Yesterday, the Ken Paxton for Attorney General campaign traveled to northeast Texas to meet with conservatives in Texarkana, Marshall, and Longview.  This 3-stop tour was hosted by State Representative Bryan Hughes and coordinated with the release of over 220 Tyler/Smith County endorsements.  Robin Y. Richardson of the Marshall News Messenger wrote a great article which published this morning, part of which is below:

State Senator Ken Paxton, Republican candidate for Attorney General, said during a campaign stop in Marshall Tuesday that he is running to protect Texas from what he considers an assault of the federal government.

“I was not looking to leave the Senate,” Paxton told a group of constituents during a reception at Central Perks, hosted by State Representative Bryan Hughes and the Harrison County Republican Party.

He said the Senate has been a great place for him, and has been the most conservative Texas Senate the Legislature has ever had.

“We were able to stop a lot of bad legislation; we were able to pass a lot of good legislation,” he said.

However, the changes he’s seen in government prompted his decision to run for Attorney General, he said.

“Over the last six years, things have changed,” said Paxton, who has served in the Legislature in both the House and the Senate for the last 11 years. “When we first got to the Legislature, we focused on Texas issues almost exclusively. Now that we’ve had the Obama administration for the last six years, we’ve been in a fight with them over all kinds of issues — from economic issues to political issues — and I don’t think that fight is going away.

“With General Abbot leaving, I felt like we needed a conservative with a conservative record who would step in and continue that fight,” said Paxton.

He said the state is dealing with the federal government on both an economic front and political front. He said Democratic states have attempted to attack Texas, but haven’t been successful.

“All the jobs have come here. As a result, we’re viewed as a successful Republican state, and all of a sudden, in the last six years we’ve had to deal with all kinds of litigations from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), trying to affect our oil and gas industry, our farming industry, our fishing industry, our coal production — almost anything you could think of, we’re under assault,” said Paxton. “I think it’s because we’re a successful Republican state.

He said on the political front, Texas is continuously getting sued for everything from redistricting efforts to implementing the voter ID law.

“We’re under assault because if they could turn the state Democratic, we’d lose the whole (control). Other states are looking to us, especially the Republican states,” he said. “So, this attorney general position, a lot of people don’t pay attention to it, but in my opinion, it is the most critical position in Texas right now, given the assault we have with the (President Barack) Obama administration.”

Click here to read the full article.

This piece originally appeared in the Marshall News Messenger on December 11, 2013.