CNN by James Moore 6/23/2021
The state of Texas is lawsuit happy.
Almost every time the White House or Congress institutes a law that Texas leadership doesn't like, the state sues Washington, D.C. The suits, which often fail in federal court, are largely a waste of thousands of hours of time by state attorneys general and millions of dollars in taxpayers' money.
Why pursue these losing cases? Because, historically, they are more about politics than the law. Texas politicians have mastered the art of weaponizing the court system against their political opponents, and in doing so turning out large numbers of their conservative base on Election Day.
Two high-profile failures prove the political motivations of Texas' leading conservatives. The state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, recently led 18 Republican-controlled states in a lawsuit to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as Obamacare. Paxton argued that the ACA was unconstitutional because it forced Americans to buy health care. His claim was that when Congress eliminated the penalty for the individual mandate, the law became legally unsupportable.
The US Supreme Court ruled that Texas lacked standing to sue because it could show no harm caused by the law. Even though the majority conservative high court now has rejected three suits against the ACA, Paxton's office says he has "only just begun" his legal battle and that he will not quit because the "ACA was sold on a lie."
More:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/opinions/texas-republicans-lawsuit-happy-moore/index.html
