Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton isn’t mincing words—or wasting time—in his latest clash with Democrat Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke. Paxton is asking a state court to clear the way for law enforcement to arrest O’Rourke, accusing him of blatantly defying a judge’s order that barred him from fundraising for Texas House Democrats who fled the state to stall the redistricting process.
Paxton has filed a motion for contempt, noting that violating the order could carry a $500 fine and up to six months in jail. “Beto told me ‘to come and take,’ so I did and beat him in court. Now, he still thinks he’s above the law, so I’m working to put him behind bars,” Paxton said in a statement. “Robert Francis flagrantly and knowingly violated the court order I secured that prevents him from raising funds and distributing any more Beto Bribes. He’s about to find out that running your mouth and ignoring the rule of law has consequences in Texas. It’s time to lock him up.”
O’Rourke’s political career has been defined by high-profile losses—Senate in 2018, the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, and the Texas governor’s race in 2022. Now, he’s turning the GOP’s effort to draw fairer congressional maps into a rallying cry for the left. Through his group “Powered by People,” he’s been raising money for Democrats who bolted Austin in a bid to derail the redistricting process.
Last week, Paxton secured a temporary restraining order blocking O’Rourke from soliciting funds for these lawmakers. “The Beto Bribe buyouts that were bankrolling the runaway Democrats have been officially stopped,” Paxton said at the time. “People like Robert believe Texas can be bought. Today, I stopped his deceptive financial influence scheme that attempted to deceive donors and subvert our constitutional process. They told me to ‘come and take it,’ so I did.”
But within 24 hours, O’Rourke took the stage at a Fort Worth rally and directly urged attendees to donate to his group—reading out a text-to-donate code for the crowd. “He [Paxton] tried to stop us from holding this rally here today in Fort Worth, he tried to stop us from raising money to support these Democrats in the fight—he lost—and one of the worst things that we could do to Ken Paxton is to right now choose to donate, to have the backs of these fighters,” O’Rourke told the audience.
“He [Paxton] is trying to stop us from raising the resources they [the Democrat statehouse fugitives] need to ultimately prevail and come through and we are not going to let him stop us,” O’Rourke continued. “Are you with me on that?”
Then, in an even more brazen move, O’Rourke encouraged blue-state Democrats to launch their own mid-decade redistricting efforts before Texas acts—adding, “there are no refs in this game, f*ck the rules, we are going to win whatever it takes.”
Paxton’s office responded pointedly: “Robert Francis is wrong on both counts. There is a referee—the Honorable Megan Fahey—and there are rules—namely, that a person violating a temporary restraining order can be fined up to $500 and jailed for up to six months.”
O’Rourke’s defiance comes with baggage. In 1998, he was arrested for drunk driving, and officers at the scene said he tried to flee—an allegation he denies but that remains a sore point in his political history. The charges were dropped after he completed a diversion program, but the incident has shadowed him for decades.
This latest confrontation with Paxton isn’t just about one contempt motion—it’s about whether high-profile Democrats can defy court orders without consequence. For Texas conservatives, it’s a test of law and order in the face of political grandstanding.
