It’s officially handed over to the Senate now.
A crook any way you look
The Texas House on Monday named 12 of its members to prosecute its case against impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state Senate.
The House announced a Republican-majority board of managers to handle the prosecution, made up of seven Republicans and five Democrats. The group immediately left the House chamber to deliver the 20 articles of impeachment to the Senate.
The House’s announcement came two days after it voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton, alleging a yearslong pattern of misconduct and wrongdoing. Paxton has blasted the impeachment as a “politically motivated sham” and expressed hope the Senate will swiftly clear his name.
The trial in the state Senate has not been scheduled yet.
The board of managers will be chaired by Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, and vice-chaired by Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston. They are also the chair and vice chair of the House General Investigating Committee, which investigated Paxton and recommended his impeachment.
The other 10 managers are Reps. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth; Joe Moody, D-El Paso; Terry Canales, D-Edinburg; Jeff Leach, R-Plano; Oscar Longoria, D-Mission; Morgan Meyer, R-University Park; Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park; Cody Vasut, R-Angleton; David Spiller, R-Jacksboro; and Erin Gámez, D-Brownsville.
The managers were named after the House adopted a resolution creating the board by a vote of 136-4.
In introducing the resolution, Murr said it was “similar” to the one used in 1975 after the impeachment of a state district judge, O.P. Carrillo. The resolution, Murr said, “authorizes the employment of a board of managers so they can proceed with the presentation of the trial in the Senate.”
See here for the previous entry. The Chron has an explainer of what to expect next. The big question has been when will this all start, and now we know.
Texas Senate to convene June 20th to consider rules for Paxton trial and that trial is to start no later than August 28.
Patrick appoints committee to consider rules for the trial: Birdwell, Hinojosa, Creighton, Flores, Huffman, King, West.
I’m sure there will be more on this soon, that news broke literally as I was drafting this. Here’s a Twitter thread with a bit more info. In the meantime, expect a special session to be called more or less right away to deal with a couple of things the Lege didn’t get to. None of that is good, but it is what it is.
UPDATE: Yeah, it’s special session time, the first of more than one planned/threatened special sessions.
Proud to be in the 134th HD and be represented by AnnJohnson.
Really cannot wait until someone on Paxton’s side directly calls out Briscoe Cain as a leftist.