6 June 6 - 12, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents According to Jillson, each lawsuit is part of Paxton’s larger strategy to cement himself as the champion of the far right in Texas. “He may not win every lawsuit, because, at least in the case of the gun show lawsuit, the way he’s describing it is untrue,” Jillson says. “It’s not true that I have to do a background check if I sell to you; I only have to do a back- ground check if I have a business purpose. But there are a lot of things in politics that aren’t true but are still helpful electorally.” Multiple people interviewed for this story found the timing of Patxon’s loophole lawsuit particularly curious. The AG an- nounced the suit in the final weeks before the May 28 runoffs, which served as another inflection point in the ongoing GOP civil war between the party’s far-right and less- far-right conservatives. House Speaker Dade Phelan has been the primary target of Paxton’s vitriol since the speaker led the ef- fort to impeach the AG, and while Phelan narrowly held on to his seat, six of his allies (and fellow Paxton targets) lost their seats. The impeachment and school vouchers are the two primary issues driving the GOP’s infighting, but the friction in the party has be- come a contest to see who is the most conser- vative — a territory Paxton and his camp can try to claim with efforts like the ATF lawsuit. Further, the civil war shows no signs of slowing down. In a statement after the results were tal- lied, Paxton said, “My message to Austin is clear: to those considering supporting Dade Phelan as Speaker in 2025, ask your 15 col- leagues who lost reelection how they feel about their decision now. You will not return if you vote for Dade Phelan again.” Yet even as Phelan v. Paxton continues to earn the lion’s share of attention, another in- traparty fight has shown signs of heating up. The AG has repeatedly criticized Sen. John Cornyn, who was a key player in helping Congress pass the Bipartisan Safer Commu- nities Act in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting in 2022 that left 19 elementary school students and two teachers dead. The law increased mental health and school secu- rity funding and created incentives for states to implement red flag laws that allow courts to take away guns from those deemed a threat to themselves or others. Texas does not have a red flag law. The act also closed the “boy- friend loophole,” which allowed people con- victed of domestic abuse to own a gun. Cornyn was famously booed at the 2022 Texas GOP convention after his efforts to pass the bill, and Paxton has floated the idea of challenging the senator. Last fall, shortly after being acquitted by the state Senate, Paxton used an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson to blast Cornyn (“I can’t think of a single thing he’s accomplished for our state or even for the country,” he said) while saying “everything’s on the table for me” in terms of a potential future Senate run. Interestingly, Biden’s attempt to close the gun show loophole is a provision of the Safer Communities Act, the very legislation Cornyn championed. But Cornyn has dis- tanced himself from the president’s latest ef- fort, calling it “an outright lie” that it has anything to do with the 2022 legislation and claiming in a statement that the administra- tion’s “real goal” is “to take away the fire- arms of every law-abiding American.” Cornyn has also vowed to fight to keep the gun show loophole open at the federal level. This about-face comes as Cornyn pre- pares for reelection in 2026 and, more im- mediately, vies to succeed Mitch McConnell as the GOP’s leader in the U.S. Senate. In re- sponse to the latter news, Paxton took to so- cial media to denigrate the senator. “It will be difficult for @JohnCornyn to be an effective leader since he is anti-Trump, anti-gun, and will be focused on his highly competitive primary campaign in 2026,” he wrote. “Republicans deserve better in their next leader and Texans deserve another conservative senator.” Cornyn, perhaps interpreting this mes- sage as Paxton’s threat to run, issued a sim- ple reply: “Hard to run from prison, Ken.” Rottinghaus believes these online spats underscore the larger fissures happening in the Texas GOP, fissures which have pitted “the old guard,” of which Cornyn is a mem- ber, against an increasingly successful far right wing. “John Cornyn has got to be a little wor- ried about his right flank,” Rottinghaus says. “I don’t think he’s concerned every day like members of the legislature are, but I think he’s worried.” Still, Rottinghaus points out that Cornyn has previously beaten back challengers. And as he fights attempts to close the gun show loophole, he doesn’t appear to be afraid of a Paxton challenge. “Cornyn is willing to call Paxton out,” he says. “Maybe it’s his age, his seniority, the re- cord he’s amassed winning elections, but he does not seem afraid of Ken Paxton. And he probably shouldn’t be. Paxton can present a formidable front, but I don’t think it’s an ob- vious win.” There’s another reason critics are trou- bled by the timing of Paxton’s ATF lawsuit: It arrived around the same time as the two- year anniversary of the Uvalde shooting and the one-year anniversary of the shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets in which eight people and the gunman died. “It’s very despicable for Paxton to be doing this right now,” says Kathleen Thomspon, the executive director of Progress Texas. Her or- ganization tries to engage voters beyond party lines, and she says gun safety is “right at the top of the list” of voters’ concerns, along- side issues like abortion rights, voting rights and environmental justice. Thompson also believes Paxton is taking a page from former President Donald Trump’s playbook and courting those on the far right who live in opposition to the federal government. This strategy is why Trump chose Waco — former home of the Branch Davidians — as the site of his first 2024 cam- paign rally, Thompson says, and this strategy is at least partly why Paxton wants to fight Biden tooth and nail on the gun show loop- hole. Julie Johnson, a Texas legislator turned Democratic congressional candidate, told the Observer something similar in a recent interview. “The reality is that Ken Paxton gets his power from the far right side of the Republi- can Party base,” she says. “That’s where he gets his support, and that’s why he contin- ues to pursue these far-right policies and sue the Biden administration.” Johnson fended off nine opponents to win her primary, and in November, she will face Republican Darrell Day to see who will take over U.S. Senate hopeful Colin Allred’s seat in the U.S. House. But Johnson isn’t waiting until November to start laying the groundwork for success in D.C. She says she has already visited the capital and is trying to forge relationships with people on the other side of the aisle. “Americans want their government to function,” she says, “and that means mem- bers of both parties have to listen, learn and collaborate when it’s useful.” She believes meaningful gun control legis- lation is far more possible at the federal level than it is back home in Texas, and her fellow congressional hopeful Eppler shares that view. That’s one reason he’s running, as he re- calls all the days he worried about a shooting happening in the school where he worked. “One thing I was always worried about was someone could go purchase the same rounds that are being fired in Ukraine, and do it in about 30 seconds,” he says. He is fully aware that any efforts to change existing laws will be met with charges that Democrats want to take away Americans’ guns — the same kind of charges Cornyn recently levied at Biden. But to him, “taking away people’s guns is a red line,” and he emphasizes that such a seizure is not the intent behind the loophole closure. The intent is to keep people like his for- mer students and employees safe. “If we can stop one school shooting from happening, to me, that’s one thing we should take very seriously.” ▼ ABORTION CLEAR AS MUD TEXAS SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN ABORTION BAN CHALLENGE WITH ‘DEEPLY OFFENSIVE’ RULING. BY EMMA RUBY T he Texas Supreme Court unani- mously rejected a challenge to the state’s restrictive abortion ban on May 31, ruling against 20 women, including some from North Texas, who allege state laws prevented them from receiving medi- cal care after experiencing severe complica- tions with their pregnancies. The case, Zurawski v. Texas, was led by Amanda Zurawski who, while pregnant, “was forced to wait until she was septic to receive abortion care, causing one of her fal- lopian tubes to become permanently closed,” according to a complaint filed over a year ago. Other women who joined the case shared similar stories of doctors refusing to perform abortions despite threats to the mother’s life or fetal non-viability because of confusion caused by state laws. In a statement after the ruling, Zurawski said she was “outraged” by the court’s deci- sion that deemed she and the other plaintiffs were “not sick enough” to warrant an abor- tion. The organization that filed the case, the Center for Reproductive Rights, also criti- cized the ruling, stating it “largely ignores” the women involved in the case and fails to provide doctors with legal clarity on when they can and cannot provide abortions. “[The ruling] is deeply offensive to the women we represent — they are completely written out of the opinion as though they don’t exist or matter,” Nancy Northup, presi- dent and CEO of the Center for Reproduc- tive Rights, said in a statement. “Most people think that if something goes terribly wrong with their pregnancy, they can make the decision to terminate, but that is not true. As women are finding out across the country, exceptions to abortion bans are illu- sory — they’re an empty promise.” Northup said it is “unclear” if there is a legal path forward for the case, but the cen- ter plans to assess “what, if anything, re- mains of our clients’ claims.” Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney for the center, said she believes there is a legal case remaining for Dr. Damla Karsan, an OB-GYN from Hous- ton who joined the case as a plaintiff after being threatened by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after agreeing to preform an abortion for Dallas native Kate Cox. The Zurawski case is credited with inspir- ing Cox to sue for permission to have Brandon Bell/Getty Images Is Paxton courting those on the far right who live in opposition to the government? Unfair Park from p4 >> p8
