Ethics complaint dropped against Texas AG over challenge to 2020 election results
An ethics complaint alleging that Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made dishonest statements in December 2020 litigation seeking to overturn 2020 election results in four battleground states has been dropped. (Photo by Eric Gay/The Associated Press)
The Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline has dropped an ethics complaint alleging that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made dishonest statements in December 2020 litigation seeking to overturn 2020 election results in four battleground states.
The commission dropped the complaint after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed a similar ethics complaint filed against Brent Edward Webster, Paxton’s first assistant attorney general, report Law360, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News and Houston Public Media.
The state supreme court ruled in the Webster case that the Texas Constitution’s separation-of-powers doctrine prevents disciplinary authorities from filing an ethics complaint against executive branch attorneys, according to the commission’s motion to dismiss an appeal in the Paxton case.
The complaints stemmed from an original jurisdiction lawsuit challenging 2020 election results filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by Paxton and Webster.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in the Webster case Dec. 31.
“By second-guessing the contents of initial pleadings filed on behalf of the state of Texas, under the attorney general’s authority, the commission has intruded into terrain that this court’s precedent has described as belonging to the attorney general,” the state supreme court said in the Dec. 31 opinion.
The state supreme court noted that the Supreme Court did not impose discipline on Webster in connection with the election suit and did not refer him or anyone else for discipline.
“Generally, scrutiny of statements made directly to a court within litigation is by the court to whom those statements are made,” the state supreme court said.
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