AUSTIN – Work has begun on legislation to change state impeachment proceedings, a Texas Senate committee was told Tuesday.
After the Senate voted last year to acquit Attorney General Ken Paxton of impeachment charges, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized the process as rushed, secretive and unfair to the accused.
Patrick followed by directing the Senate State Affairs Committee to study and propose changes to the impeachment process when the Legislature meets next year.
During a State Affairs meeting at the Capitol on Tuesday, state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, said he has been drafting laws to address what he saw as flaws in the process.
Birdwell’s input is notable. The six-term senator chaired the committee that drafted the rules governing Paxton’s trial in the Senate. Birdwell was not at the Capitol Tuesday due to a COVID-19 illness, according to Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who read aloud a letter from Birdwell.
Last year, Patrick, who presided over Paxton’s trial, criticized the impeachment as “rammed through” the House without due process. The House voted 121-23 to impeach Paxton two days after its General Investigating Committee unveiled 20 articles of impeachment accusing the attorney general of corruption and misusing his office.
Patrick has called for the Texas Constitution to be amended to require evidentiary hearings and a slower House impeachment process.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Patrick said at the end of Paxton’s trial. “We owe it to future legislatures to make these changes so no future official impeached by the House, whether Republican, Democrat or independent, is subject to the way this impeachment process occurred in the House this year.”
The State Affairs Committee made no recommendations Tuesday. Lawmakers heard testimony from University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt, an impeachment expert.
Gerhardt said he agreed in part with Patrick’s complaints over the impeachment but disagreed that it required amendments to fix. He said changes would be better achieved in House rules, which state representatives adopt during every legislative session.
“Then you wouldn’t have to waste, sorry to use that word, but have to waste the time of going through an amendment process, which is not likely to be successful,” Gerhardt said.
Amending the Texas Constitution requires support from two-thirds of the House and Senate, then approval by a majority of Texas voters. A proposed amendment would have a tough road to approval in the House if the debate, like Paxton’s trial, became a partisan fight.
Gerhardt also recommended clarifying what would constitute a conflict of interest for senators who act as jurors during an impeachment trial. The issue arose last year because Paxton’s wife, McKinney Republican Angela Paxton, is a state senator. The Senate recused her from voting in the trial against her objections.
Before the hearing, government watchdog group Public Citizen called for a moratorium on campaign donations to lawmakers while an impeachment trial looms and said a qualified attorney, such as the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, should serve as the trial judge instead of the lieutenant governor.
Both proposals take aim at Patrick, who presided over the trial with the assistance of an attorney and accepted $3 million in campaign loans from a pro-Paxton political action committee in the weeks leading up to the attorney general’s trial.
“What matters most for the next time there is an impeachment is that most Texans can respect the outcome, even if they disagree with it,” said Adrian Shelley, Texas director of Public Citizen.
