This Week in Texas Politics: Paxton trial, arctic blast and border updates

AUSTIN, Texas - The cold weather isn’t the only thing that made news this week. Some familiar issues made "new" headlines on "This Week in Texas Politics," which included a perplexing legal flip-flop from Attorney General Ken Paxton.

FOX 7 Austin's Chief Political Reporter Rudy Koski and our panel of analysts took a look at the headlines from This Week in Texas Politics.

______________________________

RUDY KOSKI: This Week in Texas Politics involved big endorsements, big legal face-offs and another big standoff on the border. Let's get our headlines from our panel, and we'll begin first with Brad Johnson with the Texas News. Brad, what your headline for the week. 

BRAD JOHNSON: A game of legal chess has broken out in court. 

RUDY KOSKI: Connie Swinney with the Highlander. Connie. What's your headline for the week? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: Texans get wrangled into more legal battles in the state House and the border. 

RUDY KOSKI: Political analyst Brian Smith with Saint Edward's University. Brian. What's your headline? 

BRIAN SMITH: Will the Cowboys win a playoff game before Ken Paxton goes to trial

MORE TEXAS POLITICS NEWS

• Ken Paxton whistleblower lawsuit is not over: attorney
• Texas border floating barrier can stay for now, court rules
• Texas book ban blocked by federal appeals court

RUDY KOSKI: Speaking of Ken Paxton. The attorney general, issued an interesting declaration on Thursday that he wasn't going to participate anymore in the whistleblower lawsuit against him. Brian, it seems like the attorney general doesn't like what's going on. So he's acting as judge, jury, victim the whole shooting match, right? 

BRIAN SMITH: Yeah. He thinks that his victory in the impeachment trial, the 2022 elections have emboldened him. So nothing is off the table. He's run out of appeals at the Texas Supreme Court, so he's trying something different to move on. It's the legal version of I'm taking my ball and going home. 

RUDY KOSKI: Friday morning, the judge in the whistleblower case responded to Paxton's perplexing denial /admission motion by setting deposition dates in February for the attorney general and several of his top aides. House impeachment manager Andrew Murr, who has taken a lot of heat and is not running for reelection, took a quick victory lap on this. Connie, is Murr vindicated? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: There's a possibility he is trying to pick up some points for maybe a future run. 

RUDY KOSKI: Brad, you and I both talked to whistleblower attorney Tom Nesbitt. He called this move by Paxton, a stunt. Could this go for his security fraud charges? Just saying. Yeah, I did it slightly on my wrist and. Let's go. 

BRAD JOHNSON: Could be testing the waters on that. Yeah, although that's an entirely different set of circumstances. 

MORE POLITICS NEWS

• March for Life 2024: Thousands brave snow to rally against abortion rights
• Congress OKs spending bill to avert government shutdown through early March
• Ron DeSantis moves campaign away from New Hampshire ahead of state's primary

RUDY KOSKI: The Texas primary is still weeks and weeks away, but the primary season kicked off in Iowa with a big win for former President Donald Trump and former rival Senator Ted Cruz, after Iowa endorsed Trump. Connie, that announcement, did it make any kind of waves there in the Hill Country? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: It looks like Senator Cruz is among a growing number of Republicans who are jumping on the Trump train, even though he took a beating during the 2016 primary. It looks as though these particular political operatives, who would be in favor of another Trump presidency, are taking some extra steps to show their support. 

RUDY KOSKI: Now, there is an interesting side note to this Iowa fallout. And that's why the Trump camp reportedly has told down ballot Republicans not to use GOP strategist Jeff Roe, uh, or his firm. Roe worked for DeSantis, and his firm also has ties to Senator Cruz and Ken Paxton. Brad, you noticed this? Uh, could this be some bad fallout for those guys? 

BRAD JOHNSON: Axiom, Roe's firm has a large footprint in Texas. The top ones are Ted Cruz, Ken Paxton. But you look at these House races that's going on, and many of them, especially the challengers to incumbents, are Axiom users. And so does this have any effect? Do they listen, I don't know, probably not. But it'll be interesting to see if there's any trouble in Paradise there. 

RUDY KOSKI: An interesting move was played out by Texas congressman, Democrat, Texas congressman Colin Allred voting Wednesday to condemn President Joe Biden's handling of the southern border. He's running to be the Democrat nominee to take on Senator Ted Cruz. And he immediately got attacked by his leading contender, state Senator Roland Gutierrez. You know, Brian, there is the possibility that Gutierrez and Allred could be in a runoff, so is this kind of, like, sets up for the runoff if there is one? 

BRIAN SMITH: I don't think Allred is actually scared of a runoff. He's leading in the most recent Emerson polls. With this statement, he's saying he's not frightened by any of his Democratic rivals and the nomination is his to lose. 

RUDY KOSKI: We learned this week why Governor Greg Abbott may be such a passionate person when it comes to school choice, it was reported that Abbott has received a $6 million campaign contribution last month from a Pennsylvania billionaire who is a top supporter for school choice Connie. How does that outside money, play out in the hill country? Does that even matter? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: Well, really, at first glance, the amount of money and the fact that someone is giving Governor Abbott's campaign money to support his policy isn't what raises the eyebrows. It's that it's coming from someone outside of the state. But you do a deeper dive into who, uh, Jeff Yass is and what it is that he's been doing, from Pennsylvania, a registered libertarian. He's poured a lot of money, millions of dollars into charter schools in that state, and those charter schools have been deemed successful and also benefiting, huge swaths of the minority population in Pennsylvania. 

RUDY KOSKI: Let's wrap up this week, uh, with the final word for the week from our panel. And we'll start first with Connie. Connie, what's your word for the week? 

CONNIE SWINNEY: Because of that eye-popping donation and also the border battle that's going on between the Border Patrol and the State Guard. I say Double-Take. 

BRIAN SMITH: Whistleblowers. 

BRAD JOHNSON: Given the fundraising reports coming out, I'm going to go with Revealing. 

RUDY KOSKI: And that is This Week in Texas Politics.