Something that is important for Democrats to help voters to understand is that Ken Paxton and the Republican Party are getting away with a deceptive political practice with the use of the term "chief law enforcement officer". When they keep repeating that Paxton is the "chief law enforcement officer" they create the perception that he is a criminal prosecutor. He is not. In fact, attempting to file criminal charges against witnesses in the fraud investigation of his crony Nate Paul got him impeached. This was a misuse of the office because, among other things, the AG cannot file criminal charges! It does not go before grand juries and get indictments under criminal statutes. Jurisdiction therein lies solely with local district attorneys.
The Texas Constitution does not give the Office of the Attorney General criminal jurisdiction except in very limited circumstances. The AG is not a mini-DOJ and Paxton nor does any other AG prosecute and lock up criminals, as the term "chief law enforcement officer" implies.
What the AG is in fact is a chief CIVIL law enforcement officer. He sues in civil court to protect consumers, to represent our agencies and the state of Texas in civil matters. He collects child support and provides legal opinions to agencies and others regarding Texas law. He is not a Pam Bondi able to initiate criminal investigations of Abbott or Trump's enemies.
Paxton works very hard to give the public the impression he is a prosecutor. That's why he sued Beto. Please note, that was not a criminal indictment. It was a frivolous civil suit under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. And once he got before a non-compliant judge, it was thrown out. [I believe the case is on appeal presently, but not sure.]
So, to me the scariest part here is Republicans are having great success getting everyone to repeat that term and to treat him as the "chief law enforcement officer" of Texas. Simply ignoring the Tex. Constitution and arrogating powers to themselves is how authoritarians consolidate their power. If we keep sending MAGA Republicans to Austin, you will soon see a constitutional amendment on a ballot to give the AG criminal prosecution powers.
As it is now, the only thing standing between us and malicious prosecutions from Ken Paxton and his ilk are those local DA's who refuse to violate their oath of office in service of a dictator. Unless Democrats educate the public and arouse the voters about the danger "chief law enforcement officer" presents to us, they will get away with it.
This needs to be a main post! I’m not sure how many come to the comments to read. I am just learning and you taught me a lot! I would love to share this but not sure how. Looking now on your page.
Eva, I am considering starting a separate Substack, if I can do that because as a new precinct chair, I am encouraged to reach out politically on social media. Well, I don’t do FB, Insta or Tick-Tock or whatever new-fangled social media stuff the kids are doing today. And I’m not about to start now.
So, if I can get my act together, I’ll do my first post on the new Substack on this pet peeve of mine - Ken Paxton and his destruction of a well-oiled machine of an agency that served Texans well for a very long time. Instead, it is now a stepping stone for MAGA BS that does nothing for us.
I agree the fact that MAGA R’s in Texas misrepresent Texas law and Texas culture as mirrors of Trumpism has got to be front and center! Let’s go!
I started as a Precinct chair since February of 2018. When I thought I would be overwhelmed so I found a neighbor to be precinct chair. I am the committee women of the Precinct chair Recruitment and Training Committee. Im responsable for teaching the precinct chairs in Bexar County. So, I tell you, learn what your neighbors want before you decide to start anything new. I just tell my neighbors to follow Michelle Davis. Now I need to tell them to read the comments because your comment was educational.
Thank you for that! I kind of had the sense that I need to tailor my engagement to what my precinct wants. I have sent out one email to the precinct. For the immediate time being, I’m going to stick with email and texts. It’s just that my precinct skews sort of senior citizen and they want to be on FB, so I’m going to try and find a work-around. Visiting with some of my fellow precinct chairs I get the definite impression they are doing most of their engagement on FB.
I do have some good precinct coordinators and I sense the Tarrant County Democratic Party is going to be helpful as well. I see my goal as trying to get as many people to vote Democratic as possible. In my neck of the woods, the DFW Northeast Tarrant County suburbs, that means we have no choice but to try and appeal to Republicans to cross over.
FYI, we just had a special election for state senator in the Red district next to us. Our Democratic candidate, Taylor Rehmet, got the most votes in a three-way race between himself and two Republicans. He was like 47% or 48%. Because he didn’t get 51% we go to a run-off in January. One of our guys crunched the voting information and concluded Taylor received about one out of five votes from Republicans. That’s really huge.
As I see it, there is no way to turn Texas Blue unless we convert some Republicans and Independents. Dan Patrick, Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton are not from Texas and I know their non-Texas ways rub Republicans the wrong way just like they do me.
Good Luck! Sounds like you are doing great! Someone told me just Yesterday that Tarrant County is Red! So happy to read you are working it. 🙏🏼 You have the right attitude.
Riddle me this: How is it these candidates want to scour Jewish people from American when Middleton spent the last legislative session crying about DEI and pro-Gaza protests on college campuses? He and his ilk complained that Jewish students were threatened by the protests (although many students testified that the police presence at UT was more intimidating than the protests themselves).
Roy is a pale wuss and Middleton is a weak-jawed racist. Both: punchable. Sadly, their rhetoric is causing all the other racists to salivate.
Michelle. I just want to say the articles like these i appreciate so much as i feel enlightened about the state of Texas politics and honestly most importantly red states in general. After doing so much research and reading various local articles. States like these i have come to realize they are not MAGA DOMINATED states but GRAY SUPPRESSED STATES. I have noticed a tendency of voter turnout lagging in red states, lack of resources for voting booths, and so much more that i realize that republican dominated states have relied on basically rigging these states for a long time to make people believe its more trumpy and maga dominated then it is.
I have had the honor of having a democratic election within NYC DSA which is my DSA chapter that got Zohran Mamdani and AOC elected. I decided to seek leadership with this chapter and i got elected by a full membership vote, which means now i will be having the honor of running NYC DSA as a leader and i will be responsible alongside with others to make the next Zohran Mamdani for the future. It will be interesting as i will be the youngest leader elected to the chapter as i am only 24 which is a bit nerve wracking as i am quite young in the leadership body. I hope i am ready for it and i will be organizing like crazy to give a better future as if you folks in red states arent giving up. I see no reason for me to give up in NYC of all places. And i do request the folks do not judge me for who i am as i am much more to the left then all of yall. For full disclosure and transparency, I am in a faction in DSA that represents Communists, as i understand we still have scars of the red scare and the trend of "socialism is communism." i will not blame your viewers nor not hate them for not feeling comfortable that i am in a communist faction. But i will say this, I am not ignoring yall efforts in organizing and getting people elected and i learned a lot. I certainly wont stop until i change things for the better by getting better DSA members elected to office or progressives. Thanks again and continue the good work. :). Also FUCK FASCISTS PERIOD.
Period. Full stop. End of story. I'm proud of you, too, and all the work y'all've been doing up there. I appreciate the feedback. Substack has been weird this last month, glitchy, so I haven't been sure if I've been up or down. I hope you have many more wins in the future. Can y'all take Hakeem Jeffries out next?
We will. We need more time tbh. It was not easy making the decision to not target Jeffries at the moment. But we made it so because we still need more resources and Nydia Velaquez retirement honestly affected our decision. Nydia was a valuable ally to DSA and we cannot afford to lose that district to another corporate dem. We need to maintain as many allies as we have. Especially against Jeffries
not at present. DSA was lining up behind Chi Osse to run against but we have a democratic process on deciding endorsement and the full membership had a majority voted not in favor of endorsing Chi Osse against Jeffries. We had a variety of reasons but i personally voted no because i personally interviewed Chi Osse himself for his candidacy and unfortunately he is not ready to go against Jeffries. He needs more time to develop himself to combat that beast of a district due to gerrymandering and additionally, the amount of resources needed to defeat jeffries in comparison to Dan Goldman, Adriano Espialiat and getting Nydia Velaquez is too heavy for us. I figured it would be best to secure 4-5 congressional seats to pressure Hakeem Jeffries speaker position more then having a congressional bid against him where there is no material change as another corporate dem would just get elected as speaker after his defeat.
Jeez they are horrifying! Thanks for taking the time to write this, Michelle. I just shared it on Bsky because I think it's imperative for people to know what we're up against. I hope it may dissuade some people who are planning to or considering voting in the R primary in early April (or people they know.)
Something that is important for Democrats to help voters to understand is that Ken Paxton and the Republican Party are getting away with a deceptive political practice with the use of the term "chief law enforcement officer". When they keep repeating that Paxton is the "chief law enforcement officer" they create the perception that he is a criminal prosecutor. He is not. In fact, attempting to file criminal charges against witnesses in the fraud investigation of his crony Nate Paul got him impeached. This was a misuse of the office because, among other things, the AG cannot file criminal charges! It does not go before grand juries and get indictments under criminal statutes. Jurisdiction therein lies solely with local district attorneys.
The Texas Constitution does not give the Office of the Attorney General criminal jurisdiction except in very limited circumstances. The AG is not a mini-DOJ and Paxton nor does any other AG prosecute and lock up criminals, as the term "chief law enforcement officer" implies.
What the AG is in fact is a chief CIVIL law enforcement officer. He sues in civil court to protect consumers, to represent our agencies and the state of Texas in civil matters. He collects child support and provides legal opinions to agencies and others regarding Texas law. He is not a Pam Bondi able to initiate criminal investigations of Abbott or Trump's enemies.
Paxton works very hard to give the public the impression he is a prosecutor. That's why he sued Beto. Please note, that was not a criminal indictment. It was a frivolous civil suit under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. And once he got before a non-compliant judge, it was thrown out. [I believe the case is on appeal presently, but not sure.]
So, to me the scariest part here is Republicans are having great success getting everyone to repeat that term and to treat him as the "chief law enforcement officer" of Texas. Simply ignoring the Tex. Constitution and arrogating powers to themselves is how authoritarians consolidate their power. If we keep sending MAGA Republicans to Austin, you will soon see a constitutional amendment on a ballot to give the AG criminal prosecution powers.
As it is now, the only thing standing between us and malicious prosecutions from Ken Paxton and his ilk are those local DA's who refuse to violate their oath of office in service of a dictator. Unless Democrats educate the public and arouse the voters about the danger "chief law enforcement officer" presents to us, they will get away with it.
This needs to be a main post! I’m not sure how many come to the comments to read. I am just learning and you taught me a lot! I would love to share this but not sure how. Looking now on your page.
Eva, I am considering starting a separate Substack, if I can do that because as a new precinct chair, I am encouraged to reach out politically on social media. Well, I don’t do FB, Insta or Tick-Tock or whatever new-fangled social media stuff the kids are doing today. And I’m not about to start now.
So, if I can get my act together, I’ll do my first post on the new Substack on this pet peeve of mine - Ken Paxton and his destruction of a well-oiled machine of an agency that served Texans well for a very long time. Instead, it is now a stepping stone for MAGA BS that does nothing for us.
I agree the fact that MAGA R’s in Texas misrepresent Texas law and Texas culture as mirrors of Trumpism has got to be front and center! Let’s go!
I started as a Precinct chair since February of 2018. When I thought I would be overwhelmed so I found a neighbor to be precinct chair. I am the committee women of the Precinct chair Recruitment and Training Committee. Im responsable for teaching the precinct chairs in Bexar County. So, I tell you, learn what your neighbors want before you decide to start anything new. I just tell my neighbors to follow Michelle Davis. Now I need to tell them to read the comments because your comment was educational.
Thank you for that! I kind of had the sense that I need to tailor my engagement to what my precinct wants. I have sent out one email to the precinct. For the immediate time being, I’m going to stick with email and texts. It’s just that my precinct skews sort of senior citizen and they want to be on FB, so I’m going to try and find a work-around. Visiting with some of my fellow precinct chairs I get the definite impression they are doing most of their engagement on FB.
I do have some good precinct coordinators and I sense the Tarrant County Democratic Party is going to be helpful as well. I see my goal as trying to get as many people to vote Democratic as possible. In my neck of the woods, the DFW Northeast Tarrant County suburbs, that means we have no choice but to try and appeal to Republicans to cross over.
FYI, we just had a special election for state senator in the Red district next to us. Our Democratic candidate, Taylor Rehmet, got the most votes in a three-way race between himself and two Republicans. He was like 47% or 48%. Because he didn’t get 51% we go to a run-off in January. One of our guys crunched the voting information and concluded Taylor received about one out of five votes from Republicans. That’s really huge.
As I see it, there is no way to turn Texas Blue unless we convert some Republicans and Independents. Dan Patrick, Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton are not from Texas and I know their non-Texas ways rub Republicans the wrong way just like they do me.
Good Luck! Sounds like you are doing great! Someone told me just Yesterday that Tarrant County is Red! So happy to read you are working it. 🙏🏼 You have the right attitude.
Riddle me this: How is it these candidates want to scour Jewish people from American when Middleton spent the last legislative session crying about DEI and pro-Gaza protests on college campuses? He and his ilk complained that Jewish students were threatened by the protests (although many students testified that the police presence at UT was more intimidating than the protests themselves).
Roy is a pale wuss and Middleton is a weak-jawed racist. Both: punchable. Sadly, their rhetoric is causing all the other racists to salivate.
From Dr Timothy Snyder about ‘ ‘antisemitism’ on campus as a ploy for antisemitism. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/fomenting-antisemitism?r=6mx8h&utm_medium=ios
Woah. This is incredible. Thank you for sharing.
Michelle. I just want to say the articles like these i appreciate so much as i feel enlightened about the state of Texas politics and honestly most importantly red states in general. After doing so much research and reading various local articles. States like these i have come to realize they are not MAGA DOMINATED states but GRAY SUPPRESSED STATES. I have noticed a tendency of voter turnout lagging in red states, lack of resources for voting booths, and so much more that i realize that republican dominated states have relied on basically rigging these states for a long time to make people believe its more trumpy and maga dominated then it is.
I have had the honor of having a democratic election within NYC DSA which is my DSA chapter that got Zohran Mamdani and AOC elected. I decided to seek leadership with this chapter and i got elected by a full membership vote, which means now i will be having the honor of running NYC DSA as a leader and i will be responsible alongside with others to make the next Zohran Mamdani for the future. It will be interesting as i will be the youngest leader elected to the chapter as i am only 24 which is a bit nerve wracking as i am quite young in the leadership body. I hope i am ready for it and i will be organizing like crazy to give a better future as if you folks in red states arent giving up. I see no reason for me to give up in NYC of all places. And i do request the folks do not judge me for who i am as i am much more to the left then all of yall. For full disclosure and transparency, I am in a faction in DSA that represents Communists, as i understand we still have scars of the red scare and the trend of "socialism is communism." i will not blame your viewers nor not hate them for not feeling comfortable that i am in a communist faction. But i will say this, I am not ignoring yall efforts in organizing and getting people elected and i learned a lot. I certainly wont stop until i change things for the better by getting better DSA members elected to office or progressives. Thanks again and continue the good work. :). Also FUCK FASCISTS PERIOD.
Period. Full stop. End of story. I'm proud of you, too, and all the work y'all've been doing up there. I appreciate the feedback. Substack has been weird this last month, glitchy, so I haven't been sure if I've been up or down. I hope you have many more wins in the future. Can y'all take Hakeem Jeffries out next?
We will. We need more time tbh. It was not easy making the decision to not target Jeffries at the moment. But we made it so because we still need more resources and Nydia Velaquez retirement honestly affected our decision. Nydia was a valuable ally to DSA and we cannot afford to lose that district to another corporate dem. We need to maintain as many allies as we have. Especially against Jeffries
So, he won't have a primary contender... or not one backed by the DSA?
not at present. DSA was lining up behind Chi Osse to run against but we have a democratic process on deciding endorsement and the full membership had a majority voted not in favor of endorsing Chi Osse against Jeffries. We had a variety of reasons but i personally voted no because i personally interviewed Chi Osse himself for his candidacy and unfortunately he is not ready to go against Jeffries. He needs more time to develop himself to combat that beast of a district due to gerrymandering and additionally, the amount of resources needed to defeat jeffries in comparison to Dan Goldman, Adriano Espialiat and getting Nydia Velaquez is too heavy for us. I figured it would be best to secure 4-5 congressional seats to pressure Hakeem Jeffries speaker position more then having a congressional bid against him where there is no material change as another corporate dem would just get elected as speaker after his defeat.
FWIW, Zohran Mamdani also voted no on endorsing Chi Osse. He personally came and was not in favor of endorsing Chi Osse.
Interesting. Thanks for the 411.
Dr Timothy Snyder posted an explanation of why he thinks the focus of antisemitism on campus is a ploy for actual antisemitism. https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/fomenting-antisemitism?r=6mx8h&utm_medium=ios
Jeez they are horrifying! Thanks for taking the time to write this, Michelle. I just shared it on Bsky because I think it's imperative for people to know what we're up against. I hope it may dissuade some people who are planning to or considering voting in the R primary in early April (or people they know.)