4 September 21 - 27, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Elephants vs. RINOs Following Paxton acquittal, the Republican civil war grows more intense. BY KELLY DEARMORE T he gnarliest battle in Texas poli- tics isn’t between Republicans and Democrats, and it hasn’t re- ally been that way for quite some time. The Republican party has dominated the Democrats in state- wide races for decades now. A rivalry isn’t really a rivalry when one side beats the other one senselessly for so long. No, the fiercest rivalry in Texas politics is the one between the staunchest conserva- tive Republicans and the GOP lawmakers who dare lean a bit towards the center. After Saturday’s complete acquittal of Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, that culture-war-within- a-culture-war is sure to grow more heated. Paxton himself, after the Texas House elected to impeach him after a whopping lopsided 121-23 in May, called out his oppo- nents. “Texas voters now know that Speaker [Dade] Phelan and the corrupt politicians he controls are more focused on political retri- bution against conservatives than the wel- fare of the people,” Paxton said in a statement released on the Friday before Me- morial Day. Quickly after his acquittal, his thoughts hadn’t changed much from May, but this time, for some reason, he brought the current president into it. “The sham impeachment coordinated by the Biden Administration with liberal House Speaker Dade Phelan and his kanga- roo court has cost taxpayers millions of dol- lars, disrupted the work of the Office of Attorney General and left a dark and perma- nent stain on the Texas House,” Paxton said in the Saturday statement. Make no mistake about it, the AG wasn’t aiming the barrel at the woefully outnum- bered Dem Representatives, but those who ostensibly share the same designation on their voter register cards as he does. If any- thing, the second-most bitter rivalry, espe- cially now, is between the state House and Senate, especially after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took a moment only moments after Paxton’s acquittal to blast the House for setting the impeachment proceedings into motion in the first place. So, for now, Democrats in Texas are like the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters — they play on the same court, but few really expect them to win, or to be particularly competitive for that matter. A major hint pointing to the upcoming in-party battle was provided during the trial on a few occasions. Repeatedly, witnesses were asked if they are “a RINO,” meaning, did they consider themselves to be “Repub- licans in name only.” That’s part of the men- tal gymnastics Paxton and his supporters throughout the Texas government have to perform. Democrats are nowhere near strong enough in the state to be a threat to someone as powerful as Paxton. His only play is to sling mud just a little to his left, not all the way. Texas Sen. Nathan John- son, a Demo- crat from Dallas, was one of the ju- rors. Through- out the trial, Johnson was visible to view- ers as he sat just behind whichever at- torney was questioning a witness. He didn’t like what he saw from his vantage point, however, and also took issue with the party in-fighting taking place. “The results are a travesty. The Office of the Attorney General has been removed from the boundaries of political ethics,” Johnsons noted in a statement released on Saturday. “The House demonstrated clearly and unequivocally that Paxton used the of- fice as his own private law firm for private purposes. “The defense tried the case with the aim not of persuading members of the court of Paxton’s innocence, but of convincing far right Republican primary voters that their ideological world was threatened by convic- tion, so that they, in turn, would threaten the political careers of the Republican members of the Senate.” Jonathan Strickland, the former state rep from Tarrant County who made his name thanks to far-right wing, cartoonish antics, was among the first on X (formerly Twitter) to emphasize the line that had already been drawn in the sand by stating “Today the campaign to completely rid Texas of RINOs begins.” The once-powerful, and still very Re- publican, Bush family was also the target of Paxton’s defense team during the trial. Seeking to have the Bush family of former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and former Texas Land Commis- sioner George P. Bush serve as a moderate, left-leaning avatar, Paxton built a straw man that his followers have been all too happy to tear down. Charlie Kirk, the Pride flag-hating leader of conservative group Turning Point USA, posted “The Bush regime ends today,” to X, as if a member of the Bush family had been one of the House managers or prosecution attorneys. Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, one of the 23 House members that voted against impeaching Paxton in May, also took a vir- tual victory lap on Saturday after calling for Phelan to resign, posting to his X timeline, “Shame on the Texas House and Speaker Dade Phelan’s attempt to undermine the will of Texas voters.” You didn’t think Paxton’s favorite presi- dent was going to miss out on the RINO hunting did you? On Saturday, Donald Trump congratulated Paxton, who led law- suits seeking to overturn the 2020 election Trump lost to Joe Biden, writing on his Truth Social account “It is time that Speaker Dade Phelan resign after pushing this dis- graceful sham.” The Lone Star GOP civil war may not have just begun, but is clearly far from over. Even the New York Times has taken note of the familial feud, opening a recent article by summarizing what Texas voters have to look forward to, which unsurprisingly, is what has been happening for years, only now it’s far more out in the open. “The impeachment trial of Ken Paxton that ended in his acquittal on Saturday was about more than the fate of the Texas attor- ney general,” the Times wrote. “It was also the most dramatic flashpoint in a yearslong struggle among Republican leaders in the Legislature over control of the party and the future direction of the state.” ▼ CRIME GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS VIOLENT CRIME IS DOWN IN DALLAS, BUT MURDERS ARE UP. BY JACOB VAUGHN T he Dallas Police Department started executing its three-part plan to re- duce violent crime in the city in May 2021. As of July this year, all three phases of the plan are being implemented and the de- partment is seeing results. The crime plan includes a short-term hot spots policing strategy, a mid-term place network investi- gations strategy and a longer-term focused deterrence strategy. There’s still some work to be done, how- ever. While overall violent crime has de- creased, murders and aggravated assaults are up in Dallas, according to a recently re- leased report on the Dallas Police Depart- ment’s violent crime plan. Michael Smith, a University of Texas at San Antonio criminology and criminal jus- tice professor, walked Dallas’ public safety committee through the report on Sept. 11. Created by researchers at UTSA, it’s an eval- uation of how the plan has gone over the last two years. DPD Police Chief Eddie Garcia described violent crime reduction as lowering the tem- perature across the city. “The police depart- ment is a fever reducer. We’re not a cure to the illness,” Garcia said. “We’re doing our very best to reduce the fever.” Overall, the city saw a 15.3% decrease in average violent street crime incidents since the crime plan was implemented between May 2021 and April 2023, when compared to the previous 36 months (May 2018 – April 2021.) The number of victims of violent crime also fell by 8% when compared to the previous three years. The number of murder and aggravated assault victims has declined every year since the start of the crime plan when compared to previous years before imple- mentation (May 2019 – April 2020.) How- ever, according to the report, periodic spates of multiple victim murders and ag- gravated assaults have resulted in an ap- proximate 10% increase in the average number of victims since the start of the crime plan when compared to averages of the three years prior to the crime plan im- plementation. The department has also seen increases in the number of murders and aggravated assaults while other cities have seen de- creases. There was a 9.3% increase in mur- ders and a 10.1% increase in aggravated assaults when compared with the years be- fore the crime plan was implemented, for example. Most of this violent crime | UNFAIR PARK | Brandon Bell/Getty Images Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, seen here during the Paxton impeachment trial, put the state House on notice after Paxton was acquitted on each article. “THE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE BOUNDARIES OF POLITICAL ETHICS.” –STATE SEN. NATHAN JOHNSON >> p6
