Nathan Johnson, who was elected Texas attorney general on Tuesday, plans to stop suing out of state doctors and nurses who mail abortion pills to Texans, but the state's newest abortion pill law was written so that no attorney general can start, join or stop the private lawsuits it allows.
Johnson, a Democrat, won on November 3 with 52.38 percent of the vote to 45.94 percent for Republican Mayes Middleton, according to unofficial Secretary of State returns. He was part of a statewide sweep that also reached the courts, which we break down in our count of the judicial races.
What Johnson said
In remarks reported by the Texas Tribune on November 4, Johnson said he could not change abortion law himself because he is not a legislator. What he can do, he said, is "cease using Texas abortion laws as an instrument of persecution and intimidation." He added, "I will not pursue the judicially absurd position that Texas law has extra territorial effect," and "I can honor other states' shield laws." Shield laws, passed in a number of Democratic led states, protect clinicians there who prescribe to patients in states with bans, and the Tribune reported that Paxton's suits have run into them.
The suits he controls
The suits Johnson is talking about were filed by the attorney general's office under laws the office enforces itself. In January, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Debra Lynch, a Delaware nurse practitioner who runs the telehealth service Her Safe Harbor, in Jefferson County district court, Fox 26 Houston reported. That suit relies on the Human Life Protection Act, the state's near total ban, and on prescribing without a Texas license, and it seeks injunctions and civil penalties of at least $100,000 per violation. In February the office sued the nonprofit Aid Access, its founder Dr. Rebecca Gomperts and California physician Dr. Remy Coeytaux before a Galveston County judge, High Plains Public Radio reported. "My office will defend the lives of the unborn and relentlessly enforce our state's pro-life laws," Paxton said then.
Because the state is the plaintiff in those cases, a new attorney general can decide whether to keep pressing them, settle them or dismiss them. He cannot erase the laws they rest on, and a later attorney general could file new ones.
What House Bill 7 actually says
The bigger legal story is a law that does not need the attorney general at all. House Bill 7 passed in the second special session of 2025, was signed by Governor Greg Abbott on September 17, 2025, and took effect December 4, 2025. Our reading of the enrolled text comes down to four points.
First, the law's ban on providing abortion inducing drugs "may be enforced only through a qui tam action," a private suit, and it says, "No other direct or indirect enforcement of this subchapter may be taken or threatened by this state."
Second, the suit may be brought by any person "other than this state, a political subdivision of this state, or an officer or employee of this state." State officials may not intervene in those suits or act "in concert or participation with a qui tam relator," though they may file friend of the court briefs.
Third, the law sets damages at "not less than $100,000 for each violation."
Fourth, it bars defendants from relying on "the laws of another state or jurisdiction, including an abortion shield law."
In other words, the attorney general has no role in House Bill 7 suits, whether he supports them or not. Johnson's promise reaches the state's own cases. It does not reach a private plaintiff who files under House Bill 7.
Our arithmetic
The money in House Bill 7 is built to reward suits. A plaintiff who is the woman who took the drug, or a close relative of the unborn child, keeps the full award. Any other plaintiff keeps $10,000 of each $100,000 minimum, by the bill's terms, and the other $90,000, or 90 percent, goes to a charity the plaintiff names. If each of 10 shipments counted as a separate violation, the minimum would reach $1 million, by our arithmetic.
The law has been in force for 336 days as of today, counting from December 4, 2025. Changing it takes the Legislature, and the Tribune reported that the Texas Senate stays under Republican control.
The reactions
John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, told the Tribune that he does not expect the private suit law to be revisited next session but worries that Democratic leaders will roll back other restrictions. raven e. Freeborn, executive director of Avow Texas, told the paper, "We're going for the most unapologetic vision of abortion access, which is abortion access without exceptions."
Johnson takes office in January. For another Texas case in the courts this week, read our account of the Texas death row case at the Supreme Court.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
