George P. Bush announces bid to unseat embattled Texas AG Ken Paxton

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced Wednesday evening that he would challenge the state’s embattled attorney general, Ken Paxton, setting up a high-profile Republican primary fight between the heir to the Bush political legacy and a conservative firebrand with a growing list of legal entanglements.

A fierce face-off between a Republican incumbent and primary challenger has not been seen in Texas for nearly a decade — the last time being in 2014, when Dan Patrick, then a state senator, took down Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in a landslide.

In kicking off his campaign in Austin, Bush took aim at Paxton’s legal troubles, which include a pending felony securities fraud indictment and corruption accusations by former aides — the latter of which is the subject of an FBI investigation. Paxton, 58, who is seeking a third term, has denied any wrongdoing.

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“Enough is enough, Ken,” Bush said onstage from Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden. “You’ve brought way too much scandal and too little integrity to this office. As a career politician of 20 years, it’s time for you to go. We need an attorney general that’s above reproach, not under criminal indictment for securities fraud and under FBI investigation for bribery and corruption.”

Bush, 45, a second-term land commissioner and grandson of the late President George H.W. Bush, made the case that Paxton is too much of a vulnerability for Republicans in 2022, saying that Democrats are “all in” on the attorney general race.

“They see that Ken Paxton is our weak link,” he said. “They know that if he was the lowest vote-getter statewide in the last election cycle, and they know that if he is our nominee again, they have their first statewide elected office in close to 30 years.”

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Paxton’s campaign, in a statement Wednesday night following the announcement, defended his conservative credentials but didn’t respond to Bush’s comments on any of the controversy.

“Texans know Attorney General Paxton’s rock-solid conservative record,” spokesman Ian Prior said. “From defeating Joe Biden’s dangerous executive order halting deportations of illegal aliens, to his willingness to stand up for secure elections, Ken Paxton has been and will continue to be the tip of the spear in protecting President Trump’s America First principles.” Prior also pointed to Paxton’s fight to shut down Backpage, a classified ads website that was tied to child sex trafficking.

The Texas attorney general serves as the state’s top chief lawyer and law enforcement officer, defending state officials and agencies in lawsuits in court. Paxton’s time in office has been marked by a decidedly political bent, zeroing in on border security, religious freedom and voter fraud as top priorities.

Bush said his experience running the land office had prepared him to take on the Biden administration’s executive orders related to energy and natural resources. And, he argued, Paxton has not won enough of the court cases taken on by the attorney general’s office — including the case Paxton took to the U.S. Supreme Court on then-President Donald Trump’s behalf in December seeking to overturn the election.

“It was a little too little, too late,” Bush said, though he told reporters he does believe Joe Biden won the presidential election. “A real lawyer would’ve gotten on a plane and gone to one of the battleground states and challenged the legal standard under those relevant state laws.”

Political analysts say a key question is whether the election will be a referendum on Paxton’s tenure, including a string of controversies. Paxton has, however, built a following on the right with his use of his office to push conservative causes and strong allegiance to Trump.

“Is this race a referendum of Ken Paxton and his time in office? Because that’s one kind of race,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Is this a race about what the Republican Party’s future is in terms of approaching the federal government or border security or other issues? Or is this a race simply about the policy decisions the attorney general makes?”

Bush has also experienced controversies, which Paxton’s campaign will likely wield against him. He’s been criticized by fellow Republicans for his planned $450 million restoration of the Alamo. Some of the blowback stemmed from inaccurate reports that Bush had planned to place a statue of Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna on the Alamo grounds, though Bush’s plan to move the Alamo Cenotaph also has received a cool reception from some grassroots Republicans.

More recently, Republican officials in Houston joined Democrats in condemning Bush for his office’s decision not to award Harris County a single penny of $1 billion in flood control funding. The Land Office, which he oversees, was responsible for doling out the federal funds, most of which was tied to Hurricane Harvey.

Trump figures to play a role in the race. Both Bush and Paxton have backed Trump, who carries significant sway with members of the party, underscoring the importance of an endorsement. Trump has said that he will be choosing a candidate to stand behind.

Trump on Tuesday endorsed Gov. Greg Abbott in his first serious primary challenge, against former state Sen. Don Huffines, who had previously labeled himself as the Trump candidate.

George P. Bush earned favor with Trump after he broke with his famous political family and backed the real estate magnate and reality TV star in the 2016 general election, even after Trump had openly mocked Bush’s father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, during the Republican presidential primaries. Bush said Wednesday his family will be “helping out wherever they can” with his campaign.

Paxton, meanwhile, showed the lengths he was willing to go with his support when he carried the Supreme Court suit seeking to overturn the 2020 election — an effort that was immediately rejected by the high court.

In addition to Trump, Bush said he had spoken about his campaign with Abbott and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. They have said they’ve generally maintained that Republicans ought to stay out of Paxton’s scandals, but he said they were “very concerned” and gave him “great advice,” Bush said.

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In his first primary for attorney general, in 2014, Paxton easily beat former state Rep. Dan Branch by about 11 percentage points. In 2018, Paxton went unchallenged in the Republican primary. But in the general election that year, Democrat Justin Nelson, who focused his campaign on Paxton’s legal troubles, came within 3.6 percentage points of unseating him.

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Paxton has tried to cast Bush as a political climber and minimized his attacks on his integrity as out-of-touch.

“He’s kind of got this mentality that he’s going to be president someday and he’s got to get started,” Paxton said on Dallas radio.

Naming border security as his top priority, Bush said he would be traveling down to the Rio Grande Valley the day after the announcement.

taylor.goldenstein@chron.com