Less than 24 hours after a historic sweep of Texas’ statewide elected offices by Democrats, the state’s attorney general-elect Nathan Johnson said Tuesday he will not continue Ken Paxton’s practice of suing doctors in other states for sending abortion medication to patients here.

It’s the first big salvo against the state’s four-year-old near abortion ban which makes the procedure virtually impossible to access in this state and is likely to be the first of many tweaks to make the ban less rigid. The attorney general’s office under Ken Paxton, who gave up the role to run for Senate, has been a powerful enforcer of the state’s abortion ban laws and a Democrat coming into that position cuts off a powerful tool for the country’s anti-abortion movement.

The first thing I do when people ask me about abortion is point out that I’m not a legislator, and I can’t change abortion law,” Johnson told The Texas Tribune. “What I can do is cease using Texas abortion laws as an instrument of persecution and intimidation, harassment and political showboating. All four of those things have happened.”

It is illegal for Texas doctors to mail abortion medication within the state and Paxton has sued doctors in other states who prescribe the medication, chilling Texans from obtaining these pills, abortion advocates say. Those lawsuits have run up against blue states’ so-called shield laws that protect physicians who send abortion medications.

Johnson said he won’t be suing those out-of-state doctors anymore. “I will not pursue the judicially absurd position that Texas law has extra territorial effect. I can honor other states’ shield laws.”

While this eliminates an obstacle to accessing abortion pills, Democrats won’t be repealing the abortion ban anytime soon.

Despite the increasing use of executive power by Gov. Greg Abbott, Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa cannot legally repeal the abortion ban with her own pen stroke. She also told Politico in September that repealing the ban would not be a priority because it would require Republicans to pass such a bill and that seems unlikely.

Instead, University of Houston political professor Brandon Rottinghaus points out she can greatly limit how the law is applied. Hinojosa has said that she would work to end penalties for doctors who perform life-saving abortions, although lawmakers provided additional protections for doctors in these situations last year.

“She can influence how portions of the law are implemented, and how certain exceptions are interpreted, and other reasonable additional restrictions that might become law eventually,” he said.