Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has called on House Speaker Dade Phelan to resign, accusing the lawmaker of being drunk while overseeing proceedings on the House floor.
“After much consideration, it is with profound disappointment that I call on Speaker Dade Phelan to resign at the end of the legislative session,” Paxton said in a statement posted on Twitter on May 23. “Texans were dismayed to witness his performance presiding over the Texas House in an apparent debilitating intoxication. His conduct has negatively impacted the legislative process and constitutes a failure to live up to his duty to the public.”
Phelan, a Republican lawmaker from Beaumont, Texas, appeared to slur his words while speaking on the House floor on May 19 in videos that are circulating online. Videos of the May 19 sessions can also be viewed on the Texas House of Representatives website.
Phelan’s behavior appeared normal during most of the two-part session that lasted approximately 14 hours. None of the other lawmakers appeared to question his conduct in the second video. The lawmaker is the 76th Speaker of the Texas House and is serving his fourth term as a state representative.
The speaker’s office said Paxton’s call for Phelan’s resignation was motivated by the House Ethics Committee’s investigation of a $3.3 million whistleblower settlement the attorney general reached with four former employees who accused him of corruption.
“The House has been conducting an investigation related to your request for $3.3 million dollars of public money to pay a settlement resolving litigation between your agency and terminated whistleblowers,” reads the letter from the Committee to Paxton.
The letter is dated May 23.
“The committee’s inquiry has reached the stage where they have directed the issuance of a preservation letter to you and your agency,” the letter said.
Revelation of the committee’s letter came hours after Paxton’s call for Phelan’s resignation.
“This afternoon, the Texas House General Investigating Committee directed the issuance of a preservation letter to the Office of the Attorney General, the state agency that is the subject of ‘Matter A,’ to ensure that all evidence relevant to the committee’s inquiry is not destroyed or concealed,” Cait Wittman, spokesperson for Phelan, told The Epoch Times in a statement.
The letter orders the attorney general to preserve and retain all documents, electronic or magnetic data, and any other items related to the case.
“The failure to preserve and retain this information may constitute spoilation of evidence and subject you to legal claims for damages or monetary sanctions,” the letter continued.
Wittman said Paxton’s statement about Phelan “amounts to little more than a last-ditch effort to save face.”
Wittman’s statement did not confirm nor deny Paxton’s accusations regarding Phelan’s behavior on the House floor on May 19.
A mass text of the video of Phelan from the May 19 floor session was sent to journalists by an unidentified advocacy group, according to KXAN-TV.
Paxton pointed to the failure of Senate Bill 147, which the Senate passed in late April. If adopted in the House, the bill would have banned the purchase of Texas farmland, timberland, and oil and gas rights by entities with ties to China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
“Texans were relying on the House to pass critical conservative priorities including protecting the integrity of our elections and preventing Chinese spies from controlling Texas land,” Paxton said in his statement about Phelan.
The bill was authored by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst.
“Texas is rich in its natural resources and is home to invaluable strategic military bases and installations. With SB 147, we can protect our Texas food supply and energy resources as well,” Kolkhorst wrote.
The bill had undergone several revisions but failed to pass out of the House committee over the weekend, essentially killing it for the regular legislative session, which ends on May 26.
A few minutes after Paxton posted the statement calling for Phelan’s resignation, he shared on Twitter a screenshot of a letter he sent to Republican Rep. Andrew Murr, chair of the General Investigating Committee.
“Based on a review of Speaker Dade Phelan presiding over the House of Representatives in an obviously intoxicated state, I am calling upon the Committee to open an investigation into Speaker Phelan for violation of House rules, state law, and for conduct unbecoming his position,” the letter said.
Earlier in May, Republican Rep. Bryan Slaton resigned following an investigation by the committee into allegations that the lawmaker, 45, had supplied alcohol to a 19-year-old aide and had sexual relations with her at his Austin apartment.
The committee of three Republicans and two Democrats found that Slaton, a married father and former youth minister, had violated multiple rules through an inappropriate relationship with the woman, according to the May 6 report (pdf).
