A Texas district judge on Friday temporarily prohibited former representative Beto O’Rourke and his political group to help finance Democratic legislators who have left the State to prevent Republicans from pressing with a district redistribution plan for the expanding the close majority of the Republican Party in the United States Chamber.
The ruling is a victory, although potentially a temporary, for Republican Attorney Ken Paxton, who sought the temporary restriction order accusing O’Rourke and his group of a bribery scheme, accusations that the Democrat has strongly denied. And it could give a significant financial blow to state Democratic legislators, who face financial sanctions and other costs related to their “quorum rest.”
The Judge of the Tarant County District Court, Megan Fahey, who was appointed in 2019 by Republican governor Greg Abbott and since then has won the re -election (Texas chooses his judges), wrote in the order of Friday that she believes that O’Rourke and her group “will continue and continue to participate in the illegal practices of collection of funds and the use of political funds” to the Democrats to violate the State and the rules of the State.
Evoking the chorus of Texas of almost 200 years “Come and Tomalo”, Paxton celebrated the ruling in a statement.
“Today, I stopped his misleading scheme of financial influence that tried to deceive donors and subvert our constitutional process. They told me that” I came and took it, “so I did,” said Paxton, who challenges the American senator John Cornyn for his seat in the Senate in the primary of the Republican Party next year.
O’Rourke, who said previously that he would sue Paxton in a state court, denounced the judge’s decision in a statement, arguing that the attorney general persecutes his group “because our volunteers fight for vote rights and free elections … the type of work that threatens the retention that Pxton, Trump and Abbott have about power in Texas.”
“He wants to silence me and avoid leading this organization. He wants to prevent him from fighting Trump’s attempt to steal the five seats of the congress he needs to hold on to power. But I will not go anywhere,” he added.
O’Rourke has been a vocal ally of the more than 50 Democrats who have refused to present themselves to the Capitol in Austin this week in an attempt to deny Republicans the minimum number of legislators necessary to advance with legislative businesses, which is known as “quorum.”
The Democrats have framed their actions as a last resort, but it is necessary because they believe that the Republicans, trying to overcome a rare redistribution of districts in the middle of the decade that could allow Republicans to obtain up to five more seats in the half -period elections next year, they are acting unconstitutionally.
However, Republicans like Paxton and Abbott are giving screws to the Democrats with a large number of legal presentations with the aim of starting the legislators of the position, interrupting their financing currents, granting the application of the Texas Law the ability to track them in other states and otherwise complicate their ability to handle their legislative offices outside the State.
