Ken Paxton is the Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Texas. His day job, for the last eleven years, has been Texas attorney general — the state's top lawyer, running an office of more than 4,000 people.
An Associated Press review of his official calendars and state records, published October 1, shows how much of that job he has spent somewhere else.
Since he took office in 2015, Paxton:
- left about 730 workdays blank on his official calendar,
- took more than 275 out-of-state trips, to places like California wine country, Caribbean resorts and European tourist spots,
- and ran up at least $1.9 million in travel costs for his security detail — paid by Texas taxpayers.
Paxton would not sit for an interview. His campaign declined to comment. His office would not say how he pays for his own share of the trips.
He launched his Senate campaign, then went to the Masters
When Paxton announced his Senate run last year, he didn't hold a rally in Texas. He went on Fox News, cleared his calendar, and booked a hotel in Augusta, Georgia, during the Masters golf tournament.
That trip alone cost Texas taxpayers at least $25,000, the AP found.
The empty days kept growing
Early in his first term, Paxton's calendar looked like an attorney general's: meetings with state lawmakers, speeches, strategy sessions with his deputies.
Then it emptied out.
- In 2021, more than 90 workdays were blank.
- By 2024, the last full year the AP had records for, it was 112.
- In 2023, his calendar held 122 conservative media interviews — more than the 98 events tied to running his office.
The state's records of what it paid his security detail tell the same story. Reimbursements for travel outside Texas went from about $30,000 in 2015 to nearly $400,000 in 2024.
His own staff noticed. One of his former top deputies, Mark Penley, told impeachment investigators in 2023: "He was gone a lot, he was traveling, he was out."
Paxton's office says his calendar doesn't "capture someone's full workday," and that the job requires travel to win settlements from drugmakers and tech companies. But the trips the AP lists don't look like settlement talks.
Where he went
Over just two years ending in 2024, records show Paxton went to:
- the Caribbean, Israel, India, Taiwan and South Africa,
- Europe, three times,
- and five different ski towns in the Rockies, with many visits to Park City, Utah.
In the summer of 2022 — while he was running for reelection — he toured Italy, Albania, Greece and Malta, then stopped at an Idaho resort town and at Trump's Bedminster golf club for a fundraiser. Texans paid about $230,000 that year just to cover his security detail.
"Don't California My Texas" — unless it's wine country
Paxton loves to use California as an insult. Last month he said his opponent, James Talarico, would be California's "third" senator.
He likes the place more than he lets on. Records show Paxton has taken more than 25 trips to California, costing Texas taxpayers over $175,000. He's been to Northern California's wine country at least five times.
In 2019 he spent $11,000 from his campaign fund on a boutique Napa Valley hotel, vineyard tours and two wineries — and called it a fundraising expense. Taxpayers paid another $8,100 for his security on that trip. A 2024 wine-country visit cost the public more than $14,000.
"I like places in California, even though I don't like to admit that I go to California," Paxton said on a podcast last November.
Washington, Mar-a-Lago, and Disney World
Since 2016, Paxton has visited Washington more than 31 times. After Trump lost in 2020, Paxton made a habit of trips to Palm Beach, where Trump's Mar-a-Lago club is.
In 2021 he paid nearly $50,000 to hold a fundraiser for himself at Mar-a-Lago and flew in on a private jet. He has made 11 more visits to that area since, plus 28 visits to other Florida cities — including two stops at Disney World.
Who pays for all this?
The AP couldn't find out, and Paxton won't say.
He makes about $153,000 a year as attorney general. He has said he doesn't have to disclose assets held in a trust. His federal financial reports have swung wildly — one filed last year suggested he had big debts and might be worth less than nothing, while one filed in August suggested he could be worth more than $20 million, much of it in real estate.
That disclosure has its own problems. We reported last month that Paxton told the Senate he owns seven homes and earns nothing from any of them — while six of the seven were listed for rent.
A pattern, not a one-off
This is the same official who was impeached by fellow Republicans on accusations of abusing his office and accepting bribes — and later acquitted. He paid restitution, without admitting guilt, to settle a felony securities fraud case. And he has spent a decade avoiding sworn testimony.
"There is clearly a pattern of behavior here that may make some voters question how seriously Ken Paxton has taken the job," Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas told the AP.
Talarico put it more bluntly in a September post, after Paxton misspelled a Texas town: "It's Cypress, not 'Cyprus.' But for all the time you spend on luxury vacations in Europe, it's no surprise you don't know Texas."
What the records show
Ken Paxton's own calendars show about 730 blank workdays since 2015, state and campaign records show more than 275 out-of-state trips, and Texas taxpayers have paid at least $1.9 million for his security detail on those trips — including $25,000 for the Masters, more than $175,000 for California, and about $230,000 in 2022 alone. He has not said who pays for the rest, and he is now asking Texans for a six-year term in the Senate.
Source
- Inside Ken Paxton's jet-setting lifestyle: California wineries, European hot spots and ski resorts — Associated Press, also published by The Washington Sun
