Jolt v. Paxton

ICAP represents Jolt Initiative, a nonprofit that promotes civic engagement and voter registration among young Latinos in Texas. In August 2024, fueled by the circulation of extremist social media conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton began targeting Latino-focused voter registration groups, including Jolt, for baseless and invasive investigations. In response to the Attorney General’s targeting of Jolt by requesting confidential information about its volunteers and the voters they registered, we filed suit in September of 2024 to enjoin enforcement of that request alleging that the request violated the First and Fourth Amendments, as well as 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, the Attorney General filed 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. This action violates Jolt’s constitutionally protected expressive voter registration activity and is in blatant retaliation for Jolt’s first lawsuit–an exercise of its First Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

While our co-counsel in Texas defends Jolt in state court, we sued Attorney General Paxton in federal court in November of 2025, bringing new First Amendment and Voting Rights Act claims and asking for an immediate halt to Paxton’s unconstitutional and retaliatory campaign against Jolt.