AUSTIN (Nexstar) — The ballot is set for the 2024 Texas primary. Monday marked the deadline for candidates to file for the March 5 election. While every primary season has its share of heated campaigns, 2024 has something different in play: revenge.
Two of the state’s top Republican leaders are campaigning against incumbents from their own party. The outcome could bring significant change to the Texas House.
Both Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have mounted what some call “revenge tours” in the runup to the primary. Abbott is endorsing candidates running against Republican House members who voted against his priority legislation for Education Savings Accounts, which allow parents to use public dollars to pay for private school. Paxton is endorsing candidates running against House Republicans who voted to impeach him.
Those vendettas against certain members have put Abbott and Paxton on different sides in several races. There are at least 22 House races in which Abbott and Paxton have endorsed different candidates.
It’s not unusual to see infighting within political parties. But for Texas Republicans, it’s rarely this much out in the open. “This cycle, we’re seeing these feuds within the Republican Party, like wide open. It’s very public,” Jeremy Wallace, politics reporter for the Houston Chronicle said in an interview for the State of Texas politics program.
“It’s so much acrimony, we’re just not used to seeing it so openly and so raw in this kind of format,” Wallace added.
It’s not clear how much of an impact the dueling endorsements will have on any of these races.
“Typically an endorsement from the governor alone isn’t going to be enough to really sway voters… but what may make this different than previous years is that he’s, clearly much more fired up about this,” Wallace said.
“I’m not sure if his message is enough to dislodge them. But certainly, they think that the polling is with them, and they’re gonna go full bore and try to knock these incumbents out,” Wallace said.
Primary elections in Texas typically have low turnout, even in Presidential election years. Current polling suggests that turnout will not get much of a bump from the presidential primaries. Low turnout could boost the importance of Paxton’s endorsements.
“The voters who are going there are the most hardcore Republican voters… and that is the one area where Ken Paxton might have a little influence,” Wallace said, noting that anger over the impeachment could motivate some GOP voters.
“Ken Paxton will have an influence on this base of Republicans who might just be able to pull enough they might be angry enough about it to really have some impact,” Wallace said.
For Texas Democrats, one of the most-watched races will determine who will face Senator Ted Cruz in November. Ten candidates are on the ballot, but only two candidates registered support above the single digits in early polling. Congressman Colin Allred leads the field, with a double-digit lead over the next closest candidate, State Senator Roland Gutierrez.
Both men share similar positions on several issues. But there is a divide over calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
After the Texas Democratic Party unanimously passed a resolution supporting a ceasefire, Dallas Congressman Colin Allred stopped short of echoing their calls.
“What we have to do in terms of this conflict is continue to try and get humanitarian aid into Gaza to try and protect civilians as much as possible — but, understanding, this is a war of choice by Hamas. They chose this war, they’re still holding over two hundred hostages right now. They can release those hostages, they can lay down their arms,” Rep. Allred told Nexstar in a Dec. 4 interview.
As a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, Allred said this is a time for “mature and solid leadership.” He acknowledged Israel’s obligation to follow international law while supporting their ability to continue their operations in Gaza.
“Israel has every right to defend itself, but they have to do that within the context of the laws of war. And to me, democracies like ours – whether it’s the Americans or the Israelis – we are strengthened, not weakened, when we apply the standards and values of our country to the way we conduct ourselves in military conflicts,” Allred said.
San Antonio State Senator Roland Gutierrez, running against Allred for the Democratic nomination, is supporting a ceasefire and has called on Allred to take back his stance.
“I think he’s out of touch with reality here… Colin Allred needs to take back his position on this issue because we need to stop the killing of women and children. That’s not who we are as a nation,” Gutierrez told Nexstar on Dec. 7.
Since Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, Israeli counterattacks have killed almost 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza — two-thirds of the dead women and children. The staggering death toll led the Texas Democratic Party to pass a resolution condemning Hamas and calling on Israel to pause the bombing.
“We have Jewish Democrats in our organization, we have progressives, we have conservatives, we have Asian Americans — the vote was unanimous, every single Jewish Democrat in our organization voted for the resolution,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said. “I understand that the complexities of the issue prevent Congressman Allred from supporting it. But from our perspective, we think that we have to, as leaders in the Democratic Party, encourage our Democratic leadership to work towards stopping this war in where there’s civilians in danger.”
The Texas primary election is on March 5.
What could Texas Supreme Court ruling mean for future abortion exception cases?
The Texas Supreme Court ruling in the case of a Dallas woman who sought an emergency abortion amid pregnancy complications is raising new questions about what conditions doctors may perform the procedure under Texas law.
Last week, a Travis County court ruled Kate Cox could receive an abortion under the medical exceptions in the state’s abortion law, which bans nearly all abortions after six weeks. Cox received a fatal fetal diagnosis at 20 weeks of pregnancy called trisomy 18. The fetus is unable to sustain life, and Cox argued her health and future fertility would be at risk if she gave birth.
The Travis County ruling was put on pause after Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an emergency opinion to the highest court in Texas. While the state Supreme Court evaluated the merits of the case, attorneys for Cox said her condition worsened — saying she visited the emergency room four times and experienced elevated vitals and risked a uterine rupture, which could impact her ability to have children in the future.
By that point, attorneys for Cox said early on Monday that the 31-year-old Dallas mother was “forced” to leave the state to terminate her pregnancy while she awaited a ruling. Later on Monday evening, the Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion blocking a lower court’s ruling that gave Cox permission to get an abortion in Texas.
Under Texas law, the abortion prohibition does not apply when a pregnant woman has a “life threatening physical condition… that places her at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
“Only a doctor can exercise ‘reasonable medical judgment’ to decide whether a pregnant woman ‘has a life-threatening physical condition,’ making an abortion necessary to save her life or to save her from ‘a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function,'” the opinion said. “If a doctor, using her ‘reasonable medical judgment,’ decides that a pregnant woman has such a condition, then the exception applies, and Texas law does not prohibit the abortion.”
“When is the medical exemption really going to allow life saving medical care,” said Austin Kaplan, one of the attorneys who represents Cox. “There ought to be an exception to save the life of the mother to save the fertility of the mother.”
While the opinion itself does not grant Cox the ability to get an abortion under the exceptions clause in Texas, some legal experts speculate the way it was written was meant to give doctors more clarity about when they can perform one in the future.
Josh Blackman — a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston — said the high court did give “some guidance” for other cases in which an abortion might be permitted under the exceptions clause.
“This is not a ruling that Cox could have benefited from. Rather, this is a ruling that we think that the other doctors might be able to use to perform abortions in the future if certain very specific conditions are met,” he said.
The state Supreme Court is also deliberating a separate case called Zurawski v. Texas, in which 20 women are suing for clarified language in the state abortion ban that defines when a doctor may intervene to protect a mother’s life.
Kaplan is also a lawyer working on that case and said aspects of the Supreme Court opinion do give him hope for the Zurawski lawsuit.
“I’m personally hopeful that this is a sign that in the Zurawski case we will get a positive decision for mothers, for doctors,” he said. “There’s still time to sort of give some clarity here and create a functional medical exception.”
The opinion did not provide any further definitions or guidance as to what qualifies as “life-threatening condition.” It’s an issue Dr. Damala Karsan, an OB-GYN part of the Zurawski lawsuit, raised during July hearings on their case. She and other physicians have expressed fear of losing their license or getting sued under another Texas Senate Bill 8.
“I’ve always tried to practice with the standards of care but I also want to be a law abiding citizen and I don’t want to risk my freedom and my livelihood,” Karsan said in Travis County court this summer.
The president of the Texas Medical Association also weighed in on the ruling.
“TMA supports further efforts to protect physicians providing medically appropriate care to pregnant women and to clarify the existing medical exceptions, so pregnant patients can access the critical care necessary to safeguard their own health and future ability to have children,” said Rick W. Snyder II, MD.
Impeachment prosecutors bill $3.7M for Paxton trial
Outside attorneys hired by the Texas House to prosecute Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment billed over $3.7 million for their legal services and expenses, according to records obtained by KXAN through the Texas Public Information Act.
The top-flight legal counsel hired by the state includes Dick DeGuerin, Rusty Hardin and Harriet O’Neill.
House Business Office records showed Rusty Hardin and Associates worked the most hours, billing over $3 million, including $2.7 million in legal fees and about $340,00 in expenses.
According to state billing records, the DeGuerin & Dickson firm billed over $470,000 total, and the Law Office of Harriet O’Neill invoiced just over $193,000.
In a statement sent via text to KXAN, DeGuerin said “our work was worth every penny of what we charged.”
“Both Rusty and I devoted our full time and firm resources on this historic and important effort to stop Paxton’s corrupt misuse of the Attorney General’s office, often working twelve and fourteen hour days, at a fraction of our regular rates,” he said. “We presented irrefutable evidence of Paxton’s dishonesty, but Paxton’s financial backers openly threatened Republican Senators, which would be criminal jury tampering had this been a jury trial rather than a political vote.”
In a statement, Attorney General Ken Paxton called the costs “just the tip of the iceberg.”
“Whether it’s the House costs, Senate costs, or the overall impeachment session costs, many millions more were incurred on Dade Phelan’s sham and needless impeachment,” he said. ” Voters need to send Dade and any Representative supporting Dade home in the upcoming primaries. We need effective leadership in the House that quits embarrassing Texas.”
The impeachment case created a political firestorm at the state Capitol. Within days of Paxton’s acquittal on all articles in September, Patrick ordered the State Auditor’s Office to conduct a special audit of the total cost of the investigation and trial.
“To be clear, the goal is to determine the absolute total cost to the state of preparing for and conducting this trial from the beginning through its conclusion,” Patrick said in the letter, which asked auditors to detail every possible type of expense both billed and outstanding for the ordeal.
The total cost of the impeachment is certainly higher than the $3.7 million spent on outside prosecutors. That total does not include costs for staff attorneys in the House and a former judge brought on by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to advise him as a judge in the Senate trial. The Dallas Morning News reported a total exceeding $4.3 million, with additional costs included.
In a statement to KXAN, Patrick said the impeachment costs would exceed $3.7 million, and that total doesn’t include a House lawyer who hasn’t been paid, yet.
The Senate spent roughly $435,000, including the printing of the trial record at a cost of $138,000, according to Patrick.
The Senate had submitted all of its expenditures to the State Auditor’s Office for its audit of impeachment spending, Patrick said, but the House still had not done so.
“Now, it is clear that the Senate protected taxpayer money while Dade Phelan and the House spent like drunken sailors on shore leave,” Patrick said in the statement. “The House’s high-priced army of lawyers could not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and failed miserably at Texas taxpayers’ expense. Now, Dade Phelan and his expensive lawyers continue to cry because they can’t admit they received a fair trial and were simply defeated. At this point, it’s the same old song and dance from Dade Phelan: more lame excuses, more blame game, no accountability.”
The House’s expenses on the impeachment are paid from funds previously appropriated for the House operating budget and are paid through the House Business Office.
The cost to impeach Paxton climbed quickly once Hardin and DeGuerin came on board. Hardin put over two dozen attorneys and others from his firm on the case, and they logged thousands of hours collectively. In one billing period, Hardin worked over 400 hours, costing more than $200,000 at his rate of $500 per hour, records show.
Workers at Hardin’s firm also worked hundreds of hours that they didn’t charge for, according to the billing records.
Hardin’s firm racked up sizable expenses in its effort, including tens of thousands of dollars on hotels, transportation and office supplies, according to the records.
The paperwork costs alone soared: Hardin’s team spent over $36,000 on transcripts and more than $10,000 on notebooks, the records show.
House Speaker Dade Phelan sent KXAN the following statement:
“After Ken Paxton refused to testify before multiple House committees to justify his request of the Texas Legislature to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit brought against him by whistleblowers in his inner circle, the Texas House General Investigating Committee initiated its investigation into the merits of the whistleblower’s claims. The investigation, impeachment, and trial of Ken Paxton shed a clear, unflinching light on who Paxton is and the lengths to which he will go to stay in power. The Texas House will continue to faithfully fulfill its obligation to protect the integrity of our institutions and safeguard the public’s trust.”
Speaker of the House Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont
The House voted to impeach Paxton in late May with a vote of 121-23 on 20 articles of impeachment. The articles alleged Paxton had abused his power, disregarded his duties, engaged in bribery, made false statements in official public records, obstructed justice and misappropriated public resources. Many of the allegations centered on assistance he allegedly provided a friend and campaign donor.
The impeachment trial took place in the Senate and lasted nearly two weeks. Paxton was suspended from his duties at the Office of Attorney General amid the impeachment but returned after his acquittal.
The impeachment ordeal began when Paxton’s office asked the Legislature for over $3.3 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit against his office that was filed by employees who alleged they were wrongfully retaliated against for filing complaints against Paxton.
The potential taxpayer-funded settlement prompted House members to investigate the whistleblower allegations against Paxton prior to approval.
The whistleblower case remains pending. DeGuerin went on to predict that if the whistleblower lawsuit ultimately goes to a jury, the judgment would be “far in excess of our fees” and the $3.3 million settlement.
HHSC: Delays processing Medicaid applications trimmed amid OT push
Texas kicked off more than a million people from Medicaid this year without checking if they were still eligible for coverage, according to an analysis released the same day the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said its overtime push is helping to start unclog the backlog.
In November, it took an average of 120 days for an application to be touched, according to an internal email. That was cut to 43 days on Dec. 9 and 36 days as of Dec. 14, according to HHSC spokesperson Jennifer Ruffcorn.
The state agency is “taking all possible actions” and “moving aggressively to implement additional strategies” to increase staff and get Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, federal food benefit applications processed faster, she said.
In response to whistleblower employees warning that SNAP wait times were closing in on 200 days, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office said during the week of Thanksgiving that new changes at HHSC — including moving 250 staff from other projects to focus on expediting SNAP applications and giving 600 new staff Medicaid training to help process combined applications — were expected to “cut the backlog in half by the end of December” — a goal the agency now says has been met.
Still, advocates say help still isn’t coming fast enough for thousands of low-income families who rely on these federal programs.
Texas Health & Human Services headquarters in Austin (KXAN Photo/Matt Grant)
“It’s concerning at any time of year,” said Stacey Pogue, a senior policy analyst with the Austin-based think tank Every Texan. “It’s even more heartbreaking at the holidays.”
Since pandemic-era Medicaid benefits ended in April, a new analysis from a coalition of children advocates and non-profits found:
Texas only processed 3 percent of data-based automatic Medicaid renewals, which is the lowest rate in the country, according to KFF.
39% of Medicaid applications processed in November took longer than the 45-day federal requirement.
1.1 million Texans were kicked off Medicaid due to “procedural” problems.
“There were some errors, errors in the computer programming, in the system for eligibility, that was kicking folks off when they shouldn’t be,” said Pogue.
The study highlighted KXAN reporting, which found 150,000 people were waiting longer than 45 days last month. It also points to new HHSC data showing more than 48,000 Medicaid applications have been sitting untouched since at least March.
“People are making really hard choices right now about what do they spend on Christmas gifts, do they fix their car, how are they going to pay rent if what they need to do is pay for health care or food when they’re lacking that assistance,” said Pogue.
HHSC spent $5.5 million in overtime in September and October and $27.3 million between Sept. 1, 2022 – Aug. 31 of this year, Ruffcorn said. The agency has mandated 20 hours of overtime a month since 2020 as part of an ongoing corrective action plan to address long wait times.
Asked if having employees work extra hours is sustainable, HHSC said it hopes to reduce its “reliance” on overtime.
“Overtime is a tool HHSC uses when necessary to immediately address workload,” said Ruffcorn. “HHSC has experienced a lower turnover rate this past year due to successful recruitment and retention efforts. HHSC monitors closely workload and staffing resources and expects to reduce reliance on mandatory overtime through additional workforce capacity and workload reduction strategies.”
In the last year, the agency hired more than 2100 people and was approved by the legislature to hire 642 full-time employees, Ruffcorn said. The new hires will help with Medicaid redeterminations for six million Texans after pandemic-era coverage guarantees ended this year.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it required Texas to reinstate Medicaid coverage for around 100,000 people in August who were improperly kicked off their coverage due to ‘systems issues,’ which it required the state to fix.
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