“The Texas bar association is investigating whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on bogus claims of fraud amounted to professional misconduct,” Huffington Post reported on Tuesday, June 9, 2021 (read story here).
“The State Bar of Texas initially declined to take up a Democratic Party activist’s complaint that Paxton’s petitioning of the U.S. Supreme Court to block Joe Biden’s victory was frivolous and unethical. But a tribunal that oversees grievances against lawyers overturned that decision late last month and ordered the bar to look into the accusations against the Republican official,” Huffington Post said.
Paxton’s lawsuit sought to overturn election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The complainant alleged that “Paxton’s efforts to dismiss other states’ election results was a wasteful embarrassment for which the attorney general should lose his law license.”
There is no professional rule against “wasteful embarrassments,” but a lawyer can be disciplined for filing frivolous lawsuits, although the likely punishment is admonishment or censure rather than disbarment. Also, a lawyer who wastes a judge’s time is likely to draw some sharp words from the judge, although lawyers are a thick-skinned lot and its questionable whether any amount of stern language penetrates into their psyches.
And, of course, ordering an investigation isn’t equivalent to a finding of misconduct. Plenty of complaints against lawyers are investigated and dismissed as lacking merit. The bar association will make a determination after looking into exactly what Paxton did (or didn’t do).
That Paxton is a weasel is indisputable. As Huffington Post pointed out, “The investigation is yet another liability for the embattled attorney general, who is facing a years-old criminal case, a separate, [and] newer FBI investigation.” But that is not, per se, disciplinable. If he’s convicted of a crime, then he can (and likely will) be tossed out of the bar, which simply means he can’t practice law; it wouldn’t prohibit him from practicing Texas politics.
It’s possible, though, they’ll nail him for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Generally speaking, lawyers are expected to have some evidence to back up their factual claims, and at least a colorable legal argument for the relief they’re seeking. To determine the latter, you’d have to read his complaint, supporting briefs (if there are any), and then research the law he cited (if he cited any).
But it’s pretty clear his lawsuit was factually baseless. Dozens of judges, many of them Republicans, tossed virtually every GOP election lawsuit contesting the election, either for lack of jurisdiction, lack of evidence, or both. Not a single one made it to trial. So, from hindsight, it’s not hard at all to pin the “frivolous” label on those lawsuits.
Photo: Ken Paxton, blowhard