Adams, John
1797–1801
Adams was an institutionalist lawyer above all — he defended the British soldiers at the Boston Massacre trial because rule of law required competent representation for unpopular defendants, and was deeply anti-faction, anti-mob, anti-French-Revolution-extremism, committed to legal and constitutional process. Cornyn — a former Texas Supreme Court Justice (1991-1997) and former Texas Attorney General (1999-2002) — fits the Adams framework about as closely as any current Republican senator does, and his Senate-Judiciary-Committee institutional discipline is straight Adams-tradition behavior. Paxton's record — impeachment for abuse of office, the Tribune/ProPublica forum-shopping documentation, the State Bar professional-misconduct case — is exactly the demagogic mode Adams warned against, and Adams would treat an attorney general who can't follow professional ethics rules as personally disqualifying. The widest Cornyn margin among founding fathers.
Sources
- Sen. John Cornyn, official Senate website and 2026 re-election campaign issues page, accessed May 2026 (cornyn.senate.gov; johncornyn.com). (full list)
- Texas Tribune / ProPublica, 'Paxton files lawsuits in courts that could have more favorable outcomes,' May 20, 2026. (full list)
- State Bar of Texas Commission for Lawyer Discipline v. Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr., professional misconduct case filed 2022 over Texas v. Pennsylvania (2020) election lawsuit; Texas Supreme Court procedural rulings 2024-2026; State Bar of Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. (full list)
- John Adams, defense of British soldiers at Boston Massacre trial (1770); Adams-Jefferson correspondence (1812-1826); Discourses on Davila (1790-1791) on faction; 'facts are stubborn things' (Boston Massacre defense). (full list)