Ken Paxton has daddy issues. By which we mean, the Texas state attorney general thinks he’s everyone’s daddy. Or at least he pretends to when he’s mugging for his constituents and filing lawsuit after lawsuit telling everyone from trans kids in Texas to social media companies to President Joe Biden that it’s MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY, KID.
In reality, it’s all performative crap destined for the dismissal, just like his dumbshit clownsuit back in 2020 seeking to overturn the election on account of other states don’t know how to vote good like. But it’s Paxton’s schtick, and he’s managed to stay in office despite an SEC investigation, an ethics suit filed by the state bar (naturally he announced his own counter-investigation), plus a whistleblower complaint occasioned by his blatant abuse of office to benefit a donor, which he just settled for $3 million. So, you know this isn’t slowing down any time soon.
Naturally Paxton is now turning his sights on Congress to let it know who’s boss. Hence this brain-meltingly stupid lawsuit he just filed alleging that laws don’t exist because then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed proxy voting during COVID, and thus there was no “quorum.” Ipso facto, there is no budget bill and stuff he doesn’t like in the federal gubmint is UNLEGAL.
And before you say, “Oh, Wonkette, you are so silly on Fridays!” Nope! It’s real. Just look at this shit:
On December 23, 2022, only 201 of the Members of the House of Representatives were present in the House’s chamber. As that was less than half of the Members, a quorum was not present. The House therefore enjoyed only two powers: it could “adjourn from day to day” and “compel the attendance of absent Members.” It was constitutionally unauthorized to do anything else.
The House nevertheless purported to accept the Senate’s amendments to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 on that day. It did so under a House Rule that allowed absent members to vote by proxy. But the Constitution defines absent members as excluded from “a Quorum to do Business” and therefore unauthorized to vote to enact legislation—by “proxy” or otherwise. Though President Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, his signature was a nullity because the act never “passed the House of Representatives.” The Court should declare that the Consolidated Appropriations Act has not been enacted and is not law.
But don’t go looking for a lawsuit captioned Texas v. McCarthy, because Paxton sued President Biden and all the people who do gross, Marxist CRTs to America in his administration instead, to restrain them from doing stuff mandated by the 2022 Appropriations bill.
For instance, he’s suing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to restrain it from enforcing a provision granting pregnant people the right to sue state employers to get reasonable accommodations. And he’s suing FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security to block a $20 million pilot program that funds non-profit work to connect undocumented immigrants with social services and help them enroll in public education. This makes Ken Paxton GRRRR SO MAD because Texas has to treat these human beings in its hospitals and even educate their little children, seeing as how it is the law. (Wouldn’t be a mite surprised if the Roberts Court overturned its own decision there in Plyler v. Doe to do Texas and Ken Paxton a solid.)
Obviously, the only solution is to invalidate the entire $1.7 trillion spending bill in its entirety.
Look, we could go through the “legal reasoning” in detail, but honestly it’s too bloody stupid. Paxton argues that a dictionary from 1773 defines “present” as physically in the room, so Speaker Pelosi had to make everyone show up and breathe on each other during a pandemic. It was an idiotic argument when then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried it in 2020, and it’s even idiotic-er after the DC Circuit affirmed the trial court’s holding that, “The House gets to set its own rules, so GTFOH with this nonsense. It’s called separation of powers, Kevin, you senseless wanker.” (Your Wonkette is paraphrasing slightly.) The Supreme Court wrinkled its nose and pretended not to notice when McCarthy attempted to fart this one up on certiorari.
And, yes, Paxton did file it in Lubbock and get himself on the docket of Trump appointee Judge James Hendrix. But Hendrix, who was originally nominated by Barack Obama, is not out of his damn gourd, so don’t get yourself worked up about it.
In summary and in conclusion, Ken Paxton ain’t your daddy. He ain’t Joe Biden’s daddy. And he sure ain’t Congress’s daddy.
[Texas v. Garland Docket via Court Listener]
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