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........

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