Critics of impeached and suspended Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have called for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to recuse himself from overseeing the impeachment trial in the Senate as it has come to light that Paxton owes Patrick money on a loan.
Patrick made a $125,000 loan to Paxton’s campaign, which Paxton has not paid back. Additionally, one of the senators that will sit among the “jury” in judgment of Paxton is his wife, Angela Paxton, who owes her husband’s campaign $600,000.
Patrick himself has invoked courtroom trial imagery and insisted on maintaining judicial decorum when discussing the matter.
When asked in a recent interview with WFAA-TV if he thought the Senate had the votes to convict Paxton, he replied, “Would you go to a judge and say, ‘Judge, can you tell me how the case is going to turn out?’ We will all be responsible as any juror would be.”
But as one ethics expert noted, if this were a regular trial, a judge or juror would be expected to step aside if they had a financial relationship with a defendant set to appear before them.
The head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, Noah Bookbinder, opined that because Paxton still owes on the loan, Patrick should step aside.
“[W]here there are significant loans that may or may not be outstanding, as far as the public is concerned, it certainly raises questions about whether there could be conflicts, whether decisions could be affected by these financial interests. Given that, it seems like it’s the better course to step aside and not have those questions hanging out there,” Bookbinder told the Houston Chronicle.
However, while ties between defendants and the judge or jury are relatively rare in a civil or criminal trial, the same cannot be said of the political realm, where conflicts are perhaps unavoidable. Rules for disqualification that work in the judicial system cannot as easily be grafted onto an impeachment, another expert says.
“It is a conflict, and it would not be acceptable in a normal judicial proceeding, but an impeachment is abnormal,” commented Jeremi Suri, Professor of Public Affairs and History at the University of Texas at Austin, as reported by the Chronicle.
