Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, warned Saturday that America is one election cycle away from losing the faith and freedom upon which it was built.
Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in Washington, Paxton stated that the only way to safeguard future elections is to eliminate the Senate filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act.
Paxton noted that the country’s founders established America on faith and freedom, a foundation that has endured for 250 years. “If we don’t guard against the left taking it from us,” he said, “we will lose this country, and that foundation will be gone.”
He identified the SAVE America Act as critical, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections. The bill passed the House 218-213 in February but has stalled in the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats and need 60 to overcome a filibuster.
Paxton acknowledged the trade-off of the filibuster, having served in both chambers of the Texas Legislature: “I understand it protects the minority from the majority.” But he argued the cost is higher. “Slowly but surely,” he said, “as we lose a state here or there, the Democrats are progressive. They change the rules, making it difficult for us to hold fair elections.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, has repeatedly stated that there are neither enough votes in the Senate to scrap the filibuster nor 10 Democrats willing to back the SAVE America Act.
Former Governor Cornyn, who lost the May 26 runoff election to Paxton with 63.8% of the vote, dismissed the push as a “fantasy.”
On his general-election race against Democratic nominee James Talarico, Paxton predicted that Talarico cannot win Texas voters because he has been forced to scrub progressive positions he previously championed. “He’s trying to run from those,” Paxton said. “But you know what? It oozes out. He can’t help it.”
Talarico, a former middle school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian, built his campaign message around Paxton’s 2023 impeachment by the Republican-led Texas House on bribery and corruption charges for which Paxton was acquitted.
Paxton tied the urgency to faith: “Strip the country of it,” he said, “then Marxist, totalitarian, socialist type governments thrive. They depend on the government to be the god of the people.”
