Texas battles over Paxton-directed searches of Democrats: What you need to know

A Democrat trying to take one of the GOP’s most coveted Texas districts is at the center of an election-year probe by Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in what the nation’s oldest Latino rights group calls a campaign of “intimidation.”

State authorities on Wednesday searched the home of Democratic party organizers in Bexar County, the state’s fourth-largest urban county and a Democratic stronghold, seizing the cellphone of Cecilia Castellano.

Castellano is a Democratic candidate...