Don’t tell me I’m critical of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton because he’s a conservative Republican. Another conservative Republican who was attorney general before him had such a profoundly positive effect on my personal and professional life that when I told him this, I began to cry. It was 2002 and Attorney General John Cornyn was running for the U.S. Senate. I sat with him for an interview unlike any I’ve had before or since with a politician. First, I remember thanking him for his work strengthening the state’s open records law. He ordered government workers to quickly produce public...