Project 2025 In Texas: How Ken Paxton Is Implementing Trump’s Agenda
How Trump loyalist, Ken Paxton, is using Texas as a testing ground for Project 2025.
In these last few weeks, nearly every time we turn on the news, Paxton is suing someone else over culture war issues. Each lawsuit is more egregious than the previous, almost as if it were done with intentional callousness.
Yesterday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the City of Austin regarding abortion travel funds. This is a topic that we heard about during the Republican Party of Texas Convention, as several GOP members tried to add a plank to their platform that would have prevented pregnant women from traveling.
As outlined in Democracy Forward’s Guide to Project 2025, “Despite the majority of Americans supporting comprehensive health care and reproductive freedom, Project 2025 would prefer a far different reality. Their attacks would undermine Medicare, keep prescription drug prices high, and restrict access to reproductive care.”
On Thursday, Paxton sued Biden so that he could discriminate against transgender children.
Paxton is suing the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)and the Biden-Harris Administration for implementing new rules requiring foster care agencies to consider whether prospective families will affirm a child’s LGBTQ+ identity when deciding child placement.
The profound level of cruelty and disregard for vulnerable youth Pazton is demonstrating by fighting against rules that ensure safe, affirming placements for transgender and queer children, he prioritizes a political agenda over the well-being and mental health of children in the foster system.
This could expose transgender children to harm and discrimination.
Paxton ignores the human consequences of denying children an affirming and supportive environment, which has been shown to lead to severe mental health crises, including an increase in suicide attempts.
As outlined in GLAAD’s Project 2025 Exposed: Project 2025 aims to gut protections for the LGBTQ community, which its organizers believe exists in opposition to the “traditional American family” and its Christian nationalist underpinnings. The Project would prioritize families “comprised of a married mother, father, and their children” and would eliminate any federal policies that promote LGBTQ equality or that assist single mothers.
Earlier in the week, Paxton sued the Biden-Harris Administration to give fossil fuel companies the right to kill the endangered dune sagebrush lizard.
Paxton claimed that listing the dune sagebrush lizard as endangered threatened private landowners’ ability to conduct business while ensuring the lizard’s survival in its large geographic range, which overlaps the Permian Basin, the highest-producing oil region in the United States.
Poor little guy.
Texas A&M Researchers claimed in 2020 that without better land stewardship, the “unique populations will be lost.”
According to Earth Justice: “Project 2025 will gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA): Project 2025 would rewrite the most successful legal tool we have for protecting wildlife in ways that would harm imperiled species. It specifically calls for removing protections from gray wolves and Yellowstone grizzlies.”
Then, Paxton filed suit and appeals to enable mass shootings at the Texas State Fair.
To understand how this even came about, you first have to know there was a mass shooting at the State Fair last year. Here is the news clip (nothing graphic):
This year, the Fair said, “No way. Not again. Keep your guns out.”
This wasn’t a premeditated shooting. Like too many shootings, this happened as a result of a fight. There is alcohol at the Fair and tons of people, so asking patrons not to be strapped for safety seems reasonable—unless you’re a Republican.
So, Paxton sued the Fair and the City of Dallas to make it easier for people to shoot into crowds. A Dallas judge sided with the Fair. Then, Paxton appealed it at the Texas Supreme Court. The solid Republican Supreme Court also sided with the Fair. Paxton vowed to keep fighting it.
According to the Center for American Progress: Project 2025 Would Increase Gun Violence, Reversing Historic Declines. Their research found that “The far right’s new authoritarian playbook would invalidate state laws on concealed carry, making it so almost anyone can carry firearms in public—from Times Square to the National Mall.”
Last week, Paxton sued Harris County over their new version of the ‘Uplift Harris’ program.
The program was initially supposed to launch in April and aimed at helping households in Harris County’s ten poorest ZIP codes living below 200% of the federal poverty line. Recipients would have received $500 monthly in grants to help with household necessities.
Of course, like most Republicans, Paxton’s response was: Fuck them poors—and then filed a lawsuit.
In response to the lawsuit, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said Paxton’s opposition to the program “is not about concern for the law; it’s about using people living in poverty as a means to score political points.”
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “House Republican Agendas and Project 2025 Would Increase Poverty and Hardship, Drive Up the Uninsured Rate, and Disinvest From People, Communities, and the Economy.”
Plus, there’s all the voter suppression.
Last month, Paxton lashed out at Democratic-majority city’s efforts to register voters. He sued Bexar and Travis County to stop them from registering new voters. He also raided the homes of Democratic candidates, activists, and elderly LULAC volunteers.
Travis County is suing the Attorney General and Secretary of State Jane Nelson, accusing them of violating the National Voter Registration Act.
If your vote weren’t so important, they wouldn’t be trying to take it away.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights lists ways Project 2025 would undermine voting and democracy. Including:
Criminalize the voting process.
Allowing the proliferation of online misinformation and disinformation relating to elections.
Allow government access to state voter rolls.
Restricting the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Promoting Access to Voting” Executive Order.
In August, Paxton sued the Biden-Harris Administration over federal workplace protections for transgender employees.
That’s right. Paxton is trying to make discrimination legal. He wants to make it legal to intentionally misgender transgender workers or deny them access to restrooms that match their gender identity. This constitutes harassment under federal law, but Paxton says they are unlawful and asks the court to permanently block them.
This is one that we all should pay attention to because it impacts everyone, not just the LGBTQ+ community. If Republicans can roll back discrimination laws, women and people of color are at risk.
According to Mother Jones, “Project 2025 would make workplace discrimination a lot easier.”
No, that isn’t all Ken Paxton has been up to lately.
He sued a Houston immigrants’ rights organization over political speech.
He sued the Biden-Harris Administration over teen access to contraceptives.
Paxton also tried to shut down an El Paso migrant’s shelter—a judge killed that suit.
It’s like a never-ending barrage that just keeps coming.
Representative Ann Johnson, at the Texas Democratic Party Convention, told us how the Senate Republicans’ acquittal of Paxton unleashed a political monster.
The profound failure of Senate Republicans to uphold their oaths by acquitting Paxton, who a bipartisan majority had impeached for corruption, was outrageous. In doing so, they gave him a “get out of jail free card,” essentially endorsing his continued exploitation of power for political gain.
And that’s precisely what we’re seeing now.
Paxton was allowed to remain in office, and Johnson warned us that Senate Republicans had unleashed a “monster” — one who is now encouraged to go after vulnerable groups, from transgender youth to the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, immigrants, and the poor.
Ken Paxton is deeply embedded in a network of Trump loyalists working to push forward the dangerous Project 2025.
Many authors behind Project 2025 have strong Texas ties and connections to Trump and his inner circle. Paxton, a known Trump crony, has repeatedly proven himself willing to advance this regressive agenda, even if it means attacking the most vulnerable communities in Texas.
If Project 2025 remains unpopular or challenging to implement outright, they will use other methods to force it upon us. Whether through legal maneuvers by Trump-aligned attorney generals like Paxton or other state officials loyal to this far-right vision, the goals of Project 2025 are clear: to dismantle protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, curtail reproductive rights, roll back environmental protections, suppress the vote, and much more than that.
This is why voting in every election matters—not just at the top of the ballot, but up and down. We need to remove people like Paxton and others who use their power to erode the rights of everyday Texans while serving the interests of Trump and his cronies. The stakes are high—literally, everything depends on it. If we don’t vote them out now, the damage they could do may be irreversible. Let’s ensure we show up blue from the top of the ballot to the bottom to protect our democracy and our future.
Vote early, vote often, just vote.
October 7: Last day to register to vote.
October 21: First day to early vote.
October 25: Last day to apply for a mail-in ballot.
November 1: Last day to early vote.
November 5: Election day!
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Even Wyatt Earp knew alcohol and guns were deadly. Hence why the cowboys were required to turn them over before hitting the cards and whiskey.
Plus, Paxton is asking the supreme court to to allow Texas to continue denying emergency medical care to pregnant women.
I'd like to know how many millions of taxpayer dollars he's wasted filing all these lawsuits. Project 2025 supports Christian National corruption within EVERY policy. That's why these bastards rarely face trials, prison time or accountability.