Last Wednesday, Austin residents entered their third day of frigid temperatures, powerless homes and frozen pipes. Shelves in grocery stores were bare, schools had transformed into warming centers and local hospitals struggled after losing water pressure and heat. Winter storms were battering the state.
But one city homeowner had escaped the misery: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who was nearly 1,300 miles away in Salt Lake City, where water flowed freely and electricity pumped warm air indoors.
Paxtons trip out of state during the historic crisis has attracted ire from state Democratic leaders, who last week scorned Sen. Ted Cruz (R) for his own effort to escape the storms by heading to Cancn with his family.
They dont believe in governance, and couldnt care less about the people theyre supposed to represent, tweeted Julin Castro (D), the former mayor of San Antonio.
The news has added fuel to the outrage being thrown at GOP leadership in the state, with critics accusing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and the Republican-controlled state legislature of not cold-weather-proofing the states power grid and ignoring warnings of its fragility for decades.
Paxton is also being compared to Cruz and the embattled Abbott, who aside from falsely blaming the outage on frozen wind turbines has been largely inconspicuous during the states crisis.
Paxton made national headlines last year when he filed a long-shot lawsuit seeking to overturn the presidential election results in four key swing states that Democratic candidate Joe Biden won. The Supreme Court dismissed the case in December.
The attorney general faces several legal challenges of his own. In July 2015, he was indicted on charges of felony securities fraud. Numerous legal challenges have pushed off a trial. Last October, seven of Paxtons high-ranking staffers accused him of bribery and abusing his office by cozying up to wealthy donors. On Feb. 11, the Associated Press reported the FBI was looking into Paxtons million-dollar Austin home as part of the probe based on the staffers allegations.
