Texas attorney general won’t get new powers to prosecute election crimes after legislative deadlock

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appears unlikely to gain new powers to prosecute election crimes after the House and Senate failed Saturday to reach a deadline to work out their differences on how much leeway to grant the state’s top legal office in such cases.

That development in the waning days of the regular 2025 legislative session ending Monday comes two years after the House voted to impeach Paxton on misconduct allegations that included bribery and abuse of office. The Senate later acquitted Paxton.

House Bill 5138 was filed by state Rep. Matt Shaheen, a Republican from North Texas. The Senate passed a version that would have given the attorney general’s office the power to unilaterally prosecute local election crimes when a county fails to do so. The House had previously agreed to grant Paxton’s office more powers to prosecute such cases, but only after local prosecutors considered the case.

Shaheen filed the bill after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, found Paxton’s office does not have authority to independently prosecute criminal election cases in trial courts without the request of a local prosecutor.

Paxton later targeted three of the Republican judges who reached that decision when they were up for reelection, leading a successful campaign to oust them during the 2024 GOP primary. The legislation would have explicitly granted Paxton the authority he sought in the court case.

Paxton is running for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent John Cornyn, creating an opening for a new state attorney general to take office in 2027.

Under the Senate’s version, local law enforcement would be required to send a report to the attorney general’s office if it believes there is probable cause to suspect that an election crime has been committed. The attorney general’s office would then have the authority to prosecute. Local prosecutors and law enforcement would be required to turn over any information they have about election crime investigations to the attorney general’s office.

Under the House’s version of the bill, law enforcement agencies would be required to notify the attorney general’s office when reporting a potential election crime to local prosecutors. The attorney general could investigate only if the local prosecutor took no action on those reports for six months. And under the bill, local prosecutors could challenge the attorney general’s assertion of jurisdiction to investigate.

A conference committee failed to reach an agreement by midnight Saturday, effectively killing the bill. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could call a special session on the issue if he chooses.

Paxton has made targeting election-related crimes a priority since he took office in 2015. He has pursued more than 300 investigations of suspected crimes by voters but has successfully convicted only a handful.

Republican lawmakers filed similar legislation in 2023 to give him the authority to step into local investigations, but those bills failed to pass. That was the same regular session in which the House impeached Paxton.

Some voting rights advocates have said giving the Texas attorney general more power over local law enforcement offices is unconstitutional. They warned that the bill seemed aimed at increasing election prosecutions, and potentially intimidating voters and local election officials.

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org

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