AG Paxton: Texas will keep winning in court despite Biden administration's disdain for state

Attorney General Ken Paxton says it’s clear that the Biden administration dislikes the Lone Star State. He made the comments after the most recent lawsuit filed against Texas by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The most recent federal lawsuit over the state’s redistricting plan came after Texas won before the U.S. Supreme Court over its recently enacted law banning abortions from being performed after a heartbeat is detected.

"It's pretty clear that they don't like Texas, that they don't like Texans," Paxton told Fox News Monday.

The redistricting plan was passed by the state legislature and approved by Gov. Greg Abbott in the last special legislative session. State Democratic lawmakers sued, arguing that redistricting can only occur during a regular legislative session, according to the state constitution. Abbott argues the redistricting plan is legal, as does AG Paxton.

The AG’s lawsuit claims that Texas’ redistricting plan is racist because it suppresses Black and Latino votes and violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act requires that state voting laws – including laws that draw electoral maps – provide eligible voters with an equal opportunity to participate in the democratic process and elect representatives of their choosing,” Garland said in a statement. “The complaint we filed today alleges that Texas has violated Section 2 by creating redistricting plans that deny or abridge the rights of Latino and Black voters to vote on account of their race, color or membership in a language minority group.”

Texas’ plan violates the law, Garland argues, because it “deliberately minimizes the voting strength of minority communities … leading to an inequality in the opportunities for minority voters to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”

The complaint asks the court to prohibit Texas from conducting elections under the challenged plans and to order Texas to devise and implement new plans.

Paxton argues that Garland can’t possibly know the intent of 181 members of the state legislature. He told The First TV, “I don’t think any of us know all their intent. What we do know about redistricting is that it’s a political process. And it’s not an easy process because they have to decide lines among the legislators who are there. It’s those who’ve been elected by the people who should draw those lines, not the Biden administration who would like to make this a Democratic state.”

The Biden administration really “wants to control the legislature, they want to control the voting in Texas, they want to control how our districts are drawn, they want to control our Medicaid money,” he told Fox News. “They want to control our borders, but yet they don't do their job."

Since January, when he first sued the Biden administration over immigration policy, Paxton has been calling on the president to follow federal law. His office has sued the Biden administration more over immigration than any other issue it’s sued over.

Paxton has sued the Biden administration over halting the Keystone XL Pipeline, halting Medicaid funding to the state, requiring vaccine mandates for federal and private workers as a condition of employment, among other issues.

He won his first lawsuit filed in January over the Biden administration's halting of deportations by executive order. He also won his lawsuit over the administration over its halting of the Remain in Mexico protocol, which it has yet to fully reinstate.

Paxton also recently won in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals over Biden’s proposed OSHA vaccine mandate. The court stayed the mandate, saying it posed “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” After hearing of the court’s ruling, Paxton said, “The fight is not over and I will never stop resisting this Admin’s unconstitutional overreach!”

Paxton says he believes Texas will prevail in the redistricting lawsuit as well.