Texas Attorney General

Attorney General of Texas
Incumbent Ken Paxton since January 5, 2015
Style	The Honorable
Term length	Four years, no term limits
Inaugural holder	Volney E. Howard 1846
Formation	Texas Constitution
Website	www.oag.state.tx.us

The Texas Attorney General is the chief legal and law enforcement officer of the State of Texas.

The department has offices at the William P. Clements State Office Building in Downtown Austin.^[1][2]

History

The Office of the Attorney General was first established by executive ordinance of the Republic of Texas government in 1836. The attorneys general of the Republic of Texas and the first four attorneys general under the 1845 state constitution were appointed by the governor. The office was made elective in 1850 by constitutional amendment.

The Attorney General is elected to a four-year term. In 2013, former Attorney General Greg Abbott announced he would not seek reelection and would run for Governor. In November 2014, he was elected as the Governor of Texas. Ken Paxton defeated former House Representative Dan Branch in the Republican primary by a 26% margin and was elected easily in the general election as the 50th Attorney General of Texas,^[3] (there is a historical dispute whether he is the 50th or 51st Attorney General).^[4] Ken Paxton was sworn in on January 5, 2015 in the Senate Chamber in the Texas Capitol. Governor Rick Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, United States Senator Ted Cruz, Lieutenant Governor-Elect Dan Patrick and Supreme Court Justice Don Willett all participated in the swearing-in ceremony.^[5]

Duties and responsibilities

The Attorney General is charged by the state constitution to defend the laws and constitution of Texas, represent the state in litigation, and approve public bond issues. There are nearly 2,000 references to the Office of the Attorney General in state laws.

To fulfill these responsibilities, the Office of the Attorney General serves as legal counsel to all boards and agencies of state government, issues legal opinions when requested by the governor, heads of state agencies and other officials and commissions, and defends challenges to state laws and suits against both state agencies and individual employees of the state. These duties include representing the Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in appeals from criminal convictions in federal courts. The Office of the Attorney General, Law Enforcement Division employs a staff of sworn commissioned Texas peace officers (state police) that investigate public corruption, violent crime, human trafficking, money laundering, medicaid provider fraud, mortgage fraud, election violations, cybercrime, fugitives (apprehension), investigate other special classes of offenses, and conduct criminal investigations at the request of local prosecutors. In addition, the Law Enforcement Division is the state of Texas liaison to Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The office is also charged with proceedings to secure child support through its Child Support Division.^[6]

List of Texas Attorneys General

State of Texas

The Attorney General names are in color code. Blue, pink and white are used below as indicators for the different political parties listed. Light blue Democratic. Light pink Republican. White Independent. This not the same indicator for the category of little boys indicator light blue and little girls indicator light pink. This agency is for support by parents for children.

Attorney General	Took office	Left office	Party
Volney Howard	February 21, 1846	May 7, 1846	Democrat
John W. Harris	May 7, 1846	October 31, 1849	Democrat
Henry Percy Brewster	October 31, 1849	January 15, 1850
Andrew Jackson Hamilton	January 15, 1850	August 5, 1850	Democrat
Ebenezer Allen1	August 5, 1850	August 2, 1852
Thomas J. Jennings	August 2, 1852	August 4, 1856
James Willie	August 4, 1856	August 2, 1858
Malcolm D. Graham	August 2, 1858 I	August 6, 1860	Democrat
George M. Flournoy	August 6, 1860	January 15, 1862	Democrat
Nathan G. Shelley			Democrat
Benjamin E. Tarver
William Alexander			Republican
William M. Walton	August 9, 1866	August 8, 1867	Democrat
Ezekiel B. Turner	Nov. 5, 1867	July 11, 1870	Independent
William Alexander	July 11, 1870	Jan. 27, 1874	Republican
George W. Clark	Jan. 27, 1874	Apr. 25, 1876	Democrat
Hannibal Boone	Apr. 25, 1876	Nov. 5, 1878	Democrat
George McCormick	Nov. 5, 1878	Nov. 2, 1880
James H. McLeary	Nov. 2, 1880	Nov. 7, 1882	Democrat
John D. Templeton	Nov. 7, 1882	Nov. 2, 1886	Democrat
Jim Hogg	Nov. 2, 1886	Nov. 4, 1890	Democrat
Charles Allen Culberson	Nov. 4, 1890	Nov. 8, 1894	Democrat
Martin McNulty Crane	Nov. 6, 1894	Nov. 8, 1898	Democrat
Thomas Slater Smith	Nov. 8, 1898	March 15, 1901	Democrat
Charles K. Bell	March 15, 1901	1904	Democrat
Robert V. Davidson	1904	January 1, 1910	Democrat
Jewel P. Lightfoot	January 1, 1910	August 31, 1912	Democrat
James D. Walthall	September 1, 1912	January 1, 1913	Democrat
B. F. Looney	January 1, 1913	January 1919	Democrat
Calvin M. Cureton	January 1919	December 1921	Democrat
Walter Angus Keeling	December 1921	January 1925	Democrat
Dan Moody	January 1925	January 1927	Democrat
Claude Pollard	January 1927	September 1929	Democrat
Robert L. Bobbitt2	September 1929	January 1931	Democrat
James Allred	January 1931	January 1935	Democrat
William McCraw	January 1935	January 1939	Democrat
Gerald Mann3	January 1939	January 1944	Democrat
Grover Sellers	January 1944	January 1947	Democrat
Price Daniel	January 1947	January 1953	Democrat
John Ben Shepperd	January 1953	January 1, 1957	Democrat
Will Wilson	January 1, 1957	January 15, 1963	Democrat
Waggoner Carr	January 15, 1963	January 1, 1967	Democrat
Crawford Martin	January 1, 1967	December 29, 1972	Democrat
John Hill	January 1, 1973	January 19, 1979	Democrat
Mark White	January 19, 1979	January 18, 1983	Democrat
Jim Mattox	January 18, 1983	January 15, 1991	Democrat
Dan Morales	January 15, 1991	January 13, 1999	Democrat
John Cornyn	January 13, 1999	December 2, 2002	Republican
Greg Abbott	December 2, 2002	January 5, 2015	Republican
Ken Paxton	January 5, 2015	Incumbent	Republican

The elected officials were chosen to render assistance to the custodial parents, guardian and biological parent. To help in receiving child support from the non custodial parent , non guardian and biological parent. In different state attorney general filed cases at request, during separation, divorced parents and guardian. As listed on the various individual family child support cases. Texas has 6% Interest added in Arrears (money owed) on child support case.

Political prominence

Many leading political figures in Texas history have served as Attorney General, several of them using the office as a jumping off place to other offices in the state and national government. Attorneys general James S. Hogg, Charles A. Culberson, Dan Moody, James Allred, Price Daniel, Mark White and Greg Abbott were elected governor. Culberson, Daniel, and John Cornyn were later elected to the United States Senate.^[7]

See also

Notes

1. First elected Attorney General
2. Appointed
3. Resigned

References

---

-- Module:Hatnote -- -- -- -- This module produces hatnote links and links to related articles. It -- -- implements the and meta-templates and includes -- -- helper functions for other Lua hatnote modules. --

---

local libraryUtil = require('libraryUtil') local checkType = libraryUtil.checkType local mArguments -- lazily initialise Module:Arguments local yesno -- lazily initialise Module:Yesno

local p = {}

---

-- Helper functions

---

local function getArgs(frame) -- Fetches the arguments from the parent frame. Whitespace is trimmed and -- blanks are removed. mArguments = require('Module:Arguments') return mArguments.getArgs(frame, {parentOnly = true}) end

local function removeInitialColon(s) -- Removes the initial colon from a string, if present. return s:match('^:?(.*)') end

function p.findNamespaceId(link, removeColon) -- Finds the namespace id (namespace number) of a link or a pagename. This -- function will not work if the link is enclosed in double brackets. Colons -- are trimmed from the start of the link by default. To skip colon -- trimming, set the removeColon parameter to true. checkType('findNamespaceId', 1, link, 'string') checkType('findNamespaceId', 2, removeColon, 'boolean', true) if removeColon ~= false then link = removeInitialColon(link) end local namespace = link:match('^(.-):') if namespace then local nsTable = mw.site.namespaces[namespace] if nsTable then return nsTable.id end end return 0 end

function p.formatPages(...) -- Formats a list of pages using formatLink and returns it as an array. Nil -- values are not allowed. local pages = {...} local ret = {} for i, page in ipairs(pages) do ret[i] = p._formatLink(page) end return ret end

function p.formatPageTables(...) -- Takes a list of page/display tables and returns it as a list of -- formatted links. Nil values are not allowed. local pages = {...} local links = {} for i, t in ipairs(pages) do checkType('formatPageTables', i, t, 'table') local link = t[1] local display = t[2] links[i] = p._formatLink(link, display) end return links end

function p.makeWikitextError(msg, helpLink, addTrackingCategory) -- Formats an error message to be returned to wikitext. If -- addTrackingCategory is not false after being returned from -- Module:Yesno, and if we are not on a talk page, a tracking category -- is added. checkType('makeWikitextError', 1, msg, 'string') checkType('makeWikitextError', 2, helpLink, 'string', true) yesno = require('Module:Yesno') local title = mw.title.getCurrentTitle() -- Make the help link text. local helpText if helpLink then helpText = ' (help)' else helpText = end -- Make the category text. local category if not title.isTalkPage and yesno(addTrackingCategory) ~= false then category = 'Hatnote templates with errors' category = string.format( '%s:%s', mw.site.namespaces[14].name, category ) else category = end return string.format( '%s', msg, helpText, category ) end

---

-- Format link -- -- Makes a wikilink from the given link and display values. Links are escaped -- with colons if necessary, and links to sections are detected and displayed -- with " § " as a separator rather than the standard MediaWiki "#". Used in -- the template.

---

function p.formatLink(frame) local args = getArgs(frame) local link = args[1] local display = args[2] if not link then return p.makeWikitextError( 'no link specified', 'Template:Format hatnote link#Errors', args.category ) end return p._formatLink(link, display) end

function p._formatLink(link, display) -- Find whether we need to use the colon trick or not. We need to use the -- colon trick for categories and files, as otherwise category links -- categorise the page and file links display the file. checkType('_formatLink', 1, link, 'string') checkType('_formatLink', 2, display, 'string', true) link = removeInitialColon(link) local namespace = p.findNamespaceId(link, false) local colon if namespace == 6 or namespace == 14 then colon = ':' else colon = end -- Find whether a faux display value has been added with the | magic -- word. if not display then local prePipe, postPipe = link:match('^(.-)|(.*)$') link = prePipe or link display = postPipe end -- Find the display value. if not display then local page, section = link:match('^(.-)#(.*)$') if page then display = page .. ' § ' .. section end end -- Assemble the link. if display then return string.format('%s', colon, link, display) else return string.format('%s%s', colon, link) end end

---

-- Hatnote -- -- Produces standard hatnote text. Implements the template.

---

function p.hatnote(frame) local args = getArgs(frame) local s = args[1] local options = {} if not s then return p.makeWikitextError( 'no text specified', 'Template:Hatnote#Errors', args.category ) end options.extraclasses = args.extraclasses options.selfref = args.selfref return p._hatnote(s, options) end

function p._hatnote(s, options) checkType('_hatnote', 1, s, 'string') checkType('_hatnote', 2, options, 'table', true) local classes = {'hatnote'} local extraclasses = options.extraclasses local selfref = options.selfref if type(extraclasses) == 'string' then classes[#classes + 1] = extraclasses end if selfref then classes[#classes + 1] = 'selfref' end return string.format( ' ', table.concat(classes, ' '), s )

end

return p-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Module:Hatnote -- -- -- -- This module produces hatnote links and links to related articles. It -- -- implements the and meta-templates and includes -- -- helper functions for other Lua hatnote modules. --

---

local libraryUtil = require('libraryUtil') local checkType = libraryUtil.checkType local mArguments -- lazily initialise Module:Arguments local yesno -- lazily initialise Module:Yesno

local p = {}

---

-- Helper functions

---

local function getArgs(frame) -- Fetches the arguments from the parent frame. Whitespace is trimmed and -- blanks are removed. mArguments = require('Module:Arguments') return mArguments.getArgs(frame, {parentOnly = true}) end

local function removeInitialColon(s) -- Removes the initial colon from a string, if present. return s:match('^:?(.*)') end

function p.findNamespaceId(link, removeColon) -- Finds the namespace id (namespace number) of a link or a pagename. This -- function will not work if the link is enclosed in double brackets. Colons -- are trimmed from the start of the link by default. To skip colon -- trimming, set the removeColon parameter to true. checkType('findNamespaceId', 1, link, 'string') checkType('findNamespaceId', 2, removeColon, 'boolean', true) if removeColon ~= false then link = removeInitialColon(link) end local namespace = link:match('^(.-):') if namespace then local nsTable = mw.site.namespaces[namespace] if nsTable then return nsTable.id end end return 0 end

function p.formatPages(...) -- Formats a list of pages using formatLink and returns it as an array. Nil -- values are not allowed. local pages = {...} local ret = {} for i, page in ipairs(pages) do ret[i] = p._formatLink(page) end return ret end

function p.formatPageTables(...) -- Takes a list of page/display tables and returns it as a list of -- formatted links. Nil values are not allowed. local pages = {...} local links = {} for i, t in ipairs(pages) do checkType('formatPageTables', i, t, 'table') local link = t[1] local display = t[2] links[i] = p._formatLink(link, display) end return links end

function p.makeWikitextError(msg, helpLink, addTrackingCategory) -- Formats an error message to be returned to wikitext. If -- addTrackingCategory is not false after being returned from -- Module:Yesno, and if we are not on a talk page, a tracking category -- is added. checkType('makeWikitextError', 1, msg, 'string') checkType('makeWikitextError', 2, helpLink, 'string', true) yesno = require('Module:Yesno') local title = mw.title.getCurrentTitle() -- Make the help link text. local helpText if helpLink then helpText = ' (help)' else helpText = end -- Make the category text. local category if not title.isTalkPage and yesno(addTrackingCategory) ~= false then category = 'Hatnote templates with errors' category = string.format( '%s:%s', mw.site.namespaces[14].name, category ) else category = end return string.format( '%s', msg, helpText, category ) end

---

-- Format link -- -- Makes a wikilink from the given link and display values. Links are escaped -- with colons if necessary, and links to sections are detected and displayed -- with " § " as a separator rather than the standard MediaWiki "#". Used in -- the template.

---

function p.formatLink(frame) local args = getArgs(frame) local link = args[1] local display = args[2] if not link then return p.makeWikitextError( 'no link specified', 'Template:Format hatnote link#Errors', args.category ) end return p._formatLink(link, display) end

function p._formatLink(link, display) -- Find whether we need to use the colon trick or not. We need to use the -- colon trick for categories and files, as otherwise category links -- categorise the page and file links display the file. checkType('_formatLink', 1, link, 'string') checkType('_formatLink', 2, display, 'string', true) link = removeInitialColon(link) local namespace = p.findNamespaceId(link, false) local colon if namespace == 6 or namespace == 14 then colon = ':' else colon = end -- Find whether a faux display value has been added with the | magic -- word. if not display then local prePipe, postPipe = link:match('^(.-)|(.*)$') link = prePipe or link display = postPipe end -- Find the display value. if not display then local page, section = link:match('^(.-)#(.*)$') if page then display = page .. ' § ' .. section end end -- Assemble the link. if display then return string.format('%s', colon, link, display) else return string.format('%s%s', colon, link) end end

---

-- Hatnote -- -- Produces standard hatnote text. Implements the template.

---

function p.hatnote(frame) local args = getArgs(frame) local s = args[1] local options = {} if not s then return p.makeWikitextError( 'no text specified', 'Template:Hatnote#Errors', args.category ) end options.extraclasses = args.extraclasses options.selfref = args.selfref return p._hatnote(s, options) end

function p._hatnote(s, options) checkType('_hatnote', 1, s, 'string') checkType('_hatnote', 2, options, 'table', true) local classes = {'hatnote'} local extraclasses = options.extraclasses local selfref = options.selfref if type(extraclasses) == 'string' then classes[#classes + 1] = extraclasses end if selfref then classes[#classes + 1] = 'selfref' end return string.format( ' ', table.concat(classes, ' '), s )

end

return p

• Family court judge sheds light on unfair child support practices in Texas

External links

• Texas Attorney General official website
• Texas Attorney General articles at Legal Newsline Legal Journal
• Texas Attorney General articles at ABA Journal
• News and Commentary at FindLaw
• Texas Statutes at Law.Justia.com
• U.S. Supreme Court Opinions - "Cases with title containing: State of Texas" at FindLaw
• State Bar of Texas
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton profile at National Association of Attorneys General
• Press releases at Texas Attorney General
• Attorney General from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Texas Attorney General Opinions, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.