Border convoy, Ken Paxton court orders, 2024 primaries: This Week in Texas Politics

AUSTIN, Texas - This Week in Texas Politics included a border convoy road trip, conflicting court orders in the Ken Paxton whistleblower lawsuit and signs of an unexpected pushback at the primary ballot box. 

FOX 7 Austin’s Chief Political reporter Rudy Koski and our panel of analysts discuss the top issues of the week.

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RUDY KOSKI: This Week in Texas Politics involved a lot of political maneuvering. Let's start our discussion with the headlines from our panel. And we'll begin with political analyst Mark Wiggins. Mark, give me your headline for the week.  

MARK WIGGINS: The Revenge Tour. Off to an 0 and 1 start.  

RUDY KOSKI: Connie Swinney with the Highlander. Connie, give me your headline for the week.  

CONNIE SWINNEY: The border crisis and legal battles, Keep on Truck’n in the Lone Star State.  

RUDY KOSKI: Philip Jankowski with the Dallas Morning News. Philip, your headline for the week.  

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: ‘Cause we got a little old convoy rocking through the night. 

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RUDY KOSKI: This week began with a small victory for Attorney General Ken Paxton, the State Supreme Court issuing a timeout in the long-running whistleblower lawsuit against him, delaying an order to testify under oath, which was followed by a Travis County judge ruling that there will indeed be a trial. Phillip, you've been covering this. What's your take on these two different rulings?  

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: You know, this is all starting to feel like a 14-round boxing match between these two folks. It's definitely jabs, counter punches, et cetera between the two legal teams. It seems like anytime somebody seems like they have the upper hand, the other side seems to strike back. And so that's what we really saw. That's what we saw this week.  

CONNIE SWINNEY: Now, since it's a Super Bowl weekend, I want to use a little bit of an armchair quarterbacking metaphor here. Had he taken care of that $3.3 million settlement out of his own pocket, back when he could, he wouldn't be in the position that he's in now.  

MARK WIGGINS: Yeah, Rudy, it just seems more and more like the attorney general is not going to escape the law. But I'm just not convinced that it's going to have much of an effect on the elections.  

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RUDY KOSKI: You know, there are some signs that maybe there's some pushback by the moderates. You know, a lot of cases that are going, pushing out against the extremists. Republican Jill Dunton won an East Texas state House special election over a challenger backed by Gov. Abbott, Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton. Democrat Colin Allred, in his fight to win the Democrat Senate nomination, continues to gain support by claiming to be a moderate. Even here in Travis County, a moderate Democrat is taking on a progressive D.A. Mark, do you see moderates and independents actually pushing back, or am I just seeing things?  

MARK WIGGINS: I do think there are some hopeful signs that we're seeing sort of the rise of the radical middle. The extremes have become so off the wall that your average person is sick of it. The problem is that, in Texas, your average person doesn't vote.  

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: I don't know if I'm seeing moderate pushback. I mean, when you think about the Jill Dutton, Brant Money special election, I mean, what might sort of take on that is that that was more about Jill Dutton's ground game.  

CONNIE SWINNEY: That makes sense, because anyone would be hard-pressed to say that there's a moderate uprising in Texas when you're dealing with, like, that particular district northeast of the metroplex. I mean, it's still a super conservative district. So voters there had a choice between redder or reddest.

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RUDY KOSKI: The Biden administration this week seemed to be trying to punish Texas for refusing to back down on the border, pausing the approval of liquefied natural gas exports. Meanwhile, a Back the Border caravan of Abbott supporters holding a rally in Dripping Springs while heading to South Texas. The standoff certainly ramping up this week. Phillip, someone's got to blink, right?  

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: No, no one has to blink. This whole sort of thing is just a lot of shouting into the void. And it all means nothing. Because at the end of the day, the Supreme Court said that the Border Patrol can go in and cut some wires, and the Texas National Guard can go and lay some wires. It doesn't change a single thing. But I do have to give huge props to Gov. Greg Abbott's PR folks for making him basically the most popular GOP governor. Boy, I bet he wishes he was getting this kind of press two years ago.  

CONNIE SWINNEY: Anyone who was looking for, some sort of standoff among this convoy, will be disappointed. 

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: Yeah. Look, want a party? Looks more like a party than a protest.  

RUDY KOSKI: Right. But I agree with you. Philip. I think is a tremendous PR spin. You agree? Mark?  

MARK WIGGINS: You know, it kind of feels like that scene in Billy Madison where the O'Doyle family car goes careening off the cliff with everybody shouting, O'Doyle Rules.  

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: O'Doyle Rules. Sorry.  

RUDY KOSKI: All right, let's wrap up This Week in Texas Politics with one word. And we'll start with Philip. Give me your word, Philip.  

PHILIP JANKOWSKI: My word is Shout-Out. I want to shout out my colleague Robert Garrett, who retired yesterday after a legendary career covering Texas politics.  

RUDY KOSKI: For sure on that one. Connie, what's your word?  

CONNIE SWINNEY: Well, because of the spinning wheels on the convoy and the never-ending legal battles for the AG, my word is Spinning.  

RUDY KOSKI: Mark, your word.

MARK WIGGINS: Revenge spelled with a U and a question mark.  

RUDY KOSKI: And with that, we're wrapping up another Week in Texas Politics.