Texas AG Ken Paxton’s Billboard Criticizes Opponent Rochelle Garza for Doing Job as Lawyer

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton ought to know how the law works. He’s the state’s top cop, has faced an indictment or two of his own and recently had his latest run-in with a process server, from whom he reportedly fled.

But on Monday, he bought a series of billboards criticizing Rochelle Garza, his Democratic opponent in the upcoming election, for apparently doing her job as a lawyer.

In an interview with the conservative Washington Examiner, Paxton spoke of the billboards in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Galveston, which read: “Busted for human trafficking? Rochelle Garza will defend you!”

In a statement to the Examiner, Paxton said, “Rochelle Garza may have firsthand experience dealing with human traffickers, but the catch is that she was working to enable these criminals by defending them in court.”

The billboard includes a photoshopped image of Garza holding up a piece of paper that reads, “Text ‘BUSTED’ to 82762.”

If you fire off “BUSTED” to that number, Paxton’s campaign replies with an automated message that accuses Garza of being a “radical, open-border activist” who won’t “crack down on the vicious cartels trafficking illegal immigrants across our border.”

The automated message goes on to say that Garza represented “an illegal immigrant who had been charged with human trafficking other illegal immigrants into the U.S.” The message doesn’t offer any specifics.

My opponent, Rochelle Garza, may have firsthand experience dealing with human traffickers, but the catch is that she was working to enable these criminals by defending them in court.

TX voters must reject Rochelle Garza & her radical, open-borders agenda https://t.co/Nbxu1DgKc5

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) October 10, 2022

The Washington Examiner article mentions two cases, one in which Garza spent two weeks representing a Mexican citizen on trial for transporting undocumented immigrants, and another in which Garza represented for a week a U.S. man charged with harboring and transporting undocumented immigrants.

Of course, the Sixth Amendment guarantees everyone a right to legal counsel, but Paxton doesn’t bother with the messy details of a trivial thing like the U.S. Constitution.

The new billboards come a few weeks after Paxton lashed out at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office for investigating an incident in which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated recruiting migrants from a San Antonio shelter to fly to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

At the time, Paxton accused Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar of “partisan grandstanding.”

Meanwhile, Paxton continues to face his own legal troubles. Late last month, the attorney general reportedly fled his home to prevent a process server from delivering a subpoena in an abortion lawsuit.

When the Texas Tribune reported the story, Paxton lashed out at the outlet on Twitter for “a ridiculous waste of time,” saying the “media should be ashamed of themselves.”

On an entirely unrelated note, seven years have passed since Paxton was indicted for securities fraud, and he’s facing a whistleblower lawsuit accusing him of abuse of office.

Last month, The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler released a poll that found Paxton led Garza by 7 percentage points.

Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz sparked backlash after a move similar to Paxton’s. At the time, he went on Fox News and blasted public defenders (again, that whole Sixth Amendment thing) as part of a potshot at then-U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, who’d previously been a federal public defender.

“There are public defenders, people go and do that because their heart is with criminal defendants,” Cruz said. “Their heart is with the murderers, with the criminals, and that’s who they’re rooting for.”

Needless to say, public defenders didn’t take the criticism kindly. “The hearts of public defenders are with the Constitution and the rule of law,” Alex Bunin, chief defender for the Harris County public defender’s office, told the Observer at the time.