Driving the clown car off the cliff with Texas’ GOP attorney general hopefuls

It's a clown car Republican primary when it comes to the Texas AG's office. It’s a clown car Republican primary when it comes to the Texas AG’s office. Credit: Left four: Courtesy Photos / Right: Shutterstock

Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.

If Texas Republicans wanted to reassure the public that the attorney general’s office might someday return to the boring, adult work of enforcing the law for everyone, they spectacularly failed.

The GOP contenders to replace outgoing scandal magnet Ken Paxton have clambered into a ratting, shuddering, a-hooga-ing clown car of a primary where the reddest MAGA-branded nose wins and the Constitution gets shredded under the wheels.

Take Texas Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, whose record suggests he’s less interested in being Texas’ top lawyer than its top troll. This, after all, is the guy who delighted in sponsoring Texas’ “bathroom bill” and declared his intent to put “God back in government.” While he does hold a law license, a recent Texas Tribune report revealed Middleton worked exclusively within the oil company he inherited from dear old Dad. In TV spots, he calls himself “MAGA Mayes Middleton,” clearly displaying his lack of original thought, not to mention a spine.

And then there’s former Trump Justice Department lackey Aaron Reitz, who brings the resume of a true culture-war bureaucrat. In other words: a talent for turning the law into a billy club to swing at whatever group Newsmax is next to target. In case anyone overlooked Reitz’s bigoted bullshit, he’s the candidate who last week claimed, without offering a lick of evidence, that Texas House Democratic leader Gene Wu, who’s Asian American, should have his citizenship revoked for lying during the naturalization process.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, has tried to present herself as the primary’s “rules follower” — a quiet conservative eager to return law and order to the Texas Attorney General’s office. While she’s certainly not the most bombastic of the current crop of GOP candidates, Huffman’s toxic legislative record reads like a culture-war checklist: policing bodies, stripping power from municipalities and treating civil liberties as a nuisance to be managed. Hard pass.

And looming over it all is U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-San Antonio, the former chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz who’s doggedly determined to be an even bigger dick than his former boss. Roy’s fondness for grandstanding — shutdown threats, purity tests, laughable hearings about the encroachment of Sharia law — suggests he’d turn the AG’s office into a permanent grievance factory, churning out lawsuits better suited for coverage in the far-right blogosphere than courtroom wins. Gosh, how nifty!

What unites the pathetic souls crammed into this clown car isn’t legal acumen or a desire to do right for Texans — except those who vote in the Republican primaries, or course. No, it’s knuckle-dragging bigotry shrouded in a purported shared desire to espouse the virtues of small government, all while weaponizing government against marginalized groups.

None of these assclowns talks much about protecting Texans from fraud, corporate abuse or corruption. Instead, it’s bathrooms, classrooms and Sharia law. If this is the field, Texans shouldn’t expect a top cop, they should expect a full-time culture-warrior with subpoena power.

Driving the clown car off the cliff with Texas’ GOP attorney general hopefuls

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