Austin, Texas June 24, 2016
News Release from Governor Abbott’s Office
Abbott’s Strategy In Texas: 44 Lawsuits, One Opponent: Obama Administration
By Dan Frosch and Jacob Gershman
Wall Street Journal
DALLAS—When a deadlocked Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Barack Obama’s plan to give millions of illegal immigrants a temporary reprieve from deportation, it marked a pivotal victory for the administration’s most relentless legal adversary: the state of Texas.
The president “is not a king who can unilaterally change and write immigration laws,” responded Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose myriad lawsuits against the Obama administration, including the state’s lead role in the immigration case, have been a trademark of his political career.
During Mr. Abbott’s first term as governor, and while he was state attorney general before that, Texas has challenged the president’s signature issues in court—tougher carbon-emission standards, health-care reform, transgender rights and others.
Texas has sued the Obama administration at least 44 times since the president took office—more than any other state over the same period. …
Amid congressional gridlock, arguably the most consequential power struggles are no longer fights between executive and legislative branches—but legal battles between states and the federal government. …
For Mr. Abbott, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, the effort has helped burnish his conservative credentials in a state where the Tea Party holds considerable clout. The suits, along with a recent book tour promoting his personal story, have also bolstered Mr. Abbott’s role in captaining a red-state revolt against the White House. …
Mr. Abbott was 26 when he went out for a jog one day in Houston. A towering oak tree, its trunk cracked, crashed down as he ran past, striking the recent law graduate and crushing his spine.
The freak accident left him hospitalized for months, and has since helped define Mr. Abbott’s life and political ascent: from Vanderbilt University-educated lawyer to state district judge, to his appointment by George W. Bush to the Texas Supreme Court in 1995, where he served before being elected attorney general three times. …
The lawsuits often find Texas at the helm of multistate efforts. Republican attorneys general joined forces as litigants, or by filing friend-of-the court briefs, just five times during the Clinton administration, according to a Marquette University study of partisan litigation by political scientist Paul Nolette. In the first seven years of the Obama administration, that number soared to 97.
Most of the cases filed by Mr. Abbott and his Republican successor as attorney general, Ken Paxton, have turned on a broad theme of federalism: that the Obama administration has encroached on Texas’ right to manage its own affairs. …
In February, Texas scored another major victory when the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s marquee climate policy, halting enforcement of rules limiting carbon emissions from existing power plants. …
Thus far, Mr. Abbott has won every election he’s run, including a 20-point victory in 2014 over Democratic state legislator Wendy Davis. …
When asked about his future political plans, Mr. Abbott said he’s learned to take things one political step—and lawsuit—at a time.
“You never know when a tree is going to fall on you,” he said.
