AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called on Governor Greg Abbott Tuesday to remove acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock from office, escalating a public feud over the state’s school voucher program and the vetting of Islamic-affiliated institutions.
The request follows a letter from Hancock’s office accusing the Attorney General of failing to aggressively litigate against groups the Comptroller’s office has linked to foreign adversaries. In a social media post late Tuesday, Paxton dismissed Hancock as an "incompetent loser" and urged Abbott to remove him from office and appoint Don Huffines, the Republican nominee for the position, to the vacancy.
The friction centers on the implementation of Texas’s new school voucher system. Hancock, who was appointed by Governor Abbott in June following Glenn Hegar’s departure to the Texas A&M University System, has sought to exclude schools with alleged ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Kelly Hancock is a Never Trumper and an incompetent loser who's an embarrassment to the position of Chief Clerk that he holds.
To protect Texans' tax dollars, I am officially calling for Governor Abbott to immediately replace him with the person Texans actually voted for to be… https://t.co/P5JXJZZy4P
— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) March 25, 2026
While Abbott has previously designated CAIR as a terrorist organization — a label the group vehemently denies and is currently contesting in court as defamatory — a federal judge recently sided with Muslim parents and educators. The court ruled that the state must extend application deadlines and consider these schools for the program, noting that hundreds of non-Islamic institutions had been approved without similar scrutiny.
In a letter obtained by Texas Bullpen, Mr. Hancock criticized the Attorney General’s legal strategy, suggesting that Paxton’s office failed to provide the court with evidence allegedly linking certain applicants, such as the Houston Quran Academy, to the Muslim Brotherhood.
"The court cannot protect against threats it does not know exist," Hancock wrote, further urging the Attorney General to utilize state law to revoke corporate charters and enforce restrictions on land ownership by foreign adversaries.
Paxton, who issued a non-binding opinion in January affirming the Comptroller’s right to block schools with "illegal ties" to adversaries, countered that Hancock’s career was effectively "over" following his vote to impeach the Attorney General in 2023.
The public disagreement marks the second time this week that senior Republican leadership has questioned the Attorney General’s legal department. In a separate filing to the Texas Supreme Court, lawyers for Abbott suggested that a "rushed" legal filing by Paxton’s office regarding legal aid for undocumented immigrants may have contributed to "shortcomings" in lower court decisions.
The Governor’s office has not yet issued a formal response to the request for Hancock’s removal. Representatives for the Houston Quran Academy and the Comptroller’s office also declined to comment.
