Texas House members have rejected Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) push to immediately adopt a Senate revision of House Bill 5138, a measure aimed at expanding the attorney general’s authority to prosecute election crimes.
In a press release this week, Attorney General Paxton urged the Texas House to concur with the Senate's version of the bill, which would restore the attorney general's ability to prosecute election-related offenses without waiting for local district attorneys to act.
“If the Attorney General can’t prosecute voter fraud, and local DAs won’t, then the system is broken,” he said. “We’re talking about one of the most fundamental rights we have as Americans—the right to vote.”
The Senate passed its version of HB 5138 by a 19 to 12 vote, which grants Attorney General Paxton concurrent jurisdiction from the outset of a case. However, the House’s original version of the bill required the attorney general to wait six months after a district attorney declined to act before pursuing charges.
Rather than accept the Senate’s broader language, the House voted to send the bill to a conference committee to negotiate the differences.
The committee includes HB 5138’s author, Rep. Matt Shaheen (R), along with Reps. Charlie Geren (R), Drew Darby (R), Chris Turner (D), and John Bucy III (D).
The chosen members suggests that the House may resist the attorney general’s requested changes.
Attorney General Paxton lost unilateral authority to prosecute election crimes in 2021, when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that it violated Texas’ constitution’s separation of powers. Currently, the attorney general can pursue civil penalties or aid in prosecutions only if invited by a local district attorney.
If the conference committee does not reach an agreement by June 2, HB 5138 will be dead in the water this session.
The House could still reverse course and adopt the Senate version, but the current path signals a political debacle over how Texas handles election crime enforcement.
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