Tea Party Group Empower Texans Heads To Court To Stop Critics Of Their Misleading Election Mailer

This week in Texas politics with the Texas Tribune.

By Alexandra HartMarch 16, 2018 12:08 pm, , ,

Time for the week that was in Texas politics with Emily Ramshaw, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune.

The Tea Party group Empower Texans has filed a suit to stop criminal investigations against them stemming from a misleading mailer Empower Texans sent out about Fort Worth State Rep. Charlie Geren in the GOP primary.

“This mailer that was sent out basically uses the term ‘Texas Ethics Disclosure Board’ in an effort to sort of attack Geren and make people think he was in hot water with an actual government agency,” Ramshaw says. “The problem is the ‘Texas Ethics Disclosure Board’ doesn’t really exist.”

According to another top headline this week, Gov. Greg Abbott reportedly wanted the controversial SB 6 – the so-called “bathroom bill” – to fail.

Byron Cook, who’s a top lieutenant of Joe Straus, basically came out and said ‘you know what? I know firsthand that Governor Abbott never even wanted this bill to get to his desk,’” Ramshaw says. “The governor has not weighed in on this in particular, and what the governor’s staff has basically said is that his actions speak for itself.”

This week we also learned the news that Rex Tillerson is out as secretary of state.

“He and Trump have had an icy relationship for awhile,” she says. “A lot of folks have been waiting and waiting for this to happen.”

Listen to the full interview in the audio player above.