There sadly isn’t a good straight news (non-paywalled) story about this, but Raw Story has a decent summary.
Also a big crybaby
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took to X on Wednesday to rage against state appeals court judges after they paused discovery in his case, trying to shut down fundraising for former Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke’s organization, Powered By People.
[…]
Paxton [had] filed to block Powered By People from contributing to the fines, travel expenses, and lost wages of the protesting Democratic lawmakers, alleging it was an illegal bribery scheme.
With his suit at least temporarily scuppered, Paxton accused the judges — who were appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — of helping Democrats break the law.
“What we are witnessing in Texas right now is a constitutional crisis being orchestrated by activist judges on the Beto-loving Fifteenth Court of Appeals,” wrote Paxton. “Beto said, ‘f*** the rules,’ and these unelected justices — Scott Brister, Scott Field, and April Farris — are helping him do just that with his unlawful bribery scheme. What’s worse is that the Texas Supreme Court just made a ruling refusing to stop the appeals court’s insane decision to help Beto.”
“We must stop Beto from buying off our politicians and the judicial activism allowing it to happen,” he continued.
O’Rourke then hit back in a short response to Paxton’s manifesto.
“You think the 15th appeals court judges appointed by Greg Abbott are working for me?” he wrote, astounded. “You okay?”
See here, here, and here for some background. Basically, after Paxton got a Tarrant County judge to issue a restraining order against Beto and Powered by People, Beto got an El Paso judge to put a hold on Paxton’s efforts to pursue the case. Beto also filed a motion to move Paxton’s original case from Tarrant County, which as far as I can tell was chosen by Paxton as a convenient location to file his suit, to El Paso County where both he and Powered by People are located. That was denied by the Tarrant County judge. He also filed a writ of mandamus with the new statewide 15th Court of Appeals, which as noted currently has three judges, all appointed by Greg Abbott, to either dismiss the Tarrant County case or set aside the judge’s denial of the motion to change venues.
On Tuesday, the 15th Court of Appeals released an order putting a pause on further activity for now:
It appears from the facts stated in the petition and motion that relators’ request for emergency relief requires further consideration. Because this Court needs sufficient time to review the merits of relators’ emergency motion, we issue the following administrative stay:
We ORDER the hearing on the State’s Application for Temporary Injunction set September 2, 2025, in trial court cause number 348-367652-2025, The State of Texas v. Robert Francis O’Rourke and Powered by People, STAYED until a final decision by this Court on relators’ emergency motion or until further order of this Court. We further ORDER the trial court’s August 15, 2025 Order on Expedited Discovery in trial court cause number 348-367652-2025, The State of Texas v. Robert Francis O’Rourke and Powered by People, STAYED until a final decision by this Court on relators’ emergency motion or until further order of this Court.
In addition, the Court grants the State’s request for an extension of time to file a response and requests the State of Texas, the real party-in-interest, to file a response to the emergency motion and the petition for writ of mandamus on or before September 9, 2025. See Tex. R. App. P. 52.4.
And then the Supreme Court, also all Republican, denied Paxton’s emergency motion to set aside the 15th Court’s order. None of this means that Beto is going to prevail on any of his motions, just that the Court wants to hear arguments about it, and as is totally normal in these situations they put everything on hold until they decide what to do. And this caused Ken Paxton, giant crybaby that he is, to whine and rage about not immediately getting everything he wanted from Republican judges, who are obviously not Real Republicans for not catering to his every whim.
So that’s where we are now. There are two dueling lawsuits, in two different counties, and the appellate courts will need to give some direction about how that will proceed. Pretty normal lawyer stuff, but enough to cause Paxton to melt down. It’s both pathetic and hilarious at the same time. See KVUE’s brief video story, the excerpt from Bloomberg Law’s paywalled story, Bayliss Wagner and Beto himself on Twitter for more.