The Texas Senate did the right thing. They acquitted Ken Paxton.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to the Luke Macias show. The Texas senate did what conservatives have kind of at this point starting to get accustomed to the right thing, they acquitted Ken Paxton, and if they had moved forward and actually prosecuted him, impeached him and convicted him even after there was absolutely no evidence given by the Texas House of Representatives that would have set probably one of the most dangerous precedents we have witnessed in Texas politics since my time in 2006, the Texas House since then Dade Phelan. Andrew Murr, Jared Patterson, have literally now grown to an even bigger conspiracy.
Now the entire place is corrupt, the whole Senate is corrupt Dan Patrick’s corrupt, Ken Paxton is corrupt. Even Greg Abbott, who’s coming out and saying this was a fair trial there against Greg Abbott saying it was a fair trial. They’re saying this was the most unfair cooked process, nevermind the fact that they didn’t produce any actual evidence.
And they’re actually not only pushing all of them out, they’re even embracing the Democrats who they have a unit party government run system in the Texas House with and I’m gonna reveal that to you today even show you where they’re doing it. Also, by the way, I’m gonna talk about why God is good. It’s something I’ve heard a lot the last couple days. But in the context, it’s used as a little bit of a pet peeve of mine.
And so I don’t like the way it’s used in this context. So we’re going to talk about that. And then also, I’m going to bring to you a speech if you have not heard Dan, Patrick’s speech that he gave, after the conclusion of this trial, you have to it’s probably one of the most historically important speeches in Texas government history, it could change the course of our state. And we’re going to break that down for you today. Let’s get to the show.
Saturday morning, it was 9:30am. And all of a sudden, the news broke, the Texas Senate would be getting together at 10:30 and casting their votes on impeachment. Every single senator had their mind made up, it’s time to vote. It was honestly a weird thing when the case concluded, because it I’ve done a lot of campaigns in the past and the camp, the polls closed at 7pm. And so there’s this feeling you get at 7:01pm that I’ve done everything I can do. And now the elections over.
And this is like the opposite of that. It’s like the closing arguments are made. And then you’re waiting for everyone to cast their vote. So you’re in this limbo where you go, I’m pretty sure everybody knows what they’re going to do one way or the other. But also you don’t really know if people are changing their mind.
Senator Phil King actually came out and said that he didn’t really feel like many minds were changed during deliberations that the Senate walked into deliberations once the closing was made, knowing that the house just didn’t actually produce evidence was all circumstantial evidence that they provided he just said that an hour or two ago, I’ll Mark Davis to show as I’m recording this. So we’re all sitting there 9:30. They’re going to come in at 10:30. And then we show up at 1030. And we realize oh, they’re going to delay to 11:10, which is fine.
11:10 rolls around and the senators come out and they start voting article by article by article. And in almost every single instance they voted 16 against 14 for with two Republican senator Kelly Hancock of Tarrant County and Senator Robert Nichols of the Southeast Texas region, both voting to convict Paxton and all of the other Republican senators voting against it.
They needed 21 votes to convict them. And they didn’t ever get there. They needed 20 votes, I guess they didn’t ever get there. They came 14. Six away. One of the articles only had two Democrats that voted for it. That’s how bad that article was.
And by the way, the Texas House of Representatives each and every member got to vote on every article. And they actually clicked made that clear. If you disagree with any of these articles, you can come in and vote against that article specifically. The only state representative I know that did that was David Cook of Mansfield. He voted to impeach Ken Paxton, which was wrong. And then he went in and voted no against like two articles that he said after looking at it he didn’t think were right. It’d be interesting to know where David Cook stands today.
Would he now admit that he shouldn’t have voted on any of the articles? Most of the state representatives right now are being silent. Jared Patterson, Andrew Murr and Dade Phelan have all come out and basically double down. They’ve come out and said Now the Senate is corrupt. Ken Paxton is corrupt. Greg out came out and said the Senate held a fair trial. Attorney General Ken Paxton did a great job as Attorney General he will continue to do a good job as attorney general and I will work with him. That is the opposite of what Dade said. Now, while those three members of House leadership are doubling down, most Republicans are staying quiet, except for Steve Toth. Brian Harrison, Tony Tinderholt, they’ve all come out and asked for David feeling to resign over this.
Here’s what you need to know, Dade Phelan cut his members up more than any member in the Texas House history. So again, if you don’t understand what that term is, that’s a specific term that’s used in the legislature. So when a conservative member, Jonathan Stickland, when he was in the legislature, Matt Renaldi, Tony Tinder, Holt, these various members, when they go to the floor, and they fight for conservative policy, that fight usually entails some type of attempt to put conservative policy into law, which usually requires a vote on the record, which means that now these members have to take a position. And here’s something you often hear, I’ll tell you a little story, there was this property tax reform. And that when the property tax reform was going through, I think this is two sessions ago. We looked at it and it looked like the way it was done, which by the way, this is the way it was done.
There’s this de minimis number, and this de minimis number made it to where a really small city was about to go from like an 8% cap to in some instances, like a 50% cap. Because they basically said, well, well, a fire truck costs x amount of dollars. So you can always raise your property taxes to the level of a fire truck. Which meant that if you’re a really small city, instead of this cap that they were putting in, making it to where it was harder for you to raise taxes on your citizens, for small cities, it was going to make it easier for them to raise property taxes on their citizens moving forward.
And so I’m reading this and I guys, I didn’t graduate college, okay, but I’m reading this law. And I’m doing some basic math and saying, I’m pretty sure this is really bad for property owners in small cities. And so I go to some members of the legislature and ask them, Is this what you’re reading?
And they’re like, Yeah, I think you’re right. But I don’t know. Because we didn’t, we didn’t read this bill either. And so they go to one of the members of Ways and Means who’s no longer in the legislature, representative, Scott Sanford.
And he comes out from the floor, and we just look at this and go, is this what this is? This is what we’re reading? And he’s like, yeah, that that is that is correct. It’s like, man, that’s bad. And here’s the first thing he said, Guys, please don’t cut up the members today. What did he mean by that?
Well, what he meant by that was that if you were to say this is going to hurt citizens in my district, I’m going to offer an amendment to change this language, that other representatives would have to vote. And then they would have to vote on whether they were going to side with their constituents in small cities, or whether they were going to harm those constituents. But this was already a bill that was kind of put together and everybody agreed to it. So it doesn’t matter if most of the members don’t know that this is going to hurt their small cities. Don’t cut up the members today.
The implication is that when you force members to vote, in a way where they’re forced to choose between the Austin swamp and their voters, you’re cutting them up. Okay? I don’t believe in this terminology, but we’re going to borrow it today from the Austin swamp creatures because this is what they say all the time. That all these conservative lawmakers when they fight the fights that we bring to you and highlight here on this show, when they take those battles to the floor.
They are cutting up the members according to House leadership.
Here’s the problem now. Dade Phelan cut up the members more than any other legislator let alone speaker in modern history, Joe Straus never would have done this Dennis Bonnen never would have done this. And I’m not a fan of either of those gentlemen. I said Dennis bottom should resign and get out of office, which he did. Forcibly he didn’t do so willingly. Joe Straus was a horrific speaker.
If you haven’t watched the Texas high school, watch the Texas ice and you’ll know all the reasons why we think Joe Straus was a horrible speaker. But they never would have done this. They never would have told their members Hey, we’re going to make you take a vote that is completely against the will of what your voters sent you here to do. We’re gonna make you unelect the Attorney General they just elected and we’re going to make it happen off of accusations that they’ve all heard and it’s going to be great.
And if you don’t do it, you’re going to lose your committee assignments, your bills are going to die. You’re not invited to the cocktail parties are not your you don’t get to go with the cool kids out to drinks. Now, vote, a couple dozen said even at that level, they were not on board. But quite a few members who did not support the impeachment, voted for it anyways, because of those threats. They were cut up.
They were forced to vote against their own constituents. That’s what Dade Phelan and did. Then he doubled down. I want to go to this clip of Andrew Murray. And and Johnson immediately following Paxton, his acquittal, because I think it is, it’s just a perfect window into how the Texas Opera House operates. Let’s go.
“Chairman Murr, what would you have done differently? I would not do anything differently. The house acted pursuant to its rules, statutes, and the constitution. We prevent it we we presented a case over two weeks, with 1000s of pages of exhibits and a compressed timeframe. And we met our burden of proof. But I’m not part of the jury that makes the final decision. And that was up to the Texas Senate pursuant to the Constitution. Hold on, for the House members, especially Republicans and yourself. Some questions. I’m incredibly proud. And the people of Texas should be incredibly proud that the Texas House in an overwhelming bipartisan manner, said the public trust was more important than politics. And the lieutenant governor did signal to us weeks ago that this was not going to be a civil or a criminal trial but a political trial. And it surely was. Those that voted to acquit were wholeheartedly Republican. The House took a stand on the evidence that was to be presented. Our lawyers, the Board of Managers presented overwhelming evidence that Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in the state of Texas at this time. And the Republicans in the Texas Senate just returned him to the office of top cop. I will rely on what I said on the floor of the Texas Health house. God help us.
Okay, guys, so Dade Phelan almost immediately following this put out another screed emotionally driven screed the basically called the whole Senate, a rigged the whole vote a rigged process. And now I mean, they’re just getting it. It is the actual conspiracy theory. It is it’s just sad to watch the spiral downward.
Here’s what I want to bring to light in this clip, though. So the clip starts with them saying, hey, representative Murr would you do anything differently? Now, here’s the thing. Just an ounce of reality would have to lead you to the point of saying, I would have asked for more time in preparation, I would have done this. But the problem is that Chairman Murr, his argument is we did a great job arguing our case and the Senate was wrong. And it’s just absurd.
There are people I know, personally in Texas politics that wanted Ken Paxton to be impeached, that do not support Ken Paxton, politically, and actually believe the accusations against him. We disagree. But these are people that I agree with in other areas of Texas politics, and those same individuals have told me in the last week.
Yeah, this was a horrible case. The prosecution’s own witnesses were undermining their own case. This is how bad it was. People who have told me I don’t like Ken Paxton, I don’t want him to be in Texas politics have also told me I could not vote to convict him. If I was a juror and Andrew Murr is there going, I would not do anything differently.
Is that really what he’s going to tell all the Republican members in the Texas House would they just made walk this plank? Let’s do it again. That’s absurd. Then they asked him, Hey, what are the political implications or consequences to Republicans who took this vote with you? Instead of Being a Republican leader and saying this is why we did it. He literally looks to the radical Democrat to his left. And Johnson is literally the most if not one of the two or three most radical Democrats in the Texas House.
She is a far left radical Democrat from Houston. He looks at her and goes, you want to answer questions? This is the Texas House. This is how they operate. Hey, what are the what are the political ramifications to Republicans? Well, I don’t know. You want to answer that question? You want the Liberal Democrat to answer that question? This is the world they live in, she takes over. And she goes off on this other tirade, we did a great job.
They just returned the most corrupt politician in Texas to the Attorney General’s Office. Welcome to the Texas House, they seem to be doubling down on the broken system that they all exist in. Everyone doesn’t have to do it. There are a lot of conversations happening today, between people who supported the impeachment process that are now looking at it going, we probably need to change the way we’re doing business in the Texas House.
And it has to change. Democrats need to stop being given massive amounts of control in the Texas House. It’s why the Texas Hiest drew such a clear picture of this. Democrats are handed massive amounts of power.
And then literally the House leaders operate as if the decisions they make are made between the select group of 10, 12, 20 of them, and the select group of five or 10 of the top Democrats. That’s how its run. And then the Democrats are given effective control over entire sections of policy. And without them being hook line and sinker. With Dade on a lot of stuff, they can’t get it done.
He could have never impeached Ken Paxton, without the Democrats being in lockstep from day one, he needs them to advance his agenda. And in order for them the trade, the great trade that’s made between him and the Democrats is that I’m going to give you decision making authority and power over these areas. If you give me your loyalty to affect my agenda as well. That’s the way it operates.
It’s incredibly damaging for Texas. We’re going to close the show by just going to a clip of Dan Patrick speech, which he concluded at the end, I will just say the Dan Patrick was incredibly fair throughout the entirety of this trial. During that I was on the Twitter space last night with Mitch Liddell, who was one of Paxton’s attorneys and he talked about how they had witnesses lined up who were going to come in, and they were going to testify on impeachment and how historically I would just say like historically fraught the house case was based on historic impeachments that have been upheld, okay, they’re gonna make an argument to say, these are historians and experts on impeachment to tell you why you just don’t have any evidence to impeach. And Dan Patrick ruled against those witnesses said you can’t bring those witnesses.
And he had a reason for doing that. And explained it. Mitch Liddell explained this, and we disagreed. But you know, the lieutenant governor decided, and we couldn’t bring those witnesses. Dan Patrick handled this case very fairly, he could have come out and just said, this whole thing is a sham, and we’re voting it down. But he said, you know, what the house is made their case, we’re gonna follow the rules. And he did.
And the houses case fell apart when the rules were followed. So Dan Patrick came out after the ruling and said, I do want to make sure that this never happens again. It was incredibly brave. And I think when you hear his speech, you’ll agree that it’s probably one of the more consequential speeches in Texas history regarding state government and politics.
This is in the record, so that 100 years from now, when some other insane speaker decides, hey, I can just impeach a political opponent. his lieutenants can say, Well, we went looked at the record, and that didn’t work real well. 100 years ago. Where do we go from here? Here’s what I want to encourage you with. Most of you are going to be really excited about what happened over the weekend and I can feel the energy. I have gotten dozens of emails just LukeMacias.com Just like emails are pouring in. replies back to my email blasts.
If you go to my twitter at the very top is just a link where you can sign up for my email alerts and I sent out daily alerts during the impeachment trial, we’re gonna go back to once a week moving forward, because I don’t have time. I didn’t sleep for two weeks. But where do we go from here the energy is off the charts. Here’s what I need you to know. This is a battle victory. This is not a victory in the war.
Texans for lawsuit reform just pushed really hard to try to impeach Ken Paxton, they’re sitting on over $30 million, the casino gamblers are going to spend 10s of millions of dollars in this upcoming Republican primary, to try to keep the status quo in the Texas House in power. They would love for it to get more moderate.
That’s what we’re up against. So all of my episodes this year that I’ve talked to you about joining a local conservative club, getting engaged, owning your precinct, making donations to conservative organizations that are in this fight. Every dollar that was spent in the last two weeks had a major impact. We have Democrat senators saying the people of Texas were watching this, and a lot of people were getting them excited about it. And that absolutely had an impact on the Republican senators who cast their votes.
And I believe that I believe it seriously impacted just a handful of them. I think the vast majority of the Republican senators who voted right on this issue voted right, because they knew it was the right thing to do. And because they saw the complete lack of evidence, I think there were a handful of Republican senators who came in at the end because of the efforts of all of you. And I will tell you, that without Texan standing up and making their voice heard, you could have had a situation where even senators who were seeing the lack of evidence started to get shaky, because they’re getting told by all these donors and powerful lobbyists, you have to do this.
But they were willing to say no. And they knew you had their back. But you have to now channel that into more activism, more work, more organization, more support, more effort. You have to be more engaged in the campaign process than you’ve ever been. You have to go get more engaged at a local level with Republican groups. I got an email from a guy who heard me on Steve Bannon’s war room. And if you go to my YouTube channel, you can watch the conversation I had with Steve. And Lauren Davis, who’s running for Dallas County GOP chair, literally like the the Senate ended, and we were live. I mean, I was watching the last vote take place and then went live with Steve and we talked for 45 minutes.
So it’s like the most raw reaction you’ll get. I had no time to prepare anything. It’s just well, the votes happened now what do we think about it? I had a guy reach out to me through that show, through my website. And he’s like, I didn’t even follow Texas politics until this. I don’t even know we had a Texas house that was corrupt. I don’t understand what kind of alliances are going on. I sent him a link to the Texas heist. He said I’m watching it tomorrow. Then he emails me and he goes, Hey, I need to get involved.
This guy lives in Palo Pinto County, Palo Pinto County voted 75% for Glenn Rodgers, who was one of the most liberal Republicans in the Texas House. I said are you involved at all locally? Nope. Do you know any of the conservatives in your community? Nope. Have you ever gone to a local meeting? Nope. Have you ever supported a state candidate? Nope. Great.
See, these are the type of people that want to get engaged. And if you are somebody who’s already most of our listeners are already doing this stuff. You’re already going to local Republican clubs, you’ve got a conservative organization, you’re helping the right candidates in your area. You’re listening to the Luke Macias show once a week, what a patriotic thing to do. But realize that there are a ton of Texans whose eyes are just now being opened. So it is on you and me to make sure that they do something that they get engaged.
Those are the next steps that have to take place. If your state representative voted to impeach Ken Paxton, you need to give them an opportunity to say they were wrong and to do it publicly. Give them an opportunity. Don’t say you’re dead to me. Go to them and say ask them to put out a statement that says the Senate made the right decision. The house was wrong. The house should never impeach like this again. See if they’ll do it.
If not, you need to look for people to run against him. If there’s somebody who is running against him, you need to vet them. If they seem strong, you need to support them. If they don’t seem strong, you need to go find someone else to run. This is what you should be doing. This is what we have to do.
Last thing I want to say before we go to Dan Patrick speech is that God is good. But I know it’s weird to say but after God is good, okay, that’s weird. But it I’m not saying, but sometimes he’s not good. What I’m saying is, is that I got a ton of emails. I mean, I bet you I got over 100 emails from Texans. The day Ken Paxton was acquitted. And all of them said, God is good. Well, let me I want to make sure I’m using my words accurately and correctly. I got hundreds of emails after the acquittal, I got at least 100 That literally just said, like, God is good, you know, so on and so forth.
And I just want to take a quick step back to remind us all that God is good all the time. At church on Sunday, we have our section called prayers, prayers to the people, and we pray as a congregation to God. And one of the things we pray for every week is our leaders. And we pray for President Joe, Vice President Kamala. Governor Greg, Mayor, Ron. Traditionally, in the Lutheran church you use like the first names of your local elected officials, state officials, senators, Congressman, Congressman Chip. Senator Ted.
It’s, it’s just a little bit of a reminder that these are just men. They’re just men. The same first name as a bunch of other people, Joe, you know, a lot of Joe’s, we have a president, his name is Joe. Compared to the creator of the universe, the God that is good all the time. He’s just Joe doesn’t, doesn’t hold a lot more weight than you or me. So God is good all the time. And that’s really important for us to remember and understand.
So this Sunday. Ah, a name was mentioned that doesn’t normally get mentioned, which is our attorney general. We don’t usually lift up the Attorney General on a weekly basis, probably just because there’s a lot of things we pray for. Usually like President, Vice President, Governor, Governor, Mayor, it’s kind of the standard, throw some other names in there, the Attorney General was mentioned.
But the truth is, we should pray for our Attorney General, regardless of whether it’s Ken Paxton or somebody who’s replacing Ken Paxton, because he got convicted. God is good all the time. That same God that is good all the time has also I think, called many of us to engage in the political process. He has also set forth the things that are good and right and true. And just. And we are called to stand for those things specifically, in the actions we take, and the things we say in the positions we hold.
But it is so much easier to say God is good. When the thing we want to happen, happens. It’s so much harder to say that God is good. And the other circumstances. But the trials that we go through and the things that happen, that pull us away, the things that discourage us, the battles we lose, should actually draw us closer to God, not further away. His promise, and the fact that he’s never broken His promises to us, or something we can run to. And I know that not everyone who follows this show is a Christian. But I believe that God is good. And that is his promise to you today. It’s his promise to me. It’s never broken his promise. And it’s true every day, regardless of the results of any impeachment trial. I think you all will enjoy the speech the Dan Patrick gave I hope you do. And I hope you take it away. I hope you hear it and then do something about it. May God bless you. And may God bless the great state of Texas.
“Members just a few minutes have comments that five minutes I’ve been unusually quiet for the last three months since the House of Representatives sent the articles of impeachment against Attorney General to us on very short notice, in the final hours of the regular legislative session, the law requires the Senate to receive the articles and have a trial. And once I realized I would be the presiding officer and judge, I thought it was my duty to be quiet on this issue. Otherwise, how could I oversee a fair trial? I’ve done my very best to do so the last three months, especially the last two weeks. Now the trial is over. I want to take a few minutes before we close to put a few remarks in the court record for future legislators to read in the event of another impeachment one day, or both. What the House and Senate did, Senators. First I want to once again thank you for doing your work. You all were thorough, you are thoughtful. You are professional. I watched all of you each day. listen intently to every word that was said by every witness. Many of you took notes nonstop. I want to thank the Rules Committee, Senator Birdwell the chair, I want to thank the rules committee for their tireless work. Senator Hoffman, Senator West, Senator Hanna HOSA, Senator Creighton, Senator King, Senator Flores, you work many hours for the last three months. You wrote 31 rules that were approved by the Senate 25 to three. And those senators when you brought them to them, they made adjustments and suggestions to those rules. As you know, it was a collaborative effort from all members. All of us studied past impeachments from all across the country to learn from the mistakes of past impeachments. So we wouldn’t make the same errors. Now, the 31 rules weren’t perfect. But you can be proud of the rules you passed. They were our guide. For these last 90 days or so. And through this process, I want to mention one rule that really stands out to me for future legislators, I believe to follow. And that was putting a reasonable time clock on both parties to present their case. Otherwise, this trial could have lasted, as some others have for months, or at least four or five weeks. Both sides were in agreement immediately on the time clock and how it should be allocated. And I appreciate both parties, for your cooperation not only on that, and much of that was actually part of your suggestion as well. But on every rule. I said to both parties when we met here a week before the trial to do a walkthrough, that we wanted to have a fair trial and protect the integrity of the body integrity of this great chamber. And each of you fulfilled that. I was proud of both of you, how you conduct yourselves on the court. I feel it’s important to set the full record straight on this trial. Because I want people in the future to have a full picture of what happened. And how did we get here. I spent most of the last 90 days as many of you have preparing for this trial, I’ve issued over 240 subpoenas. I’ve studied numerous motions, written multiple orders, read hundreds of pages of history, rules, documents, and worked on every detail of this trial with you. And with our incredible secretary of the Senate, the clerk of the court, who turned this chamber into a courtroom and her great staff. I have had a total view of this process from the very first day, the House sent over the Articles of Impeachment to us in May. With all due respect to the house. We didn’t need to be told in the final arguments how important this vote was. I believe the quote was this will if you’re like me be the hardest, the most difficult the heaviest vote that you will ever cast in your time in the legislature. This vote will be the vote you’re remembered for most. Our members already knew that. And have known that for the last three months. If only the House members who voted for impeachment would have followed that instruction in the house. We may not have been here in the House to vote to send the articles of impeachment against the Attorney General to the Senate happened in only a few days, with virtually no time for 150 members to even study the articles. The speaker and his team rammed through the first impeachment of the statewide official in Texas with over 100 years, while paying no attention to the precedent that the House Senate and every other impeachment before. In the past. The house had transparent and open investigations for all to see, including other House members The target of the investigation was notified and invited to attend with counsel and given an opportunity to cross examine witnesses that were placed under oath before testimony was taken. At the conclusion of past house investigations, the evidence was laid out for weeks for House members to evaluate, not hours before they took their vote on articles of impeachment. Representative John Smithee a longtime House member, who has argued cases before the Texas Supreme Court spoke on the House floor during impeachment vote in May. He was one of only 23 who voted against impeachment. Representative Smith, he said the house could not legitimately impeach general Paxton on the record because there was no record to send to the Senate. He said the house was not following the rule of wall. He said the house approach and I quote, Representative Smithy. Hang on now and judge them later confirming this representative Moreau, the chair of the House investigating committee settled on the House floor. The house is not the body that does the fact finding. The fact finding occurs in the Senate and the oath for any witnesses would occur there. Well, that’s just not true. As Representative Smith he said that’s exactly what they did in 1970. He said the last house impeachment of a statewide official in 1917 was governor Ferguson. John Smithee said it was conducted like a full trial before the house, sent it to the Senate. Witnesses were put under oath and cross examined by the defendant. He said this time no house witnesses were put under oath and the defendant was denied the right to cross examined Representative Smith, he told his fellow members the house process was in defensible. Representative Smith. He said the House did not follow the rules of evidence and our case was based on Triple hearsay, that would never be allowed in court. I think representative Smithies speech was one of the most honest and courageous speeches I’ve ever heard other in the house. And if you want to watch it online, go to YouTube. Look up John Smithy. That’s es mi T H. E. His for speech on the passionate impeachment. It’s an amazing, courageous speech to give when he knew he was only one of 23 Not voting for impeachment. In the next regular session, we should amend the Constitution on the issue of impeachment as currently written that allow this flawed process to happen. Any testimony given an A house impeachment investigation must be given under oath and the target of that impeachment must be allowed to present with a lawyer to cross examine the witnesses. Otherwise people can say anything they want without any accountability, or need to be truthful because there is no threat of perjury. The house must also give members a minimum of two weeks to review all evidence given under oath before voting on such a serious matter. Had they done those two things. This trial may never have happened. And when the House sends Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, if they do in the future, the official should not be put on unpaid leave through the process. The federal system does not allow that. Why do we allow that in Texas, President Clinton and President Trump did not have to step down from the Oval Office from their duties during their impeachment process. And members, this is not a partisan issue. We owe it to future legislators to make these changes so that no future official impeached by the House whether Republican, Democrat or Independent, is subject to the way this impeachment process occurred in the house this year. millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this impeachment. 31 senators and a large Senate staff that made this trial possible have put their family life their jobs or businesses on hold for the last three months after already being here from January to June. I’m going to call next week for a full audit of all taxpayer money spent by the house from the beginning of their investigation in March to their final bills they get from the lawyers. We will provide our cost as well that were forced on us by the House impeachment. One big difference. We didn’t pay a huge team of outside lawyers and investigators. We did it mostly with our own staff, working endless hours, with no extra pay. As Representative Smith, he said this is not the way it has happened in the past on the house. That’s why I believe we’ve only had two prior impeachments. Our founders expected better. It should have never happened this year. And hopefully it doesn’t again, unless we address this in the Constitution. And finally members, that God continue to bless the greatest place God ever created on Earth. The place we call Texas, we are the envy of the world. We are the America that all America used to be. And that’s why people move here from every state of the union by the hundreds of 1000s. Every year. Members each of you took an oath on the Sam Houston Bible on the first day of this trial. And I know no matter how you go voted, you looked up to that oath, and how you saw the evidence. I thank you again for the professionalism you demonstrated every day for the last three months. I’m honored, and I’m proud to serve with you as lieutenant governor. Members, a judgment of acquittal, or dismissal and all around because impeachment satisfies satisfies Texas Constitution Article 15, Section five, I will now sign the final judgment. This judgment will be filed with the secretary of state and Attorney General Warren Kenneth faction, Jr. is hereby at this moment reinstated to Office. The president’s desk is clear, and there is no pending business before the Senate. I’m now going to recognize the dean for a highly privileged motion. The next thing I will do is have the jury retire. So lawyers and house managers everyone stay in your seats for the the members of the jury. Leave Senator wittmeyer. Thank you, Mr. President. I move that the court of impeachment is hereby dissolved and we adjourned study dot pending submission of the final judgment to the Secretary of State. Is there any objection? Hearing none. This concludes the proceedings. The Court of impeachment is hereby dissolved. And we are adjourned Sine die pending submission of the final judgment to the Secretary of State. Thank you members.”
Thank you for listening to the Luke Macias show. To find out more information about what’s going on here in Texas, visit Texas scorecard.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
