{"id":232078,"date":"2026-04-02T16:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/232078\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T16:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:57:08","slug":"judge-allows-attorney-general-ken-paxton-to-withdraw-from-representing-comptrollers-office-in-voucher-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/232078\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge allows Attorney General Ken Paxton to withdraw from representing comptroller\u2019s office in voucher case"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2014 A federal judge on Thursday said he will allow Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a>\u2019s office to excuse itself from representing acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock\u2019s office in a lawsuit alleging religious discrimination in the new school voucher program after a dramatic fallout between the two offices.<\/p>\n

Judge Alfred H. Bennett said he will grant Paxton\u2019s request to withdraw from the case once the comptroller finds a new attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want the comptroller to be unrepresented,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cNot one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge noted that an injunction hearing for the case is set for April 24 and he wants to avoid any delay. <\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s hearing comes about a week into the unusually public clash between two of Texas\u2019 top GOP officials. <\/p>\n

The feud was set in motion last week when Hancock fired off a letter to Paxton, obtained by Texas Bullpen<\/a>, criticizing the attorney general\u2019s legal strategy in a case centering on whether Islamic schools can receive funds through the state\u2019s $1 billion school voucher program. <\/p>\n

Hancock, whose office manages the program, said Paxton\u2019s office had missed major marks on the case, such as failing to highlight connections between one of the schools, Houston Quran Academy, and the Muslim Brotherhood. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe court cannot protect against threats it does not know exist,\u201d Hancock wrote. <\/p>\n

Paxton responded to Hancock in a letter<\/a> of his own, saying the acting comptroller\u2019s \u201cpetty politics\u201d had \u201csingle-handedly destroyed my ability to defend the Comptroller\u2019s office in these cases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paxton contended that Hancock undermined the state\u2019s defense by leaking his letter, which included statements not presented in sworn declarations to the court and ultimately risked attorney-client privilege. <\/p>\n

Paxton punctuated his point, calling Hancock, a former state senator, an \u201cincompetent loser\u201d and \u201cembarrassment\u201d to the position of the state\u2019s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n

Hancock was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> in June after Glenn Hegar left to become chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first clash between Paxton and Hancock. In 2023, Hancock was one of two Republican state senators to vote to impeach Paxton on some of the charges levied by the House.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: Texas A&M University System has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 A federal judge on Thursday said he will allow Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s office to excuse…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5182,815,5621,1967,287,4380,1564,27,2794,29,293,28,6473],"class_list":{"0":"post-232078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-attorney-generals-office","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-kelly-hancock","11":"tag-ken-paxton","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-school-vouchers","14":"tag-state-government","15":"tag-texas","16":"tag-texas-comptroller-of-public-accounts","17":"tag-texas-headlines","18":"tag-texas-legislature","19":"tag-texas-news","20":"tag-well-a-homepage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232078","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=232078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}