Paxton accused of creating a hostile workplace for LGBTQ employees at the AG’s office

I doubt anyone would be surprised by this accusation, but just because Ken Paxton is a terrible human being doesn’t mean he gets to be a terrible boss as well. And while our entire state government has taken a swan dive into the deep end lately, I’d bet that even this office wasn’t that bad a place for an LGBTQ person to work as of a few years ago. If you’re wondering why any LGBTQ person would want to work at the Attorney General’s office, remember that it’s a big place that does a lot of non-political work, with child support enforcement being one of their main tasks.

The article is paywalled, but Ed Sills included this bit in his daily AFL-CIO newsletter on Friday:

Speaking of justice or the lack thereof, Attorney General Ken Paxton stands accused of creating a “hostile work environment” for LGBTQ employees in the Criminal Prosecutions division of his agency, the Austin American-Statesman reports.

A departing lawyer made the accusation in a letter to the human resources department, reporter Chuck Lindell writes. The letter, redacted in part by the agency, mentions Paxton’s legal opinion concerning gender-affirming health care for transgender children. It also states that Paxton’s office has generally become more politicized (not that it ever wasn’t).

The Texas AFL-CIO COPE has endorsed Joe Jaworski in the May 24 Democratic runoff for Attorney General. Paxton himself is locked in a runoff as more and more Republicans are on to him:

The letter from lawyer Jason Scully-Clemmons, sent March 3 on his last day as an assistant attorney general, said the departure of two top supervisors appeared to leave employees of the Criminal Prosecutions Division vulnerable to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s “personal anti-LGBTQIA+ ideology.”

The letter also complained that the Criminal Prosecutions Division had become overly political after the departures of Mark Penley — who was fired as deputy attorney general for criminal justice in November 2020 after joining several other high-ranking agency officials in accusing Paxton of bribery and official misconduct — and Lisa Tanner, the division chief who left the agency Aug. 31.

The last two paragraphs are from the story. That’s all I know right now, but this sort of thing could well be the first shot in a lawsuit, so we’ll keep an eye on it. And remember to vote in the Democratic primary runoff, where either Rochelle Garza or Joe Jaworski would be a billion times better as AG than the human stain we have in there now.

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One Response to Paxton accused of creating a hostile workplace for LGBTQ employees at the AG’s office

  1. Rhymes WithRight says:

    What a pity the Houston Chronicle did not see fit to cover this story.

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