The beauty of impeaching a public official is that it recalibrates the standard for political morality, letting other politicos gauge just how low they can go. Consider two recent Texas examples.
First came Rep. Bryan Slaton, a howling right-wing culture warrior who specialized in demonizing LGBTQ people as “perverted.” But the 45-year-old Republican – a former Southern Baptist youth pastor who was elected on a “family values” platform – got caught getting a 19-year-old intern drunk, having sex with her, then warning her to keep quiet. But she outed the pervert, so his pious GOP colleagues defenestrated Bryan to preserve “the legislature’s integrity” (excuse that oxymoron). Thus, the moral bar was lowered to “do not get caught drugging underage staffers to have sex.” Good to know.
Then came the impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a notorious political grifter who has turned the state’s top law enforcement office into a personal criminal enterprise. He’s facing multiple indictments and investigations for securities fraud, bribery, abuse of power, obstruction of justice – and even such tawdry embarrassments as having a donor with legal problems renovate his kitchen and hire his mistress.
Paxton is a scuzz, but he’s received a get-out-of-jail-free political pass for years by being the partisan scuzz for the GOP’s militant MAGA clique. But – uh-oh – in February, he arrogantly went too low, demanding over $3 million from the legislature to settle a whistleblower case against him. Suddenly, even fellow Republicans were spooked into probing the misdeeds. The lead investigator, who’d never before expressed concern about the AG’s flagrant violations of the public trust, declared that spending state money for Paxton’s criminality was just too much to swallow. “It curls my mustache,” he exclaimed, as he made the motion to impeach the scoundrel.
Thus, a new standard was set: Corruption is still fine… but settle on your own dime.
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How It’s Done: Setting Low the Ethical Bar in Politics