Meet Ken Paxton

Written By TDP

As the general election for the Texas Senate race kicks off, voters across Texas will spend the next six months learning more about Ken Paxton’s full record: corruption, self-enrichment, and making life harder for Texans.  

Paxton is emerging from the bruising primary damaged by nearly $100 million in ads against him from his own party – now, even Republican voters in Texas say they would be “so embarrassed” to see Paxton elected Senator. 

THE WORST KIND OF CORRUPT POLITICIAN

Ken Paxton’s record as Attorney General can be defined by one word: corruption. Paxton is the first Texas Attorney general to face impeachment – his own party attempted to remove him from office after he was caught allegedly handing out favors to a top donor and faced “allegations of misconduct that included bribery and abuse of office.” Paxton’s aides called for federal law enforcement to investigate his “improper influence, abuse of office, bribery and other potential criminal offenses,” and the FBI mounted an investigation over whether he was “using his office to benefit a wealthy donor.”

Facing impeachment and investigations from federal law enforcement did not deter Paxton, who just months ago was caught doling out luxurious taxpayer-funded hotel rooms to his campaign donors and signing lucrative state contracts with law firms whose attorneys donated to his campaigns. 

SELF-ENRICHMENT AT TEXANS’ EXPENSE

Paxton has been looking out for himself while in office: His personal wealth has ballooned to nearly $12 million, with his net worth increasing up to 7,000% since he was first elected nearly two decades ago. Paxton became a multimillionaire in office and sought out luxury gifts from lobbyists, including thousands of dollars of NFL tickets.

While Paxton got rich in office, Texans suffered. His record as Attorney General is littered with failures to keep Texans safe and serve justice to violent criminals, including dropping four human trafficking and sexual assault cases, and cutting plea deals to child sexual abusers that kept them out of prison and off the sex offender registry. And when a power grid crisis left nearly three million Texans without power in freezing cold weather, Paxton skipped town for a trip to Utah near luxury ski resorts.

PAXTON’S PRICE-HIKING AGENDA HAS SENT GAS, GROCERIES, AND HEALTH CARE COSTS SOARING

Ken Paxton cheered on the policies that caused gas prices to soar to over $4 per gallon, and Texans to shoulder skyrocketing costs of groceries, housing, and basic utilities like electric bills. Paxton supports the reckless tariffs that are crushing Texas farmers and spiking the cost of groceries, and in the wake of some of the highest food costs in years, Paxton still supported ending or reducing food assistance for 1.5 million Texas families – its largest cut in history.

Paxton also supports the single largest cut to Medicaid in decades, threatening health care coverage for more than 1.4 million Texans and putting four rural hospitals and 66 nursing homes at risk of closure, and ending the ACA premium tax credits, increasing health insurance costs by an average of $456.

COSTS, CRIME, CORRUPTION: KEN PAXTON IS WRONG FOR TEXAS

Republicans are sounding the alarm about Ken Paxton’s disastrous record and failures of character, calling him a “trainwreck” who is “failing the state of Texas,” has “too much baggage,” and is “morally unfit to hold office” – even his wife doesn’t trust him. Even national GOP operatives say Paxton “puts this seat at risk.”


Paxton represents everything about the corrupt, rigged system that Texans hate: a politician who doled out massive favors to his donors and special interests and became a multimillionaire in office while Texans paid the price. That’s why this November, voters are going to reject Ken Paxton and send a champion for all Texans, not just the rich and powerful, to the U.S. Senate: James Talarico.

TDP
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