Record in office: the 2023 impeachment and trial
What they say
His campaign biography says the political establishment has repeatedly tried to silence him and that he never yielded to it; his issues page puts the same claim as a politically motivated investigation of him and of President Trump.
“He’s never bent a knee — not against the Biden administration, not against corporate overreach, and certainly not against the corrupt political establishment that’s tried to silence him time and time again.”
What the record shows ·
Both chambers acted on him in 2023 and both were Republican-held. On May 27, 2023 the Texas House adopted H.R. 2377, impeaching him and preferring 20 articles, by 121 yeas to 23 nays with 2 present and not voting (Record 2191); the Journal accounts for 149 members, 85 Republicans and 64 Democrats, and of the 121 yeas 60 were Republicans and 61 Democrats, while all 23 nays were Republicans. He was then out of the office: the attorney general's own opinion index records John Scott serving as provisional attorney general from May 31 to July 14, 2023 and Angela Colmenero from July 14 to September 16, 2023, in each case "Pursuant to article 15, section 5 of the Texas Constitution". The Senate tried 16 of the 20 articles and acquitted on every one on September 16, 2023. The presiding officer stated on the record that conviction on a single article would remove him and that the threshold was 21 votes; no article drew more than 14. The Senate then had 31 members, 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats, and 30 votes were recorded on each article; Senator Angela Paxton, the respondent's wife, is not among the members whose votes the record carries. On each of the twelve articles that drew 14 yeas those yeas were the chamber's 12 Democrats and 2 Republicans and all 16 nays were Republicans; Article IV drew 2 yeas to 28 nays, Article VIII 8 to 22, Article IX 12 to 18 and Article V 13 to 17. The four articles held in abeyance, XI to XIV, were dismissed 19 to 11 on Senator Birdwell's motion, and the judgment records that "A dismissal of these articles of impeachment does not constitute an acquittal of any charge contained in the articles of impeachment". The judgment reinstated him the same day and he holds the office now.
Limit: What the record bears out is the checkable part of the sentence: formal proceedings were brought against him, they kept him out of the office for the 108 days between May 31 and September 16, 2023, he contested them rather than resigning, and they ended in acquittal on every article tried. The record calls that a suspension, not a removal, and this desk uses the same word on both cards that touch it. What no record can settle is the rest of the sentence, whether the proceedings were corrupt or were an attempt to silence him. That is a claim about motive and this site does not assess motive, in either direction. Two things are stated here so the record is not read as an argument: the chamber that brought the articles and the chamber that acquitted were both Republican-held, and the party split of each vote is given above. The dismissal of the four remaining articles is carried in the words of the judgment because the judgment itself says a dismissal is not an acquittal. This desk read the trial rules only as the record of proceedings quotes them, and did not read the articles' underlying allegations or any evidence.