newsletter 11/11/25

ICAP Sues Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for Retaliating Against Latino Voter Registration Organization, Threatening Its Charter

While we celebrated the good news of the denial of Supreme Court review in a challenge to same-sex marriage yesterday, ICAP attorneys went right back to work to file a new federal lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for baselessly seeking to revoke the corporate charter of Jolt Initiative in retaliation for its expressive voter registration activities and previous lawsuit against him.  

Jolt is a nonprofit that promotes civic engagement and works to register young Latinos in Texas to vote.  In August 2024, fueled by the circulation of extremist social media conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting, Paxton began targeting Latino-focused voter registration groups, including Jolt, for baseless and invasive investigations.  When he targeted Jolt by demanding confidential information about its volunteers and the voters they registered, ICAP sued on Jolt’s behalf, arguing that his request was made to intimidate Jolt in violation of both the First Amendment and the Voting Rights Act.  Rather than defend the legality of the document request in court, Paxton withdrew the demand and secured Jolt’s agreement to dismiss the case based on the Attorney General’s assurances that he would not file another document request on the same subject matter.

On the same day Jolt’s case was closed, Paxton upped the ante, filing a civil “quo warranto” lawsuit in state court that seeks to dissolve Jolt’s corporate charter and end its operations in Texas based on the same false allegations on which he attempted to justify his previous investigation.  Not only does this action violate Jolt’s constitutionally protected expressive voter registration activity, it is in blatant retaliation for Jolt’s first lawsuit–an exercise of its First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.  Paxton’s motives are plain:  his lawsuit claims that “rather than producing any documents or cooperating with the State’s investigation in any respect, JOLT commenced a federal lawsuit to stall the investigation.”  And it admits that “instead” of reissuing another document request, the Attorney General now seeks the “termination of JOLT’s corporation.” 

Along with co-counsel in Texas, ICAP jumped into action.  While they defend Jolt in state court, we sued Paxton in federal court, bringing new First Amendment and Voting Rights Act claims and asking for an immediate halt to Paxton’s unconstitutional and retaliatory campaign against Jolt.  This kind of intimidation and harassment has no place in our democracy.