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

“The right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed for all Americans, including college students, and the 5th Circuit’s decision…”


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 Vows to Continue Fight to Honor the Dignity of the Unborn and Defend Texas’ Law on the Humane Disposition of Fetal Remains

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that his office will continue fighting to honor the dignity of the unborn after a U.S. District Court issued an injunction blocking Texas from implementing a new law on the humane disposition of fetal remains.

“Today’s ruling is disappointing, but I remain confident the courts will ultimately uphold the Texas law, which honors the dignity of the unborn and prevents fetal remains from being treated as medical waste” Attorney General Paxton said. “We established during a weeklong trial in July that the law is constitutional and does not impact the abortion procedure or the availability of abortion in Texas. My office will continue to fight to uphold the law, which requires the dignified treatment of fetal remains, rather than allow health care facilities to dispose of the remains in sewers or landfills.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that states have an interest in the lives of the unborn. Last session, the Texas Legislature enacted a law (Senate Bill 8) that, among other things, prohibits health care providers from disposing fetal remains in sewers or landfills and instead to treat their remains in more dignified fashion such as burial, cremation, or the spreading of ashes. Previous law permitted fetal remains to be discharged into a sewer system or sent to a landfill.

View a copy of today’s ruling here: https://bit.ly/2MSFtyy.



AG Paxton Asks District Court to End Unconstitutional Obamacare

AUSTIN – Leading a 20-state coalition with Wisconsin, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a U.S. District Court to strike down Obamacare – and issue a nationwide injunction to halt the program while the coalition’s lawsuit against it proceeds.

During today’s federal court hearing in Fort Worth, lawyers for the attorney general’s office argued that when Congress enacted President Trump’s tax overhaul, it rendered all of Obamacare unconstitutional by doing away with the tax penalty enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate.

“The Supreme Court held Obamacare was only tethered to the Constitution by a very thin thread – the fact that the individual penalty raised some revenue. Congress severed that thin thread with the tax act of 2017, and all of Obamacare must fall,” Attorney General Paxton said. “On some of the most important issues, the Department of Justice under both President Trump and President Obama agreed with our position. Texans and other Americans should be free again to make their own healthcare choices, including which doctor they want to see.”

When the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare in 2012 (NFIB v. Sebelius), a majority of the justices agreed that the provision forcing individuals to purchase health insurance was unconstitutional under Congress’s power to regulate commerce. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained, the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate commerce, and not to compel commerce, as Obamacare does. Furthermore, Congress and the Obama administration made it clear that the individual mandate was an essential component of the law, without which other major components of the law would not have been enacted.

In its current unlawful form, Obamacare imposes rising costs and transfers an enormous amount of regulatory power to the federal government. In Texas and 38 other states, where the federal government administers health exchanges, health insurance premiums rose an average of 105 percent from 2013 to 2017. Around 70 percent of U.S. counties have only one or two Obamacare exchange insurers for recipients to choose from.

Last June, the U.S. Department of Justice conceded in court filings that Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and asked a federal judge to strike it down along with other central provisions of Obamacare before the tax law takes effect on January 1, 2019.

Texas and Wisconsin are joined in the lawsuit against Obamacare by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia, along with the governors of Maine and Mississippi.

View a copy of the 20-state coalition lawsuit here: http://bit.ly/2ClKtWP.
View a copy of the motion seeking a preliminary injunction here: https://bit.ly/2HuVcNH.



AG Paxton Files Brief to Protect Religious Liberty of Faith-Based Foster Care Providers

AUSTIN – Leading a multistate coalition, Attorney General Ken Paxton today filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting several foster parents – affiliated with Catholic Social Services – who are suing the city of Philadelphia over its policy blocking foster care providers who hold traditional beliefs about marriage. The outcome of the case – Fulton v. City of Philadelphia – may impact the ability of states to continue working with both religious and nonreligious child welfare providers.

In his brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, Attorney General Paxton pointed out the need of states and municipalities for child-placement help from all qualified agencies.

“By allowing child-placing agencies that have a religious tradition of helping children in need, like Catholic Social Services, states increase the diversity of child-placing agencies in their jurisdictions, and because these faith-based organizations possess a religious duty to help children in need, they increase the chances that a child in state care will find a safe, loving home,” he wrote.

Last March, the city of Philadelphia suspended its foster care contract with Catholic Social Services because it disagrees with the agency’s religious belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. This happened at the same time Philadelphia issued an urgent plea for 300 new foster families. In July, a federal judge ruled that Philadelphia has the right to require religious foster agencies to abandon their religious beliefs and adhere to its city policies.

In Texas, the Department of Family and Protective Services  works with private child-placing agencies to find loving homes for children in the foster care system. Several of the child-placing agencies that work with the Department are faith-based organizations, but many are not. For Texas, as with many states, the priority is placing children in safe, loving homes. Working with both religious and nonreligious child placing agencies ensures that Texas finds as many placement opportunities for children as possible.

Last session, the Texas Legislature enacted House Bill 3859, which protects the religious liberty of religious child-placing agencies and prohibits the State from granting or denying funding to such organizations because of their religious beliefs.

Joining Texas on the friend-of-the-court brief are the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

View a copy of the friend-of-the-court brief here: https://bit.ly/2NdI2e8.



AG Paxton Requests Additional Resources and Personnel to Combat Human Trafficking and Election Fraud

AUSTIN – Today, on behalf of Attorney General Ken Paxton and the Office of the Attorney General, First Assistant Attorney General Jeff Mateer testified before a legislative panel at the Texas Capitol, seeking an increase in funding to combat both human trafficking and election fraud across Texas.

The OAG’s Human Trafficking and Transnational/Organized Crime Section was created in 2016. Since then, nineteen trafficking cases have been resolved resulting in 190 years’ worth of prison sentences for human traffickers, and twenty-one trafficking cases are currently pending in seven different counties. The OAG’s Human Trafficking Section assisted in shutting down Backpage.com, the United States’ single largest purveyor of escort ads and a major facilitator of sex trafficking, in 92 countries. This Section provides invaluable assistance to local and state law enforcement, district attorneys, members of the public and victims of human trafficking. OAG prosecutors have conducted over 250 in-person trainings on human trafficking for more than 20,000 people across the state, including six coalition builds with Truckers Against Trafficking and the Texas Trucking Association. The OAG human trafficking training film, “Be the One in the Fight Against Human Trafficking,” has been viewed in 48 states beyond Texas, and thousands of DVDs have been requested.

Since its creation in 2016, the OAG has seen a 600-percent increase in the number of cases handled by the Human Trafficking and Transnational/Organized Crime Section. The OAG is requesting $2.8 million dollars and thirteen additional employees to continue the commitment to inform, educate, and empower Texans to prevent and report human trafficking, while prosecuting the traffickers. Saving victims of human trafficking and bringing criminals like those involved with Backpage.com to justice is a top priority for Attorney General Paxton and his office.

“My office seeks to increase its resources and ability to hire highly skilled attorneys and investigators to combat crimes against human rights and the Constitution. We have succeeded in both stopping and preventing criminals from hurting our people and processes, but these crimes have unfortunately become more frequent and well-hidden,” Attorney General Paxton has said. “We must now allow our brave men and women on the front lines to strengthen their fight by accessing additional resources. As these crimes increase, so should our ability to stop them.”

Combatting election fraud is another top priority for Attorney General Paxton. To ensure that the cornerstone of our democracy, the election process, is protected by investigating and prosecuting ever-increasing allegations of voter fraud, the OAG also requested an increase in funding and employees toward this effort. Election fraud cases are notoriously complex and can involve thousands of pages of documents, dozens of witnesses, and multiple defendants. Between 2005-2017, only 93 voter fraud cases were prosecuted by the state of Texas. In the past year alone, Attorney General Paxton’s office prosecuted 87 counts of voting violations with only two attorneys and four investigators. In addition to receiving referrals for cases from the Secretary of State, the OAG also proactively looks into instances of illegal votes and election fraud. Given the consistent increase in these cases, the OAG expects caseloads to increase to 18 cases per investigator and between 37-74 cases per Assistant Attorney General in the Election Fraud Unit.



AG Paxton: Texas Supreme Court’s Decision in Kountze Cheerleaders’ Case is a Win for Religious Liberty

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today issued the following statement after the Texas Supreme Court decided not to review a lower court’s decision upholding the constitutional right of Kountze cheerleaders to display banners with Bible verses at high school football games. The Kountze Independent School District appealed last year’s ruling by the 9th Court of Appeals that said the Bible verses on banners were not government speech that could be regulated by school officials.

“The Kountze cheerleaders case involved personal expressions of faith and an ill-advised school district change of policy that mislabeled their expressions as government speech,” Attorney General Paxton said. “Religious liberty is the foundation upon which our society has been built. The Texas Supreme Court’s decision ensures that the Kountze cheerleaders and other cheerleaders across the state will be able to display their expressions of faith on banners at football games.”

In September 2015, Attorney General Paxton filed an amicus brief with the Texas Supreme Court in Matthews v. Kountze Independent School District, supporting the constitutional rights of Texas’ public schoolchildren to express their own messages at school and school-related events. The attorney general’s office intervened on behalf of the cheerleaders’ lawsuit in 2012.



AG Paxton: Texas Supreme Court Ruling in Waller County Case is a Win for Individual Freedom

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today commended the Texas Supreme Court after it left intact a state appellate court decision that sanctioned Waller County for suing a private citizen who complained that the county was unlawfully banning firearms from its government building.

“Today’s ruling represents a huge win for individual freedom, the First Amendment and the right of citizens to participate in government,” Attorney General Paxton said. “Waller County had to be stopped from using litigation to muzzle someone who simply called on it to stop violating state law. The Supreme Court’s decision should deter other Texas governments from similar conduct.”

Last March, the First Court of Appeals of Texas overturned a Waller County district court’s ruling, concluding that the county lacked jurisdiction to sue Terry Holcomb Sr., and that he had a constitutional right to ask the county in a letter to comply with Texas’ open carry laws – without fear of a retaliatory or meritless lawsuit. The attorney general’s office filed a brief in the case, arguing that it should be dismissed.

Today’s Texas Supreme Court decision means that the case will return to district court with instructions from the appeals court to follow the Texas Citizens Participation Act, which protects individual use of free speech, and award sanctions and attorneys’ fees against Waller County and its attorneys.

Based on Holcomb’s complaint, Attorney General Paxton filed his own lawsuit against Waller County in August 2016 to bring the county into compliance with the state’s licensed carry laws. The lawsuit requires the county to allow citizens to lawfully carry firearms in areas of the Waller County government building that contain non-judicial county administrative offices.



AG Paxton Asks to Intervene in Lawsuit Over EPA Ozone Rule Affecting El Paso County

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion for leave to intervene in support of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a lawsuit challenging a final EPA action that designated El Paso County “Attainment/Unclassifiable” for purposes of the 2015 national ambient air quality standards for ground-level ozone. EPA’s designation of El Paso County is consistent with Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s previous designation of El Paso County an attainment area for the standard.

In the motion for leave to intervene in Clean Wisconsin v. EPA and consolidated cases, Attorney General Paxton told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has an interest in avoiding alteration of a designation when it would be both contrary to TCEQ’s recommendation and result in more onerous regulatory burdens.

Texas has clearly demonstrated that it can clean its air without harming the energy sector. Nitrogen oxides and ozone levels have both decreased over the past 18 years and Texans are breathing increasingly cleaner air.

View a copy of the motion to intervene here: https://bit.ly/2MHywk4.



AG Paxton: Court Finds DACA Likely Unlawful….. No Injunction Needed at This Time

AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton today released the following statement after a federal court found the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is likely unlawful and the Plaintiff States are irreparably harmed.  The Court confirmed that Texas is likely to ultimately win the case: “[T]he Plaintiff States have shown a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) program is contrary to the Administrative Procedure Act[.]  The Court also found that the Plaintiff States had made a clear showing of irreparable injury.”  The Court only declined to issue a preliminary injunction of the unlawful DACA program because of the timing of the lawsuit.

“We’re now very confident that DACA will soon meet the same fate as the Obama-era Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, which the courts blocked after I led another state coalition challenging its constitutionality,” Attorney General Paxton said. “President Obama used DACA to rewrite federal law without congressional approval. Our lawsuit is vital to restoring the rule of law to our nation’s immigration system. The debate over DACA as policy is a question for lawmakers, and any solution must come from Congress, as the Constitution requires.”

The Court confirmed that General Paxton’s legal contentions regarding DACA are correct.

In May, Attorney General Paxton led a coalition that now represents 10 states in a lawsuit against the federal government to end DACA, which granted lawful presence and work permits to nearly one million unlawfully present aliens without any authority from Congress. The lawsuit is forward looking and does not ask the federal government to remove any alien currently covered by DACA, nor does it ask the Trump administration to rescind DACA permits that have already been issued.

During a district court hearing earlier this month, lawyers from the attorney general’s office argued that DACA is as legally flawed as DAPA, which was intended to grant lawful presence to more than four million unlawfully present aliens. Attorney General Paxton led a successful multistate coalition all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop DAPA.

Last September, President Trump agreed to phase out DACA by March 5 of this year after Attorney General Paxton led a 10-state coalition requesting he do so or face a court challenge. But a ruling this year by a U.S. District Court in California blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from cancelling DACA. Similar decisions were issued by district courts in New York and Washington, D.C.

Texas is joined in the DACA lawsuit by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia, along with the governors of Maine and Mississippi.

View a copy of today’s ruling here: https://bit.ly/2wyhj2h.
View a copy of the lawsuit here: https://bit.ly/2JKjh3P.
View a copy of the motion seeking a nationwide injunction here: https://bit.ly/2KumAgE.



Request For An Opinion: Whether the Secretary of State is the “returning officer” under Article III, section 13(a) of the Texas Constitution, and if not, which officer serves that role.

RQ-0247-KP

Received: Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Re: Whether the Secretary of State is the “returning officer” under Article III, section 13(a) of the Texas Constitution, and if not, which officer serves that role.

Requestor: The Honorable Rolando B. Pablos
Texas Secretary of State
Post Office Box 12697
Austin, Texas 78711-2697



Request For An Opinion: Whether a municipality with authority to adopt and enforce land use regulations near a military base pursuant to section 43.0117 of the Local Government Code may impose fees and fines under that authority, and whether the City of San Antonio’s proposed annexation ballot language meets the requirements of state law.

RQ-0246-KP

Received: Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Re: Whether a municipality with authority to adopt and enforce land use regulations near a military base pursuant to section 43.0117 of the Local Government Code may impose fees and fines under that authority, and whether the City of San Antonio’s proposed annexation ballot language meets the requirements of state law.

Requestor: The Honorable Donna Campbell, M.D.
Chair, Committee on Veterans Affairs and Border Security
Texas State Senate
Post Office Box 12068
Austin, Texas 78711-2068



 

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