Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is pressing lawmakers to restore his power to independently prosecute election fraud, claiming a 2021 court ruling let hundreds of alleged cases collapse.

In an interview with The Epoch Times, shared by the account Wallstreet Apes on X, Paxton said his office had “over 900 cases going, 600 counts of fraud and another 392ish investigations” when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down a decades-old statute that allowed the attorney general to bring such prosecutions.

“All dismissed,” Paxton said in the clip. “So everybody got away with voter fraud. Everybody we know was committing voter fraud… The court of criminal appeals said they’re dismissed. They get to commit all the voter fraud they want now and in the future.”

The comments come as Republican lawmakers push to regrant Paxton the authority the court took away, after ruling in 2021 that the attorney general could not prosecute election crimes without a request from local prosecutors. Paxton has argued that district attorneys in the state’s largest counties, many of them Democrats, are “rogue” and unwilling to bring such cases.

House Joint Resolution 1 and House Bill 11, authored by Republican Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, along with a Senate companion bill, would amend the law to restore that power. “It is time to return this power that was stripped in a court decision,” Shaheen reportedly said in a statement.

The measures are a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott in the current special session. It is unclear what the future of this legislation will be, given the special sessions’ impending end on August 19 and the lack of quorum in the House due to Texas Democrats abandoning their posts and fleeing the state, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.

Under current law, Paxton’s office can only step in when invited by local prosecutors. That limitation followed a case in which his office prosecuted a Southeast Texas sheriff for alleged voter fraud after the 2016 election, despite the local district attorney declining to pursue charges. The sheriff challenged Paxton’s authority, and the court sided with him.

Paxton and his allies contend that the work is necessary to protect the state’s elections. In a June 17, 2025, press release, his office announced it was investigating 33 potential noncitizens for allegedly voting in the 2024 general election, after referrals from Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson.

“Noncitizens must not be allowed to influence American elections, and I will use the full weight of my office to investigate all voter fraud,” Paxton stated in the press release.