{"id":147723,"date":"2026-02-02T17:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T17:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/147723\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T17:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T17:30:11","slug":"attorney-general-ken-paxton-cannot-shut-down-texas-latino-voting-group-judge-rules-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/147723\/","title":{"rendered":"Attorney General Ken Paxton Cannot Shut Down Texas Latino Voting Group, Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Texas Tribune via The Associated Press<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton failed to offer \u201cany plausible proof\u201d that Jolt Initiative, a nonprofit that aims to increase civic participation among Latinos, is violating the law, a federal judge ruled Thursday.<\/p>\n

Paxton had filed a lawsuit in state court accusing Jolt of submitting \u201cunlawful voter registration applications,\u201d specifying in a press release that the group was \u201cattempting to register illegals, who are all criminals.\u201d The suit, which seeks to revoke Jolt\u2019s nonprofit charter through a legal mechanism known as a quo warranto petition, was put on ice by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, who said in his ruling that Paxton appears to be operating in bad faith.<\/p>\n

The attorney general\u2019s case against Jolt \u201csupposes absolutely no wrongdoing,\u201d and indicates that the attorney general may be \u201charassing (Jolt) and fishing for reasons to investigate its organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not the first legal back-and-forth between Jolt and Paxton\u2019s office. Last year, the organization\u00a0successfully sued<\/a>\u00a0to stop the state\u2019s investigation into their voter registration efforts. In the new suit, Jolt\u2019s lawyers argue Paxton\u2019s efforts to shut them down are retaliation. The attorney general\u2019s office has also in recent years targeted other organizations aiding Latinos and migrants, such as the effort to investigate and\u00a0shut down<\/a>\u00a0El Paso-based Annunciation House.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor over a year, we have faced a relentless campaign of harassment designed to completely crush our organization and silence our community,\u201d Jolt executive director Jackie Bastard said in a statement. \u201cJudge Pitman\u2019s finding that AG Paxton acted in bad faith confirms what we have known all along: this was never about election integrity, it was about political retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In August 2024, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo\u00a0said on X<\/a>\u00a0that a friend had seen organizations registering migrants to vote outside state drivers license facilities in Fort Worth and Weatherford. But local officials, including the Parker County Republican chair,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0there was\u00a0no evidence<\/a>\u00a0backing the post.<\/p>\n

Bartiromo\u2019s debunked claims still\u00a0prompted an attorney general investigation<\/a>\u00a0into organizations including Jolt.<\/p>\n

Jolt then sued for a temporary restraining order, saying that Paxton\u2019s probe would harm the organization as well as put its workers and volunteers at risk. In October 2024, both sides\u00a0agreed to pause<\/a>\u00a0their legal fight and Jolt was allowed to continue its work, while the courts addressed a different lawsuit involving the tool used by Paxton to investigate the group. The attorney general\u2019s office now said in its recent court filing that it has agreed to not issue another subpoena, instead opting to launch a new lawsuit.<\/p>\n

In addition, Paxton\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year that his office is investigating cases of \u201cpotential noncitizens\u201d casting more than 200 ballots in 2020 and 2022, which would be around one-thousandth of 1% of the votes cast during these periods.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Texas counties are looking into more than 2,700 registered voters who were flagged as \u201cpotential noncitizens.\u201d\u00a0At least six of them<\/a>\u00a0have been confirmed to be U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

Voters also\u00a0recently approved<\/a>\u00a0a constitutional amendment adding language to the state\u2019s constitution saying that a person who is not a U.S. citizen cannot vote in Texas. Noncitizen voting was already illegal prior to this update.<\/p>\n

Following Bartiromo\u2019s claims, the attorney general\u2019s office sent an undercover agent to a DMV location near San Antonio to investigate by attempting to register a fake daughter \u2014 who wasn\u2019t physically with him \u2014 to vote, according to Paxton\u2019s Oct. 23\u00a0court<\/a>\u00a0filing. It said a Jolt volunteer deputy registrar still instructed the agent on how to register his daughter, despite her absence.<\/p>\n

Paxton\u2019s filing didn\u2019t provide evidence of Jolt registering noncitizens to vote. Instead, it said the group\u2019s decision to hold voter registration drives near DMV locations \u201cilluminates its unlawful motive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is because U.S. citizens can already register to vote at any DMV with proof of citizenship,\u201d the court document said. \u201cThus, there is no need for a VDR at such locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November, Paxton filed a quo warranto suit in Tarrant County, seeking to revoke the group\u2019s charter and shut it down. Paxton claimed a \u201csubstantial part of the events\u201d underlying the case took place there; Jolt requested that the suit be moved to Harris County.<\/p>\n

\u201cJOLT is a radical, partisan operation that has, and continues to, knowingly attempt to corrupt our voter rolls and weaken the voice of lawful Texas voters,\u201d Paxton said in a news release at the time. \u201cI will make sure they face the full force of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to Paxton\u2019s suit seeking to shut them down, Jolt leaders filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to stop Paxton\u2019s case in state court because it infringes on their rights under the First Amendment and the Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n

In particular, Jolt said in a court filing that its volunteer didn\u2019t do anything wrong because Texas\u2019\u00a0election code<\/a>\u00a0does allow for a person to appoint their parent as \u201can agent\u201d to \u201ccomplete and sign a registration application\u201d for them. The parent must also be a qualified voter or must have submitted a registration application and be eligible to vote, according to the code.<\/p>\n

Pitman, an Austin-based judge appointed by former President Barack Obama, agreed, saying Paxton\u2019s office did not produce evidence of any wrongdoing. He took the unusual step for a federal judge of intervening to stop a state court proceeding, which he said was warranted because Paxton was acting in bad faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court does not come to this conclusion light,\u201d Pitman wrote. \u201cGiven multiple opportunities to assert his good faith by pointing to any credible evidence of illegal activity or even general wrongdoing \u2026 Defendant could not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By The Texas Tribune via The Associated Press Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton failed to offer \u201cany plausible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61554,61555,61556,2132,21762,27,15288,29,28,47807],"class_list":{"0":"post-147723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-civic-participation","9":"tag-jolt-initiative","10":"tag-latino-voting-group","11":"tag-latinos","12":"tag-noncitizen-voting","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton","15":"tag-texas-headlines","16":"tag-texas-news","17":"tag-u-s-district-judge-robert-pitman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}