Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is ratcheting up his quarrel with the State Bar of Texas, reportedly barring his staffers from speaking at events by the group.
His office also will not reimburse staff attorneys for expenses associated with participating in events sponsored by the state bar, according to emails acquired by the Texas Tribune. Paxton has been feuding with the state bar over his lawsuit over the 2020 election results.
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“Let’s be clear: these are politically motivated attacks that violate separation-of-powers principles and offend our profession’s values of civil disagreement and diversity of thought,” Shawn Cowles, the Texas deputy attorney general for civil litigation, wrote in an email to staffers Monday.
Cowles disparaged the state bar, which issues licenses to lawyers practicing in Texas, claiming it has been devolving into a “partisan advocacy group,” and reportedly noted that the new internal policy will take effect immediately.
His boss, Paxton, made headlines in late 2020 when he filed a lawsuit contesting the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He argued that many of those states enacted changes to election procedures in response to the pandemic that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the final results.
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the lawsuit in December 2020, refusing to take up the case because it determined Paxton lacked standing.
In May, a disciplinary committee for the state bar slapped Paxton with a misconduct lawsuit arguing the Texas attorney general peddled “dishonest” claims that he had uncovered evidence that raised questions about the election in the four states he targeted with his 2020 lawsuit.
“As a result of Respondent’s actions, Defendant States were required to expend time, money, and resources to respond to the misrepresentations and false statements contained in these pleadings,” the lawsuit from the disciplinary committee said, the Texas Tribune reported.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to a representative of Paxton for comment.
Paxton has previously snapped back at the state bar, demanding a court nix its lawsuit against him. In May, he commenced a review of the Texas Bar Foundation for “facilitating a mass influx of illegal aliens.” The foundation is a separate organization from the state bar, but its trustees are appointed by the state bar.
