Attorney General Ken Paxton said Thursday he would consider dropping out of the U.S. Senate race if Senate GOP leaders agreed to abolish the filibuster and pass a priority piece of legislation for President Donald Trump.
Paxton made the statement in a social media post that also criticized his opponent in Texas’ Senate Republican primary, incumbent John Cornyn, for being against scrapping the filibuster to pass the bill, known as the SAVE America Act. It would require people to provide proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — when they register to vote and present photo identification at the polls, among other new election-related rules.
Cornyn is a supporter of the legislation, though he and other Senate Republicans have long bristled at talk of abolishing the filibuster, a parliamentary tool that, in practice, requires support from 60 senators in the 100-member chamber to bring a bill up for a vote. CNN reported last month that Cornyn would not say whether he backed ending the filibuster to pass the proposal, which the Senate’s 53 Republicans cannot pass amid unified opposition from Democrats.
