Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation last week into Austin affordable housing organization Foundation Communities for a donation to a group supporting Prop Q, but such donations aren’t against the law.
Mikala Compton/American-Statesman File
Austinites already face a tough choice in deciding Proposition Q, the tax rate election on the Nov. 4 ballot. They don’t need their state’s top lawyer using his office to punish voices he dislikes in that debate, or to chill others from participating in it.
Yet that is exactly what Attorney General Ken Paxton is doing.
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Paxton announced last week that he had launched an investigation into nonprofit Foundation Communities for donating to a campaign supporting the tax hike. He argues the $25,000 donation “could be illegal” because Foundation Communities “stands to financially benefit from the passage of Prop Q,” a measure to help fund homeless services, public safety and other city programs.
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Foundation Communities does depend on public funding to build supportive housing in Austin — it’s true. But donating to Love Austin, the political action committee supporting Prop Q, is not illegal.
Nonprofits are barred from donating to political candidates, Rice political science professor Mark Jones told us, but Texas election law doesn’t stop them from financially supporting a ballot proposition. What Foundation Communities did is no different from, say, a general contractor donating to a group championing a road bond proposition because it hopes to win future contracts.
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Indeed, the group has been clear about its motives.
“For the past 35 years, Foundation Communities has served the people of Austin by creating and maintaining affordable housing and support services for residents who were struggling with the cost of housing, and those experiencing homelessness,” executive director Walter Moreau said in a statement. “One of the main goals of Proposition Q is to raise funds for this very work, and that’s why we support the initiative.”
A spokesperson for the Love Austin PAC said it will respond to Paxton’s request for documents “in a timely fashion.”
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But Paxton’s agenda is clear, as he trumpets his conservative bona fides while campaigning to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. In announcing the probe, Paxton described Prop Q as “an effort to squeeze more taxes out of Texans.”
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Such political considerations should have no place in deciding whether to launch an investigation into a campaign donor. All that should matter is the law.
When prosecutors pursue investigations based on politics, they undermine the principle of equal justice and weaken democracy itself. Texans of every persuasion should be alarmed when those in power use their office to intimidate citizens from participating in civic life.
Texans have seen this type of abuse of power before. In August, the attorney general sued Beto O’Rourke’s political action committee, Powered By People, seeking to block the group from using donations to help Democratic lawmakers who left Texas during the quorum break over redistricting. An all-Republican appellate court ruled against Paxton, noting “our Texan founding fathers — like our American founding fathers — took prior restraints on political speech out of the tool kit when they enshrined the right to free speech in our Constitution.” Still, the tactic suited Paxton’s aims: The court battle temporarily froze the group’s accounts and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills.
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We expect the probe into Foundation Communities will also go nowhere, but it could have a chilling effect on others who may want to donate to pro-Prop Q groups, Jones told us, as organizations try to stay out of the attorney general’s crosshairs.
We opposed Prop Q over concerns about affordability and City Hall spending. But whether one supports or opposes this measure, Austinites deserve a free and open debate — not one chilled by a state official weaponizing his office for political gain.