UTAH (ABC4) – Two more Texas politicians are receiving backlash for leaving the state amid the historic winter freeze.
The Texas Tribune say Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and his wife, state Senator Angela Paxton traveled to Utah to meet with Attorney General Sean Reyes.
According to The Texas Tribune, AG Paxton’s campaign says his trip to Utah to meet with AG Reyes was “previously planned” so they could discuss multiple topics, including the multistate lawsuit against Google that accuses it of anticompetitive conduct in advertising.
The Texas Tribune reports that Paxton and Reyes met in Salt Lake City on Wednesday and Friday and attended a demonstration of Utah’s law enforcement deescalation training scenario simulator in Murray.
This is not the first time Paxton and Reyes have worked together – both were part of a multistate election lawsuit that challenged the results in Pennsylvania and other states former President Donald Trump lost in the 2020 election. A new Utah bill aims to limit its Attorney General’s power over election lawsuits like this.
In a statement from his campaign, Paxton reportedly did lose power, like many other Texans, but did not leave until power returned to most of the state, including his own home.
The backlash against the Paxton’s trip to Utah comes as another Texas lawmaker – Republican Senator Ted Cruz – was found to have taken a family trip to Cancun.
After his travels were first reported as hundreds of thousands of Texans remained without power or safe drinking water, the 50-year-old Republican lawmaker prepared to board a flight home while his Senate office issued a statement saying he was continuing to work for his constituents.
Upon his arrival back in Texas, Sen. Cruz called his decision to travel while Texans faced a deadly winter storm “obviously a mistake.”
“A lot of Texans are hurting and this crisis is frustrating. It’s frustrating for millions of Texans. It shouldn’t happen,” he said.
