In a recent brief filed to the Texas Supreme Court, Gov. Greg Abbott criticized his fellow Republican, Attorney General Ken Paxton, for rushing a lawsuit challenging a program that provides legal aid to undocumented immigrants.
While Harris County has operated its immigration legal fund for five years, Paxton filed his lawsuit late last year, Abbott noted. After he lost at the district court level, Paxton appealed to the all-Republican 15th Court of Appeals, requesting expedited review within 15 days.
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“Perhaps the Attorney General only recently learned of this program; perhaps the office’s attention was focused elsewhere; perhaps some other factor dictated a desire for a ruling before a particular date,” lawyers for Abbott wrote in the brief, filed to the Texas Supreme Court last week. “The Governor will not speculate.”
Paxton is in a contentious runoff for the GOP Senate nomination against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. The deadline he gave the 15th Court to reply was well ahead of the March 3 primary, in which he pulled a close second.
The 15th Court ruled against Paxton, saying he had not produced any proof that, “despite several years in operation, the program has resulted in any actual harm to residents of Harris County or the state.”
He then appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. Abbott filed an amicus brief supporting Paxton’s legal position — but blaming the rushed timeline for the adverse outcome at the 15th Court.
“This emergency — whether artificial or sincere — predictably compressed review before the Fifteenth Court,” Abbott’s lawyers wrote. “Any shortcomings in the lower court’s decision here can easily be attributed to the challenges posed by expedited review.”
Andrew Mahaleris, a spokesperson for Abbott, said in a statement that the governor filed the brief “to put a stop to this illegal spending and ensure taxpayer dollars serve Texans — not subsidize legal challenges to immigration law.”
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time that legal disputes between Paxton and Abbott, a former attorney general and state Supreme Court justice, have splashed out into public view.
When House Democrats left the state to protest last year’s mid-decade redistricting, Abbott asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove them from office. Paxton wrote to the court that while he “appreciates the Governor’s passion,” it was not his place to take this action. Paxton later filed his own lawsuit on the same grounds; the high court consolidated the suits but has not yet ruled on the merits.
Since announcing his Senate run, Paxton has only escalated his usual aggressive pace of litigation. He has filed a flurry of lawsuits against state agencies, county programs and nonprofits, and used the agency’s legal opinion arm to target Cornyn, who also used to be attorney general. These actions have drawn criticisms from Cornyn and ethics experts, as well as fellow Republicans who find themselves in the crosshairs.
When Paxton joined the Texas GOP in suing to close the state’s primary system, Secretary of State Jane Nelson criticized Paxton for rushing to file the lawsuit with less than an hour’s notice to her office.
“The sudden filing of the joint motion for ‘consent judgment’ is brazen and misguided for numerous reasons,” Nelson wrote. “Not least because there is no immediate urgency in this matter.”