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Sept. 2, 2021 - The Charlie Kirk Show
39:20
'Roe on the Ropes' with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Ken Paxton Joins the Show 00:02:42
Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, my conversation with the Attorney General of Texas, Ken Paxton.
We talk about the new pro-life law that has been enacted in Texas.
We talk about his Google lawsuit.
We talk about is Texas going blue with our exclusive conversation with the Attorney General of Texas.
What a perfect time to have him on the show.
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Ken Paxton is here, everybody.
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Ken Paxton is here.
Buckle up, everybody.
Here we go.
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We are super thrilled to be joined by the Attorney General of the great state of Texas, Ken Paxton, who's doing a wonderful job, who actually is in my studio as I'm in Fargo, North Dakota.
So we switched places here somewhat.
Attorney General Paxton, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
Hey, I'm enjoying your studio without you, but you were actually in my birthplace.
I was born in North Dakota, so I hope you're enjoying it.
Protecting Roe v Wade Laws 00:07:27
So Attorney General, can you walk us through what's happening right now in Texas as far as the Supreme Court intervening and saying that the law that was just passed by the legislature is constitutional?
Well, so what happened was this was obviously passed last session, which ended in May.
And the Texas legislature put in a bill that was designed to protect the unborn when a heartbeat could be detected.
And we were sued by, I don't know, 14 plaintiffs or more.
It was a lot.
The state of Texas, they named me.
They named the governor.
And so we defended that all the way up to the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court basically left it in place.
They didn't say necessarily that it was constitutional, but it's an interesting case because this provides a private cause of action, which is different than other abortion laws in the past, which provided a government action that where a district attorney would have to bring a criminal case.
In this case, there's no government action.
It's just an individual cause of action.
And so it's much harder for a plaintiff to sue right now when there's really been no case.
So let's walk through what the law actually does.
This was passed in the legislature back this last spring, if I'm not mistaken.
And it says that abortions will not be performed after six weeks or when a heartbeat is detected.
Is that correct?
Yeah, that's absolutely correct.
And I don't know that anything like this has been actually passed and put into place.
I know that other states have passed similar laws.
They just haven't gone into effect.
And ours went into effect literally yesterday.
So, yeah, can you just expand on that a little bit more of why this law was different than, for example, the Alabama law in 2019?
What was the way that the legislature and maybe your office advised that this law was created?
Well, it makes it much easier for a federal court to enjoin or stay or stop a law that puts a state in the position of prosecuting somebody.
In this case, because these are individual claims, it'll be individuals that will be suing doctors or anybody involved in the abortion procedure if they violated this law going past six weeks or the heartbeat.
And so it makes it much harder for a federal court to step in and join it now.
And now these cases can be tried not just in, so we would normally get sued in a pretty liberal county, maybe not have the best record to go defend.
Now individuals can choose their own place where they want to sue in state district court and potentially get a better record to take up if there's a challenge to this, which of course there will be when one of these cases actually gets filed.
Well, that's a brilliant way of going about it.
It's almost a workaround, right?
Which is what the left has been doing to us for the last 40 years is kind of saying, how can we, you know, in a clever fashion, try to find the right case to try to compromise whatever, you know, conservative policy we don't like.
So what you're saying is that this Texas law was written with the intent to try to not have it be overturned by unelected federal judges, basically.
Yeah, that's exactly what's happening here.
It was, I thought, a very smart, maybe clever way of empowering individuals who are potentially harmed by abortion and by doctors and other providers who perform abortions to have a cause of action to go seek some type of legal redress.
And I'm not saying there won't be federal questions that come up, but they aren't there right now.
It's literally there's no case.
And so the Supreme Court hesitated.
They didn't say they were resolving this issue once and for all.
Obviously, you know, we still have Roe v. Wade in place, but now there is going to be a collision at some point with our law and the precedent that was created by the courts, you know, back in 1972.
Well, and I just want to compliment you and your office for being wise enough and also having perseverance because we've been told there's nothing you could do.
Roe versus Wade is the law of the land.
And Texas has just said, well, let's see if that's true.
We're going to have this maybe a new way to go about it.
And so the Supreme Court issued an opinion yesterday, which they didn't reverse Roe versus Wade.
People on television are just lying.
That's not what they, I wish they would have, honestly, but that's not what they did.
Instead, they said that they're not able to intervene on the state law.
Now, there were four dissenting justices.
I think Roberts was alongside Sota Mayor and Kagan and Breyer.
I was pleased to see that President Trump's selections, all three of them ruled correctly here, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.
And then, of course, Alito and Thomas.
I just want to say President Trump deserves credit for this.
I hope everyone listening really resonates with that because without him, the court would have just been in terrible liberal hands.
So where does this go from here then, Attorney General Paxton?
It might go to a federal court.
And are you guys going to be representing the Texas law if that's the case?
So absolutely, we're going to represent the Texas law.
My job is to represent the legislature, the governor, whoever gets sued over this law, we will represent.
And even if it ends up being an individual claim, if there's a way for us to intervene on behalf of the Texas law, we're going to be there to do this.
You know, I think you're right.
It was a very, it's a very exciting moment because it was a very creative approach to dealing with the abortion issue, which we have thought from the beginning shouldn't have been taken away from the states.
These are state issues.
They are not federal issues.
And we all know that the precedent that was created by Roe v. Wade was made up and that their constitutional right to an abortion doesn't really exist.
And so there's a whole nother case we're involved in, the Mississippi statute that we're actually challenging Roe v. Wade head on.
But this is a way that this law is in place now and we can protect.
This allows the unborn to be protected if they're in this situation of at least six weeks or have a heartbeat.
I want to read about the Mississippi law.
The next critical moment will arrive this fall when the Supreme Court takes up Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban in a case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
Are you helping the Mississippi Attorney General?
Is that right?
Yeah, so it's their law.
She's defending.
We filed an amicus on behalf of Amicus Brief, which is a brief in support of the Mississippi law with 23 other states.
There's 24 of us, along with Mississippi.
So you've got 25 states.
This is pretty amazing because this is the first real direct assault on Roe v. Wade.
It's basically arguing.
If you read our amicus brief, it's pretty well done.
It just discusses the precedent, how it's constantly been changing, how states don't have any certainty as to what the law is.
And this idea that somehow there was this constitutional right doesn't make a lot of sense since that constitutional right and that standard keeps changing from trimesters to the KC rules about undue burden to women.
And so it's all very confusing.
They should just get out of the business of changing the law, the Supreme Court, that is, of changing the law every couple of years and just let the states regulate abortion and let each state make that decision.
I totally agree.
And according to the Washington Post, nine out of 10 women in Texas get abortions in the first six weeks of pregnancy.
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This will save lives.
And also, Ken, you look at the polling, it's also popular.
If you look at the people in Texas, 60% of Texans believe they're right in that kind of middle ground where they say that we want more restrictions on abortion and that six weeks or a heartbeat is a good place to land.
Now, obviously, I would like to see abortion go away completely as a grassroots conservative, but Texans want this.
No, there's no doubt.
And that's the way it should be.
I mean, we had abortion restrictions before the Supreme Court came in in 1972 and struck them down, not just in our state, but every state.
And the reality is, you know, these legislators who make these laws are elected by the people.
And we ought to let those people debate and decide what's best for their citizens and not have some court in D.C. tell us, you know, make up a constitutional right that never existed before in the history of this country.
So, you know, I'm encouraged because we're making progress and we've continued this fight and we're going to continue the fight until we are in a position where our state controls these decisions and we can have the opportunity to save some of these unborn children.
Well, the Biden DOJ is going to do everything they can to go after it, which means they're doing the right thing.
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Fighting Voter Fraud Cases 00:15:23
So I want to get to many other topics here, but let's get into election integrity.
You see, the other side, they're not just upset about the Texas pro-life law.
They're also upset about the law that they say it's the hardest state in the country to vote in.
And tell us what's really going on in the fight for election integrity in the great state of Texas.
So we almost ended up in the same situation as Georgia and Arizona and some of these other states where we would be counting votes.
What we did differently in Texas is we defended 12 lawsuits that were aimed in pretty liberal counties, Travis, which is Austin, Houston, which is and then Bear County, which is San Antonio.
And in those counties, we were sued over our laws related to mail-in ballots and signature verification.
We were fortunate.
We had 12 of those lawsuits.
It was a major onslaught.
We won every single one of those lawsuits.
So instead of counting votes on election day, we had already protected our elections.
Now what we're doing is we're actually expanding voting hours and we're limiting some of the little tricks that were attempted in Harris County and some other places to go beyond what the legislature authorized as far as it relates to voting.
And so we've tried to tighten up mail-in ballots by requiring a photo ID, which I think is very significant because my office prosecutes voter fraud.
It's the only thing we prosecute.
We have more voter fraud cases going now than we ever have.
We have, I think, over 500 cases in court, another almost 400 cases that we're investigating, and more than a majority of those relate to mail-in ballot fraud.
So what the legislature was trying to do was expand ours, give more opportunity to vote.
We already have two weeks of early voting in Texas, so it's pretty significant.
But at the same time, we realize we still have some voter fraud issues, especially as it relates to mail-in ballots.
So I want to kind of zero in on something you just said.
There's 500 cases that you've brought to indictment.
Is that right?
Around voting fraud.
No, no.
So we have over 500 counts that we're prosecuting right now.
We have not brought them into indictment because COVID actually shut the courts down in Texas for quite a while.
And we're now waiting in line behind violent offenders to get those cases in.
But we have more cases going right now related to voter fraud than I think we've had in the entire history of Texas.
So if you add up the number that we're investigating plus the number that we're prosecuting, I think it's a larger number than all the cases ever prosecuted in Texas.
Can you give us a taste or an example of some of these cases?
Because we are told every day with almost religious incantation, voter fraud doesn't exist.
If you believe it, you're a racist bigot.
Just give us one or two of the examples that your office uncovered and that will eventually get to trial.
Yeah.
So we had one in Greg County, which is we had a county commissioner win by like a few votes.
And we determined through our investigation that there had been over 300 mail-in ballots that were fraudulently filled out.
And so we prosecuted that commissioner or we are prosecuting that commissioner.
We had another mayor win in South Texas in a town in South Texas, and it was the same type of issue.
Mail-in ballot fraud, people voting that weren't supposed to vote.
We prosecuted one person who was illegal and she voted 10 different times.
Clearly a violation of law.
And so those are the types of things that we prosecute.
And I would argue that it actually has increased voting in Texas because people vote when they have confidence in the election being credible.
And so this is really important because we're told that voter fraud does not exist.
But you're also setting an example here, Ken, that if you violate the law, you will also prosecute it.
It's not just like pay a fine that you could go to jail.
And I think that's important because that also sends some fear into some people that might be thinking that they can institutionally break our laws when it comes to voting.
Yeah.
We also are prosecuting a woman that admitted on tape that she had committed 7,000 violations of the laws, gotten over 7,000 votes that were illegal.
Yeah, and I will say this.
We're one of the few states that are actually doing these prosecutions.
You hear the narrative over and over.
I read it every day in every article.
Oh, there's no proof of voter fraud.
Well, that's just not true.
In my state, when I started, we only had one person prosecuting voter fraud, one attorney.
I asked the legislature for more, and we now have three.
Those people are busy.
If I had more lawyers, if I had more lawyers allocated to this or could get more money, we would be prosecuting even more voter fraud.
And what I think is going on is most states don't dedicate the resources to go find the fraud and then prosecute it.
Well, I just think it's terrific what your office is doing with that specific issue.
So many other states are not doing that.
In Arizona, Attorney General Mark Bernovich, it looks like he's going to really zero in on this in Arizona, which we're cheering for him to do that.
And we're actually going to see him sometime soon.
He has a big opportunity right now in Arizona to go after a lot of this.
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So I want to get into your Google lawsuit.
So talk about your lawsuit against Google.
What is the status of that?
I think it's the most brilliant complaint I've seen written up against this tech oligarchy.
Tell us about it.
So I was inspired to do this after I won re-election.
I had talked to a lot of my constituents.
They were concerned about big tech and how it was affecting their lives, how data was being taken from them.
They didn't even know what these companies knew about them.
And so we started doing our research.
We spent a lot of time talking to professors who knew a lot about tech and obviously antitrust experts and just all kinds of different people.
And we really came down to this case against Google.
We thought there are plenty of other things to look at, but that was where we thought we should start.
And our case is complicated in a way, but it's also simple in another way.
We have an obligation to protect consumers, make sure that there's competition.
And so an antitrust case is designed to make sure that one company doesn't take over the entire market through unfair trade practices.
And we believe that Google has done that.
And they've done it in what's called the ad tech market, which means that they control almost all the advertising on the internet.
They represent the buyer.
They represent the sellers.
They represent the exchange.
It would be like watching a baseball game and the umpire, the batter, the first baseman, the pitcher, everyone was on the same team.
And in this case, that's what's going on.
And they're able to profit in ways that they shouldn't profit.
And there's no competition.
They either buy them out or they crush them.
And so we have sued them over this.
And we too think we have a pretty good case.
Although, as you might imagine, Google has a lot of resources.
One, to try to, you know, go up against me in elections, but also to fund lawyers really however much they want because they make so much money.
Well, I want to just kind of mention something here that might be missed on most listeners.
Attorney General Paxton, how many people do you have working for you in the Attorney General's office in Texas?
So it's a total of about 4,200.
4,200.
And you're saying that Google has a lot of resources.
I want you to understand how big these companies are.
You have, do you understand the point I'm making?
I mean, you're the third largest state, right?
Or the second largest state?
We're second.
We're actually second.
That's the census data, the second largest state in the country.
Attorney General's office is saying, hey, look, we're going to try our best, but like, we're no Google.
It goes to show the size of it, right?
I mean, that's amazing.
The money that they have.
I mean, we have budgets and, you know, my entire budget for a two-year period is $1.3 billion, which sounds like a lot of money.
It's $600 and something million, but a year, which is a lot of money.
And we do a lot of great things with that money.
However, if you think about Google making, you know, $135 billion a year in profits, they could hire every attorney in Texas if they wanted to and every lobbyist in Texas.
And we have to go up against that.
There's no limit to what they can do, the experts they can hire and what they can do to try to go into a legislative session like I just went through where they try to lobby to have my budget cut by 25%.
So it's a force.
They are a force, and that's just one company.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
So Google, being its own government, basically, within our own country, never should have been allowed to be this big or powerful, comes in and says, oh, we don't like the attorney general's office in Texas because their lawsuit is so brilliantly written.
Let's go cut their budget because we have offices in Austin and somehow we can justify that.
And that's what they're willing to do.
Absolutely.
And think it's pretty smart.
I mean, if they get my budget cut by 25%, which was the strategy, that makes it very difficult for me to carry forward.
I actually asked also for money for the Google case.
I asked for $43 million to go fight Google.
Well, they obviously were trying to fight that as well.
But imagine I don't get the money to fight them, but I also lose the rest of my, you know, a high percentage of my budget and I have to lay off a bunch of lawyers instead of ramping up to go fight them.
That's nearly what happened.
It's incredible.
I think only California has a larger attorney general's office, if I'm not mistaken, than Texas.
And they're not fighting Google anytime soon.
I can tell you that.
They're not going to do anything in that regard.
So now I want to shift gears here to the southern border.
There's some conversation that the southern border might be privately constructed.
Talk about the legal parameters that a state has to secure an international border.
Well, it's pretty challenging from the standpoint of first just cost.
I mean, it's billions of dollars.
You know, we're a large state.
We have a budget.
I don't even know what it is.
It's $260, $270 billion, somewhere in that range for a biennium.
But it costs billions of dollars to build this wall.
And so the governor has put up $250 million.
We're trying to raise money privately, but that's just a drop in the bucket to what it's going to take.
Our border is over 1,200 miles long.
And so obviously we're not going to put a wall along the entire range of that.
But we do have some challenges funding that wall, even in the places that we absolutely need it.
Yeah, I mean, I think that with all due respect to Governor Abbott, a $250 billion biennial state budget, you guys can peel off some more money for border security.
I think it's incredibly important.
So, but what are the legal parameters here around kind of restricting flow of people through international passageway?
Can a state do that?
Well, I think we have the power of eminent domain.
And one of the things I think we're trying to do is a lot of these property owners are afraid.
I met with several of them last week, ranchers who are afraid they're having to move their cattle because they're afraid that their cattle are going to be harmed, their property is being harmed.
They're worried for their own safety.
So a lot of them may be willing to donate some of the land instead of the state having to come in and pay them based on some legal proceeding.
But we also have that option.
If it's for a public purpose, just like roads, the state can come in and pay landowners through an eminent domain process for that land.
And that's the process that we'll have to go through in some places if we're going to construct a wall that actually works.
So now I want to talk about other attorney generals that many listeners on the show will have access to or know personally.
What can some of these other attorney generals do to push back against the Biden regime and be helpful to what you're doing?
I'm here in Fargo, North Dakota right now, kind of two very high energy producing states.
What would be helpful, in your opinion, to start to win in the courts?
Do you think we need to be more aggressive?
Do you think that we need to play offense more?
What's your opinion?
No, we're trying to play offense.
We're playing a lot of defense too, because we've got a Biden administration that doesn't follow federal law in all kinds of ways.
But I think that we definitely need the resources of not just my state, but every attorney general that's willing to defend the Constitution.
We need to align.
We need the forces of all of these states fighting together and not necessarily going off on their own little tangents.
We need to join forces and join as many causes together because, you know, just like this abortion case I talked about, 25 states, that's pretty significant when you've got 25 states banded together saying, hey, Supreme Court, this isn't right.
And so instead of just having Texas on some of these lawsuits, like Texas and Missouri sued over the migrant protection protocols, and we just won at the Supreme Court.
We stopped the Biden administration from keeping asylum seekers in the country indefinitely when they don't really qualify for asylum.
And two, they're not having their hearing.
They're disappearing.
So it would, it was Missouri and us, it would be nice to have other states join lawsuits just like that.
And in some cases, that is happening.
And so I'm encouraged by that.
I would be more encouraged if we were doing more and we were joining more.
And so one of the other issues that we're getting emailed a lot about is this refugee resettlement issue.
Right now, it looks like Texas is planning to receive in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston Afghan refugees.
Is there anything your office can do to get more clarity there or challenge this seemingly massive infusion of foreigners into the state of Texas?
Look, I think it's pretty purposeful they're bringing them to Texas, just like I think it's purposeful that they are leaving so many illegals in our state and allowing hundreds of thousands to come across every month.
There's a purpose behind that.
Yes.
Vaccine Liability for Businesses 00:03:18
Unfortunately, this happened.
We had a lawsuit over Syrian refugees a few years ago.
We did not win.
And because the federal government has this control over people coming into the country, we've lost that lawsuit.
So it's very frustrating because they don't vet these people that we know of.
They don't tell us anyway.
So we don't know their background.
So it's hard for local law enforcement to prepare and to track people or even to know who to track because the federal government brings them in.
They may know something about them.
We don't know and they don't tell us.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And so I appreciate your office trying to do what you can in that regard, but it seems to be not a losing issue, but a difficult one.
Now, around vaccine mandates, this is one that a lot of our listeners are asking about.
What is the state in Texas around this issue?
A lot of people are asking for representation.
I know there's limitations at times in what the court can do.
Other states are passing vaccination status as a protected class.
What is the state of this in the state of Texas?
So right now we're involved in, I don't know how many, I'd have a hard time adding up the number of lawsuits over masks.
And then we also have one over San Antonio ISD, the school district, trying to force employees to get the vaccine.
We are suing all of these counties and cities and other governmental entities that are trying to do this because we have a disaster relief act.
And under that disaster relief act, the governor can issue these executive orders.
And he's done that as it relates to the pandemic.
And he said no governmental entity can require a vaccine or require a mask.
And so we've sued over that.
I don't have any authority to do anything about businesses or individuals.
Individuals can make their own choices.
The business issue is a little harder because they feel, I know that they feel some risk related to liability if they don't have their employees vaccinated.
And so there's a little tension between liability and individual choice, which I certainly believe in because I don't want to be told to get the vaccine if I feel like that's not in my best health interest.
And so that's an issue I think our state is still struggling with as it relates to businesses and the liability versus individual choice on health.
Well, I applaud you for that because so many states are not taking that stance.
And while I can understand that at times of the businesses' liability, they're operating from a false premise.
The data is showing that the vaccine is actually potentially contributing to more people getting infected, as Israel is the most vaccinated country in the world with some of the highest COVID rates, even higher than what happened last winter.
Well, and I think you're right about that.
And I think if you look at the Swedish model, they took a totally different approach.
They have vaccinated the high-risk people and left everybody else alone or encouraged the high-risk people to stay out of the public.
So, their approach is actually, I think, seemingly worked the best.
And it's been less governmental intervention and more choice.
And as you said, you've got Israel that's been highly vaccinated and doesn't seem to have worked as well.
And it seems like the vaccination may end up being, it could end up being more of a problem because it's not been fully tested.
Yeah, Sweden has just banned travelers from Israel, which they don't want people from the most vaccinated country in the world coming to Sweden.
I do want to say your website, Ken, is what?
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So, kenpaxon.com.
And also, I want to say people say, Charlie, how do I keep liberals out of my state?
Well, when you start to pass laws like Texas is passing and defend them, liberals are not going to want to go to your state.
In fact, you're going to get more conservatives that move to your state.
You're going to get more Americans that move to your state that want to actually be represented and be able to own firearms and have pro-life laws.
And I think that's so important.
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All right.
So Attorney General, talk about the new Second Amendment bill that was just passed that has everyone freaking out of what's happening in Texas.
Well, it's a long time coming.
I've been in favor of this forever.
You don't have to have a permit for free speech.
You don't have a permit to go exercise your faith.
I don't think you should have to have a permit to carry under the Second Amendment.
And so in Texas, we now have that.
We have constitutional carry, which allows people to carry concealed or out in the open without going through the government to get permission.
Well, that's terrific.
And so are there any possible legal challenges to this?
I'm sure some groups are going to try.
I mean, Robert Francis O'Rourke, who calls himself Beto, is making all sorts of videos about this and saying this is the worst thing ever, but I don't think that's going to hold up in court.
No, I mean, I have no doubt we'll get sued.
We'll end up defending that law.
And we'll, you know, that's one of those cases that could all the way to the Supreme Court.
Who knows?
Either way, I think we're on obviously solid legal footing with the Constitution.
It's kind of the basic of our country.
So I feel I'm encouraged.
It took a long time to get this through.
I was in the legislature for 12 years.
We were never able to get it through.
And finally, this session, you know, it happened.
So I'm really grateful.
So let's talk more broadly now just about Texas.
Is Texas at risk of going blue?
Harris County seems to be a blue county now.
Dallas County is whatever it is.
What are you seeing on the ground?
And how can people help?
We're absolutely at risk of going blue.
Would have happened this time had we not fought these lawsuits.
It's all about whether we can protect the integrity of our elections.
And that is a constant battle.
And that's why this election bill was passed.
And we've got to be vigilant.
I think there's another bill they're considering on looking at potential type audits like you guys are doing here.
I think we've got to do that to make sure that our elections are fair and that people can trust them.
Because once you lose, if we lose control in Texas, I'm not sure that we'd ever get it back because if they open up mail-in ballot elections, we're going to end up with a lot more fraud and we may never be able to take it back.
And so it's pretty important that we secure our elections now because you go to California, there's a lot of mail-in ballots.
And I don't know if we'll ever know if there's a fair election in California or Oregon or Washington.
That's right.
If you're a conservative, you can move to Texas and be part of keeping it red.
And so also, I want to ask you about the 52 Democrats.
How many of Democrats left?
Was it 52 of them?
Was it right that many?
I think that's right.
That's about the number.
Are they going to be able to be arrested?
And if not, I don't understand how that's possible.
So, yeah, you know, we took that.
We were in court over that.
We had a local judge in Travis County tell us that those Democrats couldn't be arrested.
So we took it to the Texas Supreme Court and got that undone.
It was actually what's called an ex parte here.
We weren't even at the hearing to defend what we thought was state law.
And so we got that overturned.
So those Democrats are actually back.
And that's why we're able to have the quorum to go pass the election integrity bill and the other bills.
And I will say this, I give Governor Abbott a lot of credit.
He kept calling them back.
And it made it difficult for the Republican legislators and even the Democrat legislators that were actually there all summer, not being able to go work because they only get paid $600 a month plus their per diem.
But they weren't able to go back to their jobs.
They weren't able to be with their family.
They weren't able to take vacations.
It was very challenging for those who had to go beyond the regular session, which is five months.
And we have a citizen legislature, and these people, they work basically for free.
So it was very challenging and I think very unfair for the Democrats that left to put everybody else in that bad situation, especially the ones that left and then went on vacation to Europe and the Bahamas or wherever they were.
Well, they're back now and we'll see what I hope.
I hope they're back only because there's some more movement that needs to happen.
But it looks like Texas has done it.
It looks like Texas has signed these voter integrity bills into law.
And this has been one of the more productive sessions I've ever seen from a Texas legislature.
You know, I'd have to agree.
I was in the legislature for 12 years, 10 years in the House, two years in the Senate.
And I thought the best one I'd ever seen was 2003.
And this one, while not perfect, accomplished a lot of really great things better than a lot of sessions I've seen over the last decade.
Yeah, I was in Bass Drop, Texas.
You know where that is.
I do.
And people were complaining back in the spring that there wasn't enough movement.
They said, we've done nothing on election integrity.
We've done nothing on abortion.
We've done nothing on guns.
And it's like, well, you know, kind of put points on the board for all three of them.
I wasn't perfect, but I think the reason, though, Ken, is because the grassroots are really engaged.
And that's the lesson.
That is the lesson.
I think people speaking out and complaining when things aren't done, it creates action.
I totally agree.
KenPaxton.com.
You're doing a wonderful job.
God bless Texas.
It's about time that we got more states that are doing this.
And if you're in a red state that is not Texas, they need to introduce that pro-life bill now.
Carbon copy of it.
Exact same language.
Copy paste it because the Supreme Court will uphold it.
Email us your thoughts, everybody, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Ken, thanks for joining us.
Hey, thanks for letting me be in your studio while you're not here.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us your thoughts, freedom, at charliekirk.com.
If you want to email us your thoughts, you can do that at freedom at charliekirk.com.
Support our show, charliekirk.com/slash support.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.
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