Does Ken Paxton Deserve "Forgiveness?"

A statute says that a candidate for public office, having screwed up, is “forgiven” if the voters elect or re-elect them. Ken Paxton says it applies to him … but should it?

Your Moment of Zen: A West Texas sunset. As the sky darkens, you can see the moon and Venus drift down into the frame. Shot near Marathon, Texas, on May 16, 2023.  

Welcome to this installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please 1) hit the Like button, 2) subscribe to the Life Its Ownself, and 3) share it with others in the link below. Also, comments welcome and encouraged.

         But first, some housekeeping.

         Chat. Last Saturday, during the Paxton impeachment hearing, about 20 of us participated in a Substack Chat. I live-blogged the floor debate while many of you asked questions and offered comments. It was great! I plan to schedule more chats in the future. To access this feature, you should install the Substack app on your laptop or mobile device. The app is also a great way to access the Notes feature.

         Subscriptions. I’m pleased to announce that I have crossed the 300-subscriber threshold! Thanks to all of you for your support and participation! Please share my posts with others so I can reach the cherished 325-subscriber milestone! And after that … to infinity and beyond!

         Paid Subscriptions. As you know, Life Its Ownself has been free since its beginning 18 months ago.  In the last couple months, though, several of you have indicated that you’d be willing to pay for a subscription. I’m not doing this for the money, but your investment in Life Its Ownself is a nice affirmation. Therefore, I have enabled the paid subscriptions option. It’s $5 a month, or $50 a year. For now, though, all Life Its Ownself content will be available to everyone while we figure this out together.

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The Profound Nature of Forgiveness

          One of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard is “Heart of the Matter,” written by Don Henley and J.D. Souther.^[1]

I’ve been trying to get down

To the Heart of the Matter

But my will gets weak

And my thoughts seem to scatter

But I think it’s about

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore. 

          It asks the profound questions, including this one:

What are these voices outside love’s open door

that make us throw off our contentment and beg for something more?

which the singer-songwriter Lorde (“Royals”) called “the most incredible f*cking question of the universe.” 

          My point is, forgiveness is a profound spiritual concept. It has tremendous meaning and salience in my life. To forgive, and be forgiven, have marked some of the most important crossroads of my life. I suspect is has played an important role in your life as well.

          Oddly enough, there’s also a doctrine called “forgiveness” in the political and electoral context. But that doctrine does not summon up deep moral and spiritual realities.  

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Ken Paxton and the “Forgiveness Doctrine”

         One of the arguments Impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton made before his impeachment was that the House could not impeach him because the voters, in re-electing him in 2018 and 2022, had “forgiven” him for any misdeeds he’d done before that time.

         Believe it or not, there is such a thing as a “forgiveness doctrine.” It basically says, “if Public Official X does something bad, and the voters know about it and re-elect him/her anyway, that conduct is ‘forgiven.’” It appears in in Government Code Sec. 665.081: “An officer in this state may not be removed from office for an act the officer may have committed before the officer's election to office.”

         But the forgiveness doctrine does not apply to Ken Paxton, for at least three reasons.

         First, impeachment is a constitutional remedy under Article 15, , and the forgiveness doctrine is a statutory provision. It cannot supersede the constitutional provision.

         Second, as the House impeachment managers noted, in the two impeachments that have occurred in Texas history, the defendants were convicted, among other things, of illegal acts they’d performed before their last election.

         These are legal arguments, but there is also what might be called an “equitable” argument: Ken Paxton has not actually been confronted with his misdeeds in a way that gave the people of Texas a chance to “forgive” him. He’s been under criminal indictment for securities violations almost his entire time as Attorney General, but has successfully evaded going to trial on those charges. His more recent misconduct is buried in the depths of the whistleblower lawsuit (and an ongoing F.B.I. investigation, about which we’ve heard nothing). The whole point of the $3.3 million whistleblower settlement that Paxton tried to get the Lege to pay for was to keep those allegations from coming to light.

         So Ken Paxton, after eight years in office and a collection of (alleged) misdeeds that would make a Mafia underboss blush, has never had to explain himself in a court of law or, more importantly, in any public setting where he could be held to account. How can we “forgive” him if he hasn’t answered for what he’s done?

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Meanwhile in Paxton Impeachment News …

Abbott names Scott as Acting Attorney General …  On Wednesday, Governor Abbott appointed John Scott, who’d served as an assistant AG under him, as the interim AG. Scott previously served Abbott as chief operating officer of the massive Texas Health and Human Services Commission and as Secretary of State. As secretary of state, he was Texas’s chief election officer, and quickly amassed a … history. Being the caretaker Attorney General will be a breeze after that, as long as he doesn’t get any ideas about ridding Texas of illegal voters or suing voting machine manufacturers. He’s there for four months, tops; it can wait.

House names DeGuerin and Hardin as prosecutors … Legendary Texas lawyers Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin will serve as lead prosecutors on the Paxton impeachment. The Dallas Morning News quoted Rep. Mark Murr (R-Lum’s BBQ) saying, “The facts in this case are overwhelming and conclusive. I have full confidence in these two esteemed attorneys to present those facts fairly and to help the people of Texas see the seriousness and the magnitude of Mr. Paxton’s abuses of power.”

I will have more on these and other stories in a special edition of 3-Point Shots on Tuesday. Have a good weekend!

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^[1]           John David (J.D.) Souther may be the best songwriter you’ve never heard of. He grew up in Dallas and Amarillo, moved to El Lay and fell in with Jackson Browne, CSNY, and the Eagles, and help create the “California Sound” that dominated pop music through the 1970s. Oh, and he dated Linda Ronstadt for a couple years, which is a big plus in my book. Among the songs he wrote or co-wrote: “Heartache Tonight,” “New Kid in Town,” and “Best of My Love,” for the Eagles and “Faithless Love” and “Prisoner in Disguise” for Linda Ronstadt. Whom he dated.