Lawmakers must ask: Why should taxpayers bail AG Ken Paxton out on this screw-up? | Opinion

It sometimes seems that there is no check on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s malfeasance and ineptitude.

So, we were heartened to see House Speaker Dade Phelan declare that Paxton would have to justify to the Legislature why taxpayers should cover a settlement with former Paxton employees who allege the attorney general retaliated against them for reporting bribery allegations against him.

In the end, the state is probably going to cough up the $3.3 million. It’s an employment case against the agency, not against Paxton personally. But if it opens the door to some real legislative oversight over Paxton’s tenure, it’ll be worth every penny.

If you can’t keep track of the myriad Paxton scandals, we don’t blame you. In this case, the McKinney Republican fired four top deputies who were part of a group that went to law enforcement with allegations of abuse of office. They contended that Paxton acted to help a campaign donor and a woman with whom he was having an affair. Paxton has denied the claims.

It’s understandable why Paxton’s fellow Republicans in Austin wouldn’t want to touch that much, especially with a federal investigation reportedly underway. But budget writers and other legislators owe it to their constituents to fully vet such a large settlement.

Good governance also demands that lawmakers ask tough questions about so many other problems in Paxton’s tenure. The attorney general’s office is poorly staffed, unfocused and has an extensive morale issue, an Associated Press investigation found last year. Paxton’s incompetence has trickled down to human trafficking prosecutions, among other vital tasks, the AP found.

Paxton appeared Tuesday at a House Appropriations Committee sub-panel hearing on his agency’s budget. And while some lawmakers attempted to probe the whistleblower settlement, the attorney general wouldn’t even personally engage, instead turning to a deputy to answer most questions.

The budget for the AG’s office exceeds $600 million a year, more than half of which goes to the vital task of child support collection and enforcement. So, $3.3 million could hire a handful of good lawyers — if they’d even be willing to work for Paxton.

Let’s not forget, Paxton has tried to bog down this case by asserting that, as an elected official, he is exempt from the state law providing whistleblower protections. That’s part of a constant pattern in which Paxton portrays himself as above the law. He tried to sic followers on a state criminal court that ruled against him over jurisdiction in voter fraud cases. He couldn’t be bothered to file a legally required campaign finance report on time.

Oh, and he’s one of the state’s top proponents of election fraud conspiracies and Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 results.

If the Legislature won’t check Paxton, perhaps Gov. Greg Abbott will. Abbott showed courage in 2020 when the Paxton bribery allegations first surfaced, saying they “raise serious concerns.” He’s been quiet since; you’d think that a former three-term attorney general must be frustrated at the office’s decline.

In an interview with the Editorial Board’s Nicole Russell, Abbott declined to weigh in on the settlement directly, though he noted that Paxton “will have to explain to both the House and Senate why it should be a part of the budget.”

Abbott also said he has not discussed the issue with Paxton, saying: “I am starting from a point of zero information.” The governor is always good about doing his homework, so if the time comes, we hope he’ll seriously weigh a line-item veto of the settlement payment.

It’s frustrating that Paxton repeatedly refuses to take any responsibility for the messes around him. It’s always someone else’s fault: Employees gone “rogue,” even though he hand-picked some of them. Or Travis County — Paxton argues that he wouldn’t be able to get a fair shake in court because of liberal bias, making the settlement a bargain by his reckoning. And we haven’t even mentioned the longest-running Paxton saga, his criminal indictment on security fraud charges.

In a twisted way, all this works to Paxton’s benefit. Voters understandably don’t follow the ins and outs. Many probably have a vague sense that Paxton’s been under a cloud with the securities case for years, and they see nothing has come of it. Hence, he’s been elected statewide three times, despite mounting inadequacies and outrages.

When voters shrug, lawmakers need a spur to act. They just got a multimillion-dollar bill that should do the trick. They must start demanding answers, scrub the agency and enforce accountability.