Weekly News Round Up Of The State’s Top Law Enforcement Officer – Texas Attorney General

Requests and Opinions, Travis County and Texas Child Support Division Conducts Child Support Roundup

Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton is the lawyer for the State of Texas and is charged by the Texas Constitution to:

• defend the laws and the Constitution of the State of Texas
• represent the State in litigation
• approve public bond issues

To fulfill these responsibilities, the Office of the Attorney General serves as legal counsel to all boards and agencies of state government, issues legal opinions when requested by the Governor, heads of state agencies and other officials and agencies as provided by Texas statutes.

The Texas AG sits as an ex-officio member of state committees and commissions, and defends challenges to state laws and suits against both state agencies and individual employees of the State.

Many Texans look to the Office of the Attorney General for guidance with disputes and legal issues. The agency receives hundreds of letters, phone calls and visits each week about crime victims’ compensation, child support, abuse in nursing homes, possible consumer fraud and other topics. To find out more about the Texas Attorney General, visit the official website at https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/.

WEEKLY NEWS ROUND-UP OF THE STATE’S

TOP LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER…

THE TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL

AG Paxton Joins Multistate Brief Defending Arizona’s Law Keeping Taxpayer Money from Firms that Boycott Israel

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton and his counterparts from eight other states filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending an Arizona law that prohibits state-funded contractors from boycotting Israel. Texas enacted a similar law in response to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose political goal is to change policy toward Israel.

In their brief, the multistate coalition asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to temporarily lift a lower court’s preliminary injunction against Arizona’s law pending an appeal. The brief explains that the law is an anti-discrimination measure that prohibits invidious discrimination on the basis of nationality or national origin.

“Arizona’s law, which is similar to those in Texas, Nevada and many other states, supports a long-established principle of non-discrimination and is wholly constitutional,” Attorney General Paxton said. “None of these anti-boycott statutes infringe on a person’s right to express anti-Israel or anti-Semitic views. But the First Amendment does not require the states to subsidize a state-funded contractors’ discriminatory boycott with taxpayer funds.”

The brief further explains how Arizona and other states would be affected by the District Court judge’s order because it would take states a substantial amount of time and effort to issue new request proposals for contracting processes already in place.

During last session, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 89, which prohibits the state from contracting with and investing in companies that boycott Israel. Israel is Texas’ fourth biggest trading partner. In February, Attorney General Paxton, joined by his counterpart from Nevada, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in U.S. District Court in support of Arizona’s law.

View a copy of the friend-of-the-court brief here: http://ag.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/agnvgov/Content/News/PR/PR_Docs/2018/2018-10-12_States_Amicus_Brief.pdf

Work of AG Paxton’s Election Fraud Unit Results in Arrests of 4 Members of Organized Voter Fraud Ring in North Fort Worth

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that four individuals were indicted on 30 felony counts of voter fraud and arrested following a lengthy investigation by the Election Fraud Unit of his office.

The defendants – all members of an organized voter fraud ring – were paid to target elderly voters in certain north-side Fort Worth precincts in a scheme to generate a large number of mail ballots, and then harvest those ballots for specific candidates in 2016.

“Ballots by mail are intended to make it easier for Texas seniors to vote. The unfortunate downside is their extreme vulnerability to fraud,” Attorney General Paxton said. “My office is committed to ensuring that paid vote harvesters who fraudulently generate mail ballots, stealing votes from seniors, are held accountable for their despicable actions and for the damage they inflict on the electoral process.”

Leticia Sanchez was indicted on one count of illegal voting, a second-degree felony punishable by a prison term of two to 20 years, if convicted. All defendants in the case face state jail felony charges of providing false information on an application for a mail ballot – Sanchez (16 counts), Leticia Sanchez Tepichin (10 counts), Maria Solis (two counts) and Laura Parra (one count).

Vote harvesting is accomplished generally in two phases: seeding and harvesting.  In the seeding phase, applications for mail ballot are proliferated in order to blanket targeted precincts with mail ballots. 

Then, when ballots are mailed out by the election offices, harvesters attempt either to intercept the ballots outright, or to “assist” elderly voters in voting their ballots while ensuring that the votes are cast for the candidates of the harvesters’ choice. In most cases, the voters do not even know their votes have been stolen.

An investigation into the Fort Worth voter fraud ring by the attorney general’s office determined that fraudulent applications were generated through forged signatures and by altering historical applications and resubmitting them without the knowledge of the voters. Harvesters also used deception to obtain signatures from voters.

Many of the voters were forced to cancel their ballots in order to be able to vote in person, and some were forced into receiving primary ballots for the political party supported by the harvesters, though it was not the party the voters wanted to vote for.

From 2005-2017, the attorney general’s office prosecuted 97 defendants for numerous voter fraud violations. This year alone, Attorney General Paxton’s Election Fraud Unit – with assistance from a criminal justice grant from the governor’s office – has prosecuted 33 defendants for a total of 97 election fraud violations.

In February, the attorney general announced a significant voter fraud initiative and addressed key problems and policy areas related to election law.

NOTIFICATION OF OPINION

Opinion: KP-0220 Whether the Teacher Retirement System may invest in indexed universal life insurance policies funded by leveraged premiums

Request for Opinion: RQ-0221-KP

Summary: Whether the Teacher Retirement System may invest its assets in an indexed universal life insurance product depends on whether the product (1) constitutes a “security”; and (2) meets the standards for prudence and overall strategy set forth in article XVI, section 67(a)(3) of the Texas Constitution and section 825.301(a) of the Government Code. Each of these factors require factual determinations beyond the scope of an attorney general opinion.