Mother Jones illustration; Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto/ZUMA
In early 2007, newly reelected Republican Gov. Rick Perry pushed an innovative response to a problem that was killing about 35,000 Texans each year. The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, funded with $3 billion in public funds, would support groundbreaking work at the state’s leading research institutions, while ramping up prevention efforts across Texas. Perry boasted that year that the CPRIT would “put Texas on the path to becoming the world’s foremost leader in cancer research.”
In a state legislature often riven by partisan fights, CPRIT was an idea with broad bi-partisan appeal. The Republican state representative who introduced the measure that would become law called it “one of the most positive actions we can take this session, to cure cancer in our lifetime.” The legislation passed both chambers overwhelmingly that spring, and a constitutional amendment authorizing the program was later approved by 61 percent of Texas voters.
But the measure had its doubters. About two dozen of the house’s 150 members voted against the idea, each time it came up for a vote. Among them: Ken Paxton, then a state representative from suburban Collin County.
The current Texas attorney general, who is locked in a tight race for US Senate with Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, voted against the two bills that organized the institute and that placed it on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment. Paxton did not participate in any public debates, nor did he respond to a request for comment about his opposition to the state’s cancer moonshot. But two decades later, the project Paxton voted against has delivered major returns. According to the CPRIT’s annual impact reports, it has detected 58,507 cases of cancer, funded 282 child and adolescent cancer research projects, attracted an additional $12.5 billion in outside funding, and helped “save tens of thousands of lives.” And while the program has not been perfect (a grant-awarding scandal in 2012 led to hearings, a court case, and a new round of legislative tinkering) Texans like what they’ve seen: Voters approved a second $3 billion investment in 2019, by an even larger margin than before.
Perry originally proposed privatizing the state lottery to pay for what would become the CPRIT, but legislators rejected the idea and instead coalesced around an alternative that would allow the state to dole out $300 million-a-year over a 10-year period. As the bills made their way through the legislature, some lawmakers balked at the funding mechanism, arguing that allowing the state to issue bonds to pay for the program would saddle the state with debt. One Democratic representative proposed an amendment to pay for CPRIT out of the budget instead. Paxton voted against tabling that amendment, but when that effort failed, most legislators who supported it were unwilling to derail the launch of the institute over a funding disagreement. Not Paxton—he was one of just 26 “nays” on the bill proposing a constitutional amendment, and 24 votes against the bill organizing the institute.
CPRIT was not the only major cancer initiative Paxton opposed in 2007. In the same legislative session, Paxton voted to overturn another major Perry policy intended to reduce cancer rates in the state. He was a co-author of HB 1098, which barred the state from mandating the HPV vaccine for sixth graders—something Perry had tried to do by executive order. Conservative activists opposed the vaccine, in part by arguing that preventing the transmission of a sexually transmitted disease would encourage promiscuity.
HB 1098 passed the legislature, and Perry chose not to veto it. The consequences have been severe. The vaccine’s ultimate purpose is to prevent cervical cancer, which is almost entirely caused by HPV. The vaccine is almost 97-percent effective at that goal, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Thanks to the widespread availability of the vaccine, cervical cancer rates have been declining dramatically in states that promoted vaccination. And Australia, which has paired mandatory vaccination with a robust screening process, recently boasted that it was “on track to become the first country to eliminate cervical cancer by 2035.” But thanks in part to Paxton and his colleagues, Texas’ HPV vaccination rate remains well below the national average.
Funding for cutting-edge medical research, vaccines, and treatment is shaping up to be a significant issue in this year’s elections, as voters face the pinch of spiraling costs and worsening access, and a dropoff in official support for investments that were once bipartisan. The sorts of policies that Paxton voted against in his previous life are now on the chopping block at the federal level. The Trump administration has slashed funding for cutting-edge medical research—including $500 million in mRNA research. The New York Times warned last fall that Trump “is shutting down the War on Cancer.” At the same time, the White House’s restrictive immigration policies have hurt universities’ ability to attract researchers, and made it harder to find doctors in underserved areas. And Trump’s signature domestic policy bill is poised to throw both patients and providers into crisis, thanks to massive cuts to Medicaid.
Talarico drew attention to those cuts in July, when his campaign participated in a fundraiser for a South Texas woman who had been selling meals on the side of the road to pay for cancer treatment. “After the big ugly bill cut more than a trillion dollars from healthcare programs to fund tax cuts for the wealthy,” he said, the burden of health care costs is “only going to get worse.”
But Paxton has left little daylight between his own views and those of the White House. It was “an incredible moment for our nation’s future,” he wrote on X, after the bill that one study projected could lead to 1 million fewer cancer screenings passed the House last year. “President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is HISTORIC legislation that’s going to unleash economic growth.”
