Texas AG Ken Paxton built a career hunting voter fraud. A Texas Tribune and ProPublica investigation found he voted six times from a home he no longer lives in — and there's now a formal complaint that would be referred to his own office.
Fresh off winning the GOP Senate nomination, Ken Paxton is cold-calling wealthy donors who are turned off by his scandals — a reminder of just how long his rap sheet is.
A Texas Tech regent gave $274,300 to a committee backing Ken Paxton's Senate run. The next day, Paxton's office threatened to sue the Big 12 on the school's behalf.
Adam Hoffman, a Waco attorney, was indicted in 2024 on a first-degree felony charge of continuous sexual abuse of a young child — an offense punishable by 24 years to life in prison. Prosecutors said he repeatedly abused a young boy, who was between 8 and 10 years old, over a period of years.
The case was prosecuted by Ken Paxton's own Attorney General's office. After the trial ended in a hung jury, Paxton's prosecutors offered Hoffman a plea deal: drop the felony, let him plead guilty to two misdemeanors, serve a single day in jail, and never register as a sex offender. A man accused of raping a child would have walked away with a record no worse than a bar fight.
The presiding judge was so disturbed by the deal that he refused to sign off on it. "One day. Seriously?" he said. "Somebody has to sell me on the wisdom of it." He raised the sentence to 30 days, then to 60 days after the victim's mother spoke out against the leniency. Hoffman surrendered his law license. He served weeks, not decades.
The victim's mother publicly questioned why Paxton's office offered such a deal, pointing to Hoffman's connections to Nate Paul — the same donor at the center of the bribery scandal that got Paxton impeached.
Republican state representatives Jeff Leach and Pat Curry held a press conference at the McLennan County Courthouse condemning the deal brokered by Paxton's office.
Ken Paxton built his entire campaign on claiming to protect children. His own office offered a man accused of raping a child a deal to serve one day in jail and never register as a sex offender. It took a judge to stop it. We deserve better.
Ken Paxton praised DOGE and called Elon Musk "incredible." He applauded the slashing of federal spending as "necessary" and attacked his own fellow Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn for daring to question DOGE's cuts. Then those cuts came for the programs protecting Texas cattle.
DOGE eliminated approximately $382 million in funding for programs run by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization — including programs that had spent decades monitoring the New World screwworm as it moved through Central America toward the U.S. border. At the same time, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which leads domestic screwworm response, lost nearly a quarter of its workforce.
On June 3, 2026, the USDA confirmed the first New World screwworm case in Texas since 1966 — a three-week-old calf in Zavala County. The screwworm is a parasitic fly whose larvae feed on the living flesh of warm-blooded animals. Untreated, it kills. Texas has a $15 billion cattle industry.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller criticized the federal response, saying officials moved too slowly and failed to use every available tool to stop the parasite's advance before it crossed into Texas.
Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that if a modern outbreak matched the severity of the 1972 infestation, economic damage across the Southwest could exceed $3 billion. If it mirrored the prolonged 1962–1980 period, losses could surpass $8 billion — and researchers warned those estimates may actually understate the danger because today's ranchers have less experience identifying and responding to screwworm than previous generations.
Beef prices are already at record highs. NBC News reported a widespread screwworm outbreak could push them even higher — hitting Texas families at the grocery store.
Ken Paxton cheered on DOGE as it cut the international monitoring programs that kept this parasite out of the United States for sixty years. He attacked a fellow Texan for raising concerns. Now Texas ranchers are facing the threat of billions in losses, and Texas families could see beef prices climb even further. We deserve better.
While serving as a Texas state legislator, Ken Paxton persuaded fellow lawmakers and investors to put money into a tech company called Servergy. He did not tell them he was not investing his own money. He did not tell them he was being paid in company stock. In 2015, he was indicted on three felony counts of securities fraud and failure to register as an investment advisor. He was booked and photographed in a mug shot — seven months into his term as Texas's top law enforcement officer.
Rather than face trial, Paxton delayed the case for nearly 9 years. It changed venues. Judges recused themselves. The case never reached a jury. In 2024, he cut a deal — community service, ethics courses, and restitution payments in exchange for the charges being dropped. There was no acquittal.
The man running to be Texas's next U.S. Senator was photographed in a mug shot while serving as Texas's top law enforcement officer. We deserve better.
Public records show that Ken Paxton has claimed three different properties as his primary residence on mortgage documents — while renting them out. A home in College Station is listed for rent on real estate websites even though its mortgage prohibits rentals. A $1.2 million cabin in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, operates as a luxury short-term rental on Airbnb.
Falsely claiming a home is your primary residence on a mortgage is a federal crime. Ken Paxton is the chief law enforcement officer of Texas — the office responsible for prosecuting mortgage fraud.
He has spent a decade prosecuting crimes while the public record documents what appears to be the same conduct. We deserve better.
In 2020, eight of Ken Paxton's most senior deputies — conservative lawyers he hired himself — reported him to the FBI for bribery and abuse of office. Their allegation: Paxton had used the power of the AG's office to benefit his friend and donor, Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, who was under FBI investigation. In exchange, Paul employed a woman with whom Paxton was having an extramarital affair. Within weeks of reporting him to the FBI, all eight whistleblowers were fired or forced out.
In May 2023, the Texas House of Representatives impeached Ken Paxton by a vote of 121 to 23. More than two-thirds of House Republicans voted to remove him. Articles included bribery, abuse of office, and misuse of public funds. The Texas Senate later acquitted him — but the facts did not change.
In 2025, a judge ruled that Paxton's office violated the Texas Whistleblower Act and ordered $6.6 million in damages paid to the fired aides. Texas taxpayers are paying for Ken Paxton's crimes.
Hates Democracy and Tried to Steal the 2020 Election
Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the certified votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The suit had been drafted by a group called Lawyers for Trump — other attorneys general around the country refused to file it. Paxton filed it anyway. Election law expert Rick Hasen called it "garbage, but dangerous garbage." The court dismissed it immediately.
Paxton's "Election Integrity Unit" spent over 22,000 hours investigating voter fraud after the 2020 election and found only 16 cases of false addresses among 17 million registered voters.
Paxton did not stop after January 6. In October 2021, he publicly repeated the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen — and continued to make it a centerpiece of his 2022 reelection campaign.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Ken Paxton gave his employees a paid day off to celebrate. He has sued out-of-state providers who sent abortion medication to Texas patients. He has threatened to prosecute doctors who provided abortions under Texas's own medical exception law. He prosecuted a midwife who served low-income Houstonians, in a case critics called a political power grab.
Women in Texas lost the right to control their own bodies. Ken Paxton celebrated it. We deserve better.
After Dobbs, Paxton said the Supreme Court should now overturn Obergefell v. Hodges — the ruling guaranteeing the right to same-sex marriage — and Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized gay sex.
He demanded that the Texas Department of Public Safety compile a list of all Texans who had changed the gender on their driver's licenses.
He called your neighbors predators. He sent investigators after families with transgender children. He wants to put same-sex marriage back up for grabs. We deserve better.
Had Multiple Affairs and Abused the Power of His Office
Ken Paxton has spent his career claiming to stand for family values, traditional marriage, and Christian principles. His personal life tells a different story.
In 2018, Paxton began an extramarital affair. The relationship disrupted the AG's office and required intervention by senior staff. He confessed to his wife Angela — a Texas state senator — and asked for forgiveness. Staff believed the affair had ended. It had not. Paxton later told his chief of staff the relationship had resumed.
The woman was then hired by Nate Paul — the same donor whose businesses were under federal investigation and who received favorable treatment from Paxton's office. The connection between Paxton's affair, his donor's generosity, and his official actions was central to the House impeachment articles.
Ken Paxton calls himself a defender of family values. He has called same-sex marriage a threat to civilization. He has built his career on telling others how to live. His own record shows something very different. We deserve better.
When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts launched a climate change investigation into ExxonMobil, Ken Paxton sided with the company and tried to block the investigation. When the U.S. Virgin Islands issued a subpoena for decades of ExxonMobil records, Paxton filed a brief to stop it. Paxton has called climate change "a matter of opinion."
And the industry he protected is now funding his Senate campaign. His top individual donor is Douglas Scharbauer, a Midland oil executive, who gave $750,000. His second-biggest donor is Preserve Texas Inc., a dark money group that was set up shortly after Paxton announced his Senate campaign and whose donors are hidden from the public. Another top donor is Chelsey Milton, who gave $500,000 — the same donor whose husband was pardoned by President Trump earlier in 2025.
Ken Paxton protected ExxonMobil from climate accountability and is now being paid back for it. We deserve better.
Ken Paxton lied, cheated, stole, committed adultery, bullied whistleblowers, fled a subpoena, was indicted, was impeached, tried to overturn an election, celebrated the fall of Roe, called LGBTQ+ Texans predators, sided with Big Oil polluters, opposed every gun safety measure, let a man accused of child sexual abuse plead down to a single day in jail, and cheered the DOGE cuts that brought flesh-eating screwworm into Texas.
This man doesn't deserve anything, and certainly not our vote.
