The Texas Senate on Tuesday rejected all of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to dismiss the articles of impeachment against him, moving forward with the first removal proceeding against a statewide elected official in more than a century.
The pretrial motions required a majority vote. The most support a motion to dismiss received was 10 out of 30 senators.
I think it’s simpler.
As things are in Texas right now, anyone he is replaced with will be a conservative republican. There is zero political risk to republicans in removing him. His only constituency within the party is the furthest right loons… but they tend to abandon “losers” quickly and will happily latch onto the newest far right loon. All while keeping him around does represent a political cost to republicans. That cost has gotten high enough that they’re willing to consider removing him.
They can remove him with no risk to their power and get rid of a headache at the same time.