Tag Archives: Texas Civil Rights Project

Paxton sues to prevent some provisional votes from being counted

On brand. Always, always on brand. The Texas Attorney General’s office is attempting a last-minute intervention to toss out 2,000 provisional ballots before a Harris County Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday to certify the November election. The ballots in question were … Continue reading

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This is all so dumb

I’m going to quote a large swath of this Reform Austin story because it sums up what has been happening the past couple of days better than I could. Gov. Greg Abbott called for an investigation into Harris County’s election … Continue reading

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So what if anything will come of that SCOTx ruling on the extra voting time?

I have no idea. The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday set the stage for a legal fight over whether to count ballots Harris County voters cast during an extended hour of voting ordered by a lower court. That lower court … Continue reading

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It always comes down to fluoride

I swear, it’s at the root of most election conspiracy fantasies. Laura Pressley and three other people huddled inside a Fredericksburg courtroom Monday, bowing their heads, closing their eyes, holding hands, and beginning to pray in hushed voices. “In Jesus’ … Continue reading

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SOS inserts itself

It’s the damn fraudit again. The Texas secretary of state’s office on Tuesday warned Harris County officials it still is missing information about the chain of custody for certain election materials in its ongoing audit of the 2020 election. In … Continue reading

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State Bar complaint against Ted Cruz was dismissed

This story ran a few days ago. A lawyer group that brought ethics complaints against Trump attorneys is trying to make it tougher for lawyers to use the legal system to overturn elections. The group, called the 65 Project, aims … Continue reading

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Fifth Circuit does its thing with appeal of voter purge case

Get out the rubber stamp. A federal appeals court has ruled that Texas does not need to release details about a list of 11,737 registered voters whom the state has identified as potential noncitizens. The U.S. Court of Appeals for … Continue reading

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District court judge dismisses State Bar complaint against Brent Webster

This is a bad ruling, and it needs to be appealed. A Texas district judge has dismissed a professional misconduct lawsuit against a top aide of Attorney General Ken Paxton seeking to discipline them for their effort to overturn the … Continue reading

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Paxton’s State Bar disciplinary hearing

We are slowly moving towards finally having some kind of result in this saga. Lawyers for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued Wednesday that a Kaufman County judge should toss a lawsuit alleging he acted unethically in a legal challenge … Continue reading

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Most of the lawsuit against the voter suppression law survives a motion to dismiss

Some good news. In a limited order this week, a federal judge threw out some civil rights and discrimination claims brought as part of a complex and ongoing legal dispute over strict new voting rules in Texas. The lawsuit filed last year alleges that the … Continue reading

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State ordered to turn over voter purge data

Very good. A federal judge ruled this week that the state is violating U.S. law by refusing to release its list of more than 11,000 registered voters that it identified as potential noncitizens, and ordered the release of the data … Continue reading

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The State Bar’s response to Paxton

As you know, the State Bar of Texas filed a lawsuit against Ken Paxton in a Collin County district court in order to proceed with the complaint filed against Paxton for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election by filing … Continue reading

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Paxton responds to State Bar lawsuit against him

Blah blah blah, you can’t sue me, blah blah blah. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to dismiss a professional misconduct lawsuit filed by the state bar against him related to his legal challenge of the 2020 presidential election, … Continue reading

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State Bar finally files that professional misconduct lawsuit against Paxton

We’ve been eagerly awaiting this. A disciplinary committee for the State Bar of Texas on Wednesday filed a professional misconduct lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in four … Continue reading

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More State Bar disciplinary stuff

A new twist, as a new player enters the picture. The Texas State Bar has filed a suit in Williamson County district court against First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster for his involvement in the state’s lawsuit seeking to overturn … Continue reading

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Paxton whines about the disciplinary process he selected

My head hurts. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s top lawyer, said Friday the state bar was suing him for professional misconduct related to his lawsuit challenging the 2020 presidential election. “I have recently learned that the Texas State … Continue reading

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Second lawsuit filed over Galveston redistricting

Similar grounds, different plaintiffs. A coalition of civil rights groups in Texas filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against Galveston County, alleging that the county’s redistricting plan intentionally discriminates against a growing minority population in the Gulf Coast community. The complaint, … Continue reading

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We have a final count of rejected mail ballots

About one in eight got canned. That’s a lot. The votes of more than 24,000 Texans who tried to cast ballots by mail were thrown out in the March primary — a dramatic increase in rejected ballots in the first … Continue reading

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Guess who’s paying for Ken Paxton’s defense against those state bar complaints?

You are, of course. What did you expect? Texas taxpayers are on the hook for $45,000 so far in legal defense for Attorney General Ken Paxton as he attempts to ward off multiple complaints to the State Bar over his … Continue reading

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First “Trump Train” lawsuit to proceed

Good news. Today, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled in favor of plaintiffs in Cervini v. Cisneros, the “Texas Trump Train” lawsuit filed against individuals in a convoy of Trump supporters who conspired to mount … Continue reading

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Still more on the mail ballot rejections

The Associated Press moves the ball forward now that the votes have been canvassed. Texas threw out mail votes at an abnormally high rate during the nation’s first primary of 2022, rejecting nearly 23,000 ballots outright under tougher voting rules … Continue reading

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More data about mail ballot rejections

Keep it coming. Thousands of Texans who attempted to vote by mail in the March primary were disenfranchised in the state’s first election conducted under a new Republican voting law. The state’s largest counties saw a significant spike in the … Continue reading

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The rejected mail ballots of Bexar County

I have four things to say about this. Bexar County rejected mail-in ballots at roughly ten times the rate it did before the passage of the state’s new voting law last year. Before Senate Bill 1 took effect, with its … Continue reading

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State Bar complaint against Paxton to proceed

Nice, but I’m still not expecting there to be consequences for him. I will be delighted to be wrong about that. A Texas State Bar complaint against Attorney General Ken Paxton is moving forward and will be heard by either … Continue reading

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Voting Rights Groups Sue Texas for Failure to Disclose Records Related to Voter Purges

From the inbox: The Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Texas, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and DĒMOS filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. … Continue reading

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Don’t expect the absentee ballot fiasco to improve

Things are working as planned. Signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in September, the voting law known as Senate Bill 1 contained an array of new restrictions on the state’s voting process and narrowed local control of elections. Among … Continue reading

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It would seem that the San Marcos Police Department has some major problems

Geez. The city of San Marcos admits in new court documents to text exchanges among its police officers about the Joe Biden bus incident in October 2020. But it denies what it calls a “characterization” of the exchanges by the … Continue reading

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How’s that online voter registration thing going?

Pretty well, it seems. So well, perhaps, that the state of Texas doesn’t want to tell you how well. Since a federal judge forced Texas nearly a year and a half ago to offer limited online voter registration, 1.5 million … Continue reading

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The botched “non-citizen” voter purge continues

At some point we need to recognize the fact that our Secretary of State’s office is completely, and maybe maliciously, inept at doing this. Texas’ last attempt to scour its voting rolls for noncitizens two years ago quickly devolved into … Continue reading

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Trump Train lawsuit update

San Marcos Police Department, wyd? As supporters of then-President Donald Trump surrounded and harassed a Joe Biden campaign bus on a Central Texas highway last year, San Marcos police officials and 911 dispatchers fielded multiple requests for assistance from Democratic … Continue reading

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Abbott and Patrick whine about State Bar complaint against Paxton

Poor, poor babies. The state’s top officials came to the defense of embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying a state bar investigation into his professional conduct is “politically motivated” and raises questions about the state’s separation of powers. On Friday, … Continue reading

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A kinder, gentler voter purge

How nice. Two years after Texas officials fumbled an effort to double-check the voting rolls on a hunt for non-citizens — and instead threatened the voting rights of nearly 60,000 eligible Texans — similar efforts to purge non-citizen voters are … Continue reading

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First two lawsuits filed against the voter suppression bill

No time wasted. The top elections official in Harris County and a host of organizations that serve Texans of color and Texans with disabilities have fired the opening salvos in what’s expected to be an extensive legal battle over Texas’ … Continue reading

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Final settlement in Motor Voter 2.0 lawsuit

From Democracy Docket: Last Friday, individual Texan voters, the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) settled a five-year long lawsuit with Texas over its noncompliance with the National Voter Registration … Continue reading

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