Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit in an effort to stop county officials from sending out voter registration applications to people who are currently unregistered. This is in Bexar County, and so this is the latest group that Ken Paxton has [00:00:20] targeted regarding voter access or making it easier for people to register and vote. So just last month, Paxton's office ended up raiding several Democratic Party workers homes south of San Antonio to allegedly expose election fraud. [00:00:36] Here's more on that. AG Ken Paxton's office says these undercover operations were happening in response to reports that organizations in Texas may be unlawfully registering noncitizens to vote or engaging in ballot harvesting. [00:00:52] But the League of United Latin American Citizens or or LULAC is denouncing the raids as, quote, point blank voter intimidation. The CEO of LULAC was on America Decides yesterday and said that this is a pattern that Paxton has been pursuing to keep Latinos from voting. [00:01:11] He's gone beyond the pale. He's going after individual individuals. LULAC members, Latino leaders, civic leaders, essentially in their community that are doing what they should be doing, which is engaging Latinos who are eligible to vote in these elections. [00:01:28] So, also, The New York Times reported, last month that Paxton said that he was looking into whether there were groups in the state that had been registering undocumented immigrants to vote. He did not provide a shred of evidence for why he believed that that was happening. [00:01:47] And he also established an email tip line for the public to report suspected violations of Texas election law. Hey, don't scroll away. Come back, come back because before the video continues, we just want to urge you to lend your support to tight U power. [00:02:04] Our honest reporting. You do it at tight.com/team and we love you for it. Now let's fast forward to what's happening now. Now, commissioners from Bexar County approved a plan this week to pay civic government solutions to send more than 200,000 forms to residents one month [00:02:24] before the Texas registration deadline. And of course, this is the registration deadline to register to vote. Now, according to the Washington Post, this is the first time county leaders have contracted an outside company to send unsolicited registration forms to residents in an effort [00:02:42] to basically boost voter participation. Paxton initially offered a warning to county leaders regarding this decision, and even threatened legal action if they went through with their plan to work with this third party with this vendor [00:02:57] Paxton argues that it's illegal for county officials to arrange for unsolicited mass mailing of voter registration forms, but the commissioners voted on this. They voted 3 to 1 on Tuesday to approve the proposal, and they argue [00:03:13] that they have not broken the law. They have not done anything wrong. Paxton is seeking an emergency order to block this plan, which he derided as an effort by Democrats to boost their own numbers. He said it will create confusion, facilitate fraud, undermine confidence [00:03:29] in elections and is illegal. He also argued it will worsen existing voter registration backlogs, and that the firm hired has known ties to Democratic causes and candidates, according to the lawsuit. So again, this is from the suit that Ken Paxton filed against this effort. [00:03:48] And he's also threatening a similar suit in Harris County. This is where Houston is, where officials are weighing a similar effort to increase voter registration and turnout. So, Jake, I'm curious what you think about all of it, actually, like hiring a third [00:04:06] party to send registration forms out. Ken Paxton's effort to stop it. What are your thoughts? Yeah. So, first of all, absolutely outrageous. So you of course, you can register voters. So you're going to block all registrations of voters. [00:04:22] And let me guess, only in democratic areas, because you're concerned that some of those might not be real voters. So can I register anybody? So if you're going to block 200,000, are you going to block 20,000? 2002 under that logic, you wouldn't register anyone to vote. [00:04:37] It's absurd. So then they ask Ken Paxton, okay, well, do you have any evidence that this group has done anything wrong or that they've registered someone that is not a US citizen? And he says, no, I don't. So then what are you doing? Well, I don't want him to register those people. Look, if you don't know, Ken Paxton is a literal criminal. [00:04:55] He has committed so many crimes and is wanted for them. He's ironically hiding out as the Attorney General of Texas and is not charging himself. I mean, it's just it's a joke. Texas is a totally run by gangsters and so. And gangsters makes them sound too cool. [00:05:12] And and even the fellow Republicans try to get rid of Ken Paxton. And then Trump said, I like Ken Paxton. And then they backed away because they're like, oh, okay. The dear Lord has spoken. And remember, Donald Trump is a lifelong criminal. So of course, he backed Ken Paxton, the criminal. [00:05:27] And then the other Texas Republicans were like, okay, never mind, never mind. So in this case, they said, well, you know, there might be some that were registered as, that were undocumented. And then they give a number in another instance that's less than 1% of the number we're talking about here. [00:05:43] So you shouldn't register 99% of people in case 1% might be undocumented guys. If somebody that's undocumented and they vote, that is a crime and you should pursue that crime. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ever register anyone to vote. This is nothing but a lie by Republicans trying to make sure they [00:06:01] suppress the vote before the election, which is how they usually cheat. Not after the election, like Donald Trump tried. So there's more on this. So what is this really about? Well, the dispute comes as tensions between officials in large Democratic [00:06:17] leaning cities within Texas, are taking place with the state Republican leaders. So, you know, Texas is a really interesting state because there are parts of Texas that are more Democratic leaning. I remember, you know, just a few election cycles ago, [00:06:34] there were questions about whether Texas would turn into a swing state. And there are some real efforts here by Republican leaders to kind of fight back against that. The Washington Post also notes that Paxton and GOP lawmakers for years have sought to curb local control of elections, [00:06:51] which I find hilarious because a common talking point that you will hear from Republicans is that like the federal government shouldn't have any control over how the state or how, you know, we carry out elections on a local level. But in this case, you have state officials from the Republican Party [00:07:08] trying to curb counties in how they carry out their elections. However, Democrats in the state believe that the real goal is to basically suppress voters in areas where they say demographics do not favor the Republican Party. [00:07:23] Also, keep in mind that Texas is one of the few states without online or automatic voter registration, so registering to vote in Texas is a little more challenging. And it seems like this group that's trying to increase voter registration is just trying to make it easier for potential voters to register, [00:07:41] and it's unlikely that this case will go anywhere because, according to Bexar County Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, they did nothing wrong. Rodriguez, who brought the idea to local leaders, said there was nothing nefarious about being proactive in increasing voter participation. [00:07:58] The commissioners attorney told them the plan was legal, he said. And so, look, you have Paxton filing this lawsuit. Let's see how it plays out in the courts. But it is amazing to me that just the very act of registering more people to vote [00:08:14] automatically makes Republican leaders think, oh, that means that they want undocumented immigrants to vote. Like, you need to provide identification when you register to vote. Do people know that? I don't think most people realize that when they like, you know, people who [00:08:30] are supportive of like the voter ID laws, they seem to be under the impression that people who vote have never shown ID throughout any of the process. You have to show ID when you register to vote. Yeah, no, they don't know that. And the last couple of things here, number one, if they were really worried about this, why didn't they do it in Republican areas? [00:08:48] Why are they only blocking registration in Democratic areas? Okay. So this is obvious horse crap. And in case you don't know what I was referring to earlier, Attorney General Ken Paxton was actually impeached by the Texas House, [00:09:05] led by Republicans. 70% of them voted for impeachment because of corruption and bribery. And then after Donald Trump's tweet, oh, no, the Senate panicked and acquitted him. But he's definitely a crook. I wouldn't believe a word he said. [00:09:21] Texas reminds me of, like, those old Western movies where the bad guys, take over a town and then they give themselves sheriff and deputy badges. But everybody's screwed because they know it's the bad guys that have the badges. That's what Texas is right now. [00:09:37] So this is massive cheating by the Republicans that run Texas to try to block registration in Democratic areas. Thanks for watching. If you become a member, you get to watch all this ad free. Except for of course, this ad still hit the join button below.