this
one in 1917 when Governor James
Ferguson was impeached.
And then in 1975
a district judge was impeached.
So a very historic moment.
Now
it's unclear
the timing of
when this will go to the Senate.
But of course we will be watching, Jim.
All right, Rosa Flores.
And we should note,
we just got a statement from Ken Paxton,
the impeached attorney general,
and he says this
I am beyond grateful
to have the support of millions of Texans
who recognize that what we just
witnessed is illegal, unethical
and profoundly unjust.
I look forward to a quick resolution
in the Texas Senate.
He goes on to say,
While I have full confidence
the process will be
fair, and just, Scott,
in the last hour,
you predicted that this would happen.
You said about 100 votes ended up being
well over,
well over
100 votes, hundred and 21 votes.
But over in the Senate,
Rosa was saying it's
going to take a two thirds majority.
That sounds like a tall order,
especially in Texas.
It is a tall order.
But I'm laughing because it's
very funny
and ironic
to hear Ken Paxton lecture
anybody about ethics and integrity.
He has been corrupt for a long time.
This is the recognition of that
by people in his own party.
And you're right, in the Texas
Senate, it's
going to be a higher threshold for sure.
It's two thirds of those who are present.
Look at you.
Think about it
the way you think
about the indictments and
the impeachment of folks either
connected to former President Trump
or President Trump himself
when he was impeached in Washington.
And it works very similar
to that here in Texas.
The House basically makes an indictment
in the form of the impeachment.
And then the Senate has the trial.
I find it interesting,
Rosa mentioned
that basically
the presiding officer of the Senate,
not necessarily the judge in this case,
but the guy who will hold the gavel
is Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
And he's the kind of Republican,
I mean, ideologically and,
you know,
the kind of person who has the support
of former President Trump
like Ken Paxton does.
But I might have expected Patrick
to be sort of dismissive of this,
but he hasn't been in the last few days.
You've had Patrick
come out and say
that the Senate is going to take its duty
very seriously when it comes to this,
and he would not make any predictions
about how it might go.
And Scott,
I mean, you just indicated this.
You know,
President Trump was weighing in
Ted Cruz was weighing in.
Ken Paxton had a lot of high
powered political support,
and yet the vote was a resounding vote
in favor of impeachment.
And
I think
that the
House was already poised
to impeach Ken Paxton
any way before he accused the speaker
data feeling
of being a drunk, essentially.
Earlier
this week, you had the attorney general
tweet out that
that they'd feel
and should resign his office
because there was a video of him
with slurred speech during a late night
session of the Texas House
in the week prior.
So one of the things that
one of the aspects of
this is
not just the alleged misdeeds of Paxton,
but I think that vote also shows you
that this really became a question
about leadership in the Texas House
and whether Democratic
and Republican members of the Texas
House were going to side with felon
in that fight against Paxton.
So I look at the Texas politics.
It's not for the squeamish.
It's full contact and all of that.
We're going to see
how this turns out in the Senate.
And to that point, Rosa, earlier
today, one of the lawmakers said
Paxton was threatening House members
with political consequences
in the next election
if they didn't side with him.
That sounds like
a pretty clear indication of how
this is going to go down in the Senate.
It could be pretty
bare knuckles over there to
Rosa
we might have lost Rosa, but sorry,
that question was for me.
Yeah. What do you think?
I mean,
it sounds as though it got
pretty rough over there in the House
before this vote
and that might happen
over in the Senate, too.
You know, you're absolutely right.
What we learned
from from the floor of the House
and this was from
two different House members.
They said before the floor
that that several members received calls
from Ken Paxton,
who has now been suspended
ever since that vote came down.
And just a few moments ago
with threatening messages.
And, in fact,
there was one of the members
who tweeted out
that they were going to ask for
that to be placed on the record.
And I believe we have that tweet for you.
And this is from Eddie Morales Jr.
Tweeting,
I will be submitting a journal statement
to amend charged documents
to include abuse
of power,
intimidation of House members
and Senate jury tampering
In light of
Charlie Garen,
that is the
the one of the representatives
who made statements on the floor saying
that these threats had been made
statements that A.G.
Paxton
called and threatened
House and Senate members.
Some serious allegations here, Jim,
regarding these threats.
And, of course, I have reached out
to Paxton's office
and we have not heard back.
All right.
Rosa Flores, Scott
Braddock, a very interesting day,
important day in Texas politics.
Thanks to both of you.
We appreciate it very much.