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AUSTIN — Following the Senate’s historic acquittal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Saturday turned a flamethrower on the House and its leaders for what he called a rushed impeachment process.
Patrick, who presides over the Senate, scolded the lower chamber for wasting taxpayer money in the first impeachment of a statewide elected official in more than a century. His comments highlighted the ongoing feud between the two and could signal trouble for an upcoming special legislative session to deal with school choice.
“The speaker and his team rammed through the first impeachment of a statewide elected official in Texas in over 100 years while paying no attention to the precedent,” Patrick said after the Senate voted down all of the charges against Paxton.
The Legislature must amend the constitution to require that witnesses in impeachment investigations be placed under oath and that the accused must be present and allowed to cross-examine the witnesses, Patrick said.
Also, House members must have at least two weeks to consider impeachment, not hurry it through as they did in May, Patrick said.
“Had they done these two things in May, this trial may never have happened,” Patrick said.
House Speaker Dade Phelan fired back, saying Patrick in his “tirade” was disrespecting the process set out by “the founders of this great state.”
Phelan said Patrick was “confessing his bias and placing his contempt for the people’s House on full display.”
“Today’s outcome appears to have been orchestrated from the start, cheating the people of Texas of justice,” the speaker said.
Patrick hadn’t made any substantive comments on whether the House’s charges had merit until Saturday. The three-term lieutenant governor, 73, noted that he wanted his thoughts on the trial preserved on the record for posterity.
Two political scientists who closely track the Legislature said the acquittal, followed by Patrick’s harsh criticism of the House, could jeopardize Gov. Greg Abbott’s desire to push a school choice bill into law in a special session this fall.
Bolstered by a coalition of rural Republicans and urban Democrats, the House has opposed using taxpayer funds to help families pay private school tuition — a longtime goal of Patrick’s.
Beginning in early 2022, the lieutenant governor has received all-out support for the idea from Abbott.
“It was always going to be an uphill struggle to get school choice passed in the special session, given the resistance in the House,” said Rice University’s Mark Jones. “Today’s events probably pushed that into the category of next to impossible.”
University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus added that the Paxton impeachment outcome and Patrick’s remarks “ignite the internal fight with the party and the institutional fight between the two chambers.”
Relations between Patrick and Phelan have been testy, he said. During the regular session this year, the two did not conduct the weekly face-to-face meetings the leaders of the two chambers traditionally held in the past.
“This throws gasoline on an already raging fire,” Rottinghaus said.
Said Jones, “Patrick’s remarks have probably hardened the House’s stance against school choice.”
Former President Donald Trump, an ally of Patrick and Paxton, also castigated Phelan on Saturday, calling on him to resign.
A Phelan spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on demands that the speaker step down.
The House began investigating Paxton earlier this year, after Paxton asked the Legislature to fund a $3.3 million settlement agreement he had reached with the four former employees who sued the attorney general’s office alleging that they were fired for reporting their boss to the FBI.
Phelan and other lawmakers did not agree that taxpayers should fund the settlement agreement.
The House’s investigation into Paxton was revealed in late May in a whirlwind afternoon toward the end of the regular session. It became public just hours after Paxton called on Phelan to resign, accusing him of being drunk on the job.
Days later, the House voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton, 121-23. Sixty of the chamber’s 85 Republicans cast affirmative votes.
On Saturday, freshman Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, called on Phelan to resign minutes after Paxton was acquitted. Harrison accused the two-term speaker of prioritizing Paxton’s impeachment instead of passing a slew of conservative proposals.
He also castigated Phelan for appointing Democrats to be chairs of legislative committees, something the far-right members of the House opposed.
“The Texas House leadership who mislead (sic) and pressured Republicans to join a Democrat effort to overturn an election, has, possibly irreparably, disgraced itself and tarnished the reputation of the entire Texas House,” he said in a written statement.