Meet the Grim Reaper of Texas.
Not that state Attorney General Ken Paxton outwardly resembles the hooded, scythe-wielding spectre from the time of the Black Death.
But 14th century Europe had no figure quite like this Lone Star politician from the present pandemic. Here is a guy who is actively opposing measures to keep a deadly contagion from spreading even as he leads an effort that could suddenly leave more than a million people without health care.
ADVERTISEMENT
A North Dakota-born lawyer turned politician, Paxton served a decade in the Texas House of Representatives and then two years in the state Senate. He became state attorney general in 2015 without a single newspaper endorsement but the support of the Tea Party and is now in his second term. His longtime and continuing opposition to Obamacare is reflected in a song with which his wife, state Senator Angela Paxton, opens his public events.
"I'm a pistol-packin' mama, and my husband sues Obama..." she sings as she strums a guitar.
On June 25, a day when his efforts against mask mandates contributed to a record spike of COVID-19 cases in Texas, Paxton’s office put out a press release announcing, “Attorney General Paxton today filed a brief asking the United States Supreme Court to declare Obamacare unlawful in its entirety.”
Paxton and the 18 fellow Republican state attorney generals who have joined in this effort offer no alternative for the millions who will find themselves uninsured. And those who survive COVID often require prolonged hospital stays as well as rehab, followed by treatment of continuing effects that could prove to be lifelong.
To make it worse, COVID survivors with lasting effects who later seek heath coverage may be disallowed. The end of Obamacare with nothing to replace it would mean that insurance companies will again be permitted to deny people with pre-existing conditions. Insurers will also be able to reinstitute lifetime caps on benefits, which COVID victims could reach while still in dire need of further care.
At the same time, a good number of people who are or will become infected in Texas have Paxton and like-minded Gov. Greg Abbott to thank.
Abbott, who had preceded Paxton as attorney general, recommended but declined to order people to wear masks in public. So many failed to do so that local officials in three counties felt compelled to mandate face coverings in public.
On May 12, Paxton wrote a letter to officials in Travis, Dallas, and Bexar counties demanding that they rescind their “unlawful” requirement. He reminded them that state law took precedence over local ordinances. He contended that the governor's recommendation was adequate.
“Texans will act responsibly and make smart decisions to protect themselves and their families,” Paxton wrote. “In contrast, your orders purport to strip Texans of their agency.”
Paxton either does not know or simply does not care that the purpose of the masks is not for people to protect themselves but to project others. You protect yourself and your family by staying inside. You protect others by wearing a mask when you venture out. You hope others will protect you and your family by doing the same.
An alarming number of Texans were either woefully ignorant or reprehensibly indifferent. San Antonio in Bexar County went from one of the lowest infection rates of any city in America to one of the highest in just three weeks.
Similar COVID-19 spikes occurred across Texas, including in Harris County, which encompasses Houston. Paxton had expressed his particular support for the police there in an April 22 press release titled, “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today affirms officers in the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight in Harris County.”
“Our men and women in law enforcement risk their lives every day as they continue to heroically serve the public, particularly during these trying times,” the release said. “I especially commend law enforcement officers in Houston and Harris County, where they were first told that hardened criminals would be released because they feared they could contract COVID-19 in prison and are now being told to criminalize anyone caught without wearing a mask.”
Paxton has said nothing as the absence of masks, along with a widespread failure to observe social distancing, resulted in 79 officers testing positive.
Paxton had already used the pandemic as a pretext to further his longtime opposition to abortion. He went to court seeking to make it one of the elective surgeries the governor had suspended to conserve medical resources.
“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today filed a brief in a United States District Court in Austin to enforce Governor Abbott’s Executive Order (GA 09) postponing any unnecessary medical procedures to preserve desperately needed medical supplies for the health care professionals combating the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,” Paxton’s press release on March 30 began.
It continued, “Despite Governor Abbott’s Executive Order (GA 09), some abortion providers continue to perform elective abortions and use up personal protective equipment needed by health care professionals treating patients with COVID-19.”
Paxton and Abbott apparently feel freedom of choice only extends so far beyond whether or not you have to cover your nose and mouth. They ended the pandemic abortion ban after the Center for Reproductive Rights challenged them in federal court.
Paxton also took time to continue his longtime active opposition to DACA after the Supreme Court’s June 18 decision rejecting Trump’s effort to end the program. Paxton immediately pledged to pursue with added energy a 2017 lawsuit he filed in Texas that would have been moot had the Supreme Court ruled the other way.
“We are disappointed with today’s SCOTUS decision, but it does not resolve the underlying issue that President Obama’s original executive order exceeded his constitutional authority,” Paxton said in a written statement. “We look forward to continuing litigating that issue in our case now pending in the Southern District of Texas.”
In recent days, Paxton also took time from the COVID crisis for an unsuccessful political flex in Colorado, where he used his authority to try and exempt a group of wealthy Texas donors from a coronavirus-related lockout. Gunnison County there had ordered some of Paxton’s rich Texas pals to leave their second homes for fear they would bring in the virus.
Throughout all this, Paxton also has to prepare for his criminal trial. He was indicted for fraud seven months after his election in 2015 for allegedly seeking investors for a tech start-up without revealing that the company had paid him six-figures. He was fingerprinted and he posed for a mugshot and he offered a not guilty plea in court before resuming his duties as the chief law enforcement officer in Texas. The long delayed case may be heard by a Zoom jury in his home county, Collin.
And Paxton has also been busy leading the campaign to get rid of Obamacare in the midst of the worst health crisis in more than a century. Even though 1,116,293 Texans used Obamacare’s exchange to secure health coverage they likely would not otherwise have had. They may join more than 4.3 million Texans—including 623,000 children—who remain uninsured. That translates to nearly 18 percent of Texans, nearly double the national average.
Texas prides itself on being the state of big things, but it is hard to imagine anybody other than maybe the likes of Paxton taking satisfaction in being known as the uninsured capital of America. The pandemic makes the title ever more cause for shame.
On Friday, Abbott announced that Texas would push back its reopening after more than 6,000 more people tested positive for COVID-19.
“However, we can only slow the spread if everyone in Texas does their part,” Abbott said. “Every Texan has a responsibility to themselves and their loved ones to wear a mask, wash their hands, stay six feet apart from others in public, and stay home if they can.”
Abbott still only recommended, not required, wearing a mask—perhaps because of Paxton’s edict that mandating individuals to do so was unlawful. The numbers might have been even higher had several locales not found a way around that by requiring businesses to mandate staff and customers to wear masks.
Whatever Abbott and Paxton do, COVID cause and effect are often separated by the two-week incubation period. The number of cases are almost sure to keep rising for at least a time.
And as they do, Paxton’s business suits and tie make him look in some ways scarier than if he were in a hooded black cloak. He is not a symbol, but a person who should know better as he wields not a scythe but a position of public trust.
Call him the Grimmer Reaper.
