by Zach Despart, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, Kayla Guo, The Texas Tribune, and Alexandra Glorioso, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune
Co-published with The Texas Tribune
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appears to have violated federal ethics law in significant ways when filing recent disclosures of his assets and liabilities, creating confusion about his net worth and holdings, a review by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found.
Among them: Paxton, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, reported owning seven homes but said he earned no income from any. Yet all but one was listed for rent during the reporting periods, and some current residents and neighbors at those addresses confirmed that the properties were rented, the news organizations found. Receiving income and not reporting it is a violation of federal disclosure law, three ethics experts said.
Additionally, Paxton did not disclose mortgages for three condos at a Utah golf resort that federal law requires him to list as liabilities if they are not personal residences.
He also valued his stake in a vacant plot of Texas land at up to $50,000 on last year’s filing, but his business partner told the newsrooms Paxton’s share for years has been worth about $1 million. Federal financial disclosure law requires property to be listed at fair market value.
The apparent errors and omissions the newsrooms found obscure the extent of Paxton’s income streams, assets and debt, making it difficult for voters to make sense of his finances as they mull whether to support him in November’s election, the ethics experts said.
“It reflects either pure sloppiness on Paxton’s part or a deliberate effort to conceal some of his investments and property holdings,” said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the nonpartisan good-government group Public Citizen.
If Paxton wins, an incomplete picture of his finances could prevent watchdogs from evaluating his conflicts of interest as a senator, Holman and others said.
The apparent omissions are part of a pattern for Paxton. Over three terms as attorney general, he has withheld financial information that could explain how he became a multimillionaire and had the resources to purchase more than a dozen properties in five states. He began including many of these on his state disclosures only after the Texas Ethics Commission closed a loophole in 2024 that Paxton had cited to leave them off. Most were acquired while Paxton earned a government salary of $153,750.
In the new federal disclosure, filed in August after Paxton received a three-month extension, he reported a net worth between $1 million and $27 million. That is a significantly higher range than the negative $1.9 million to $11.1 million net worth he reported a year ago, before he had secured the Republican nomination but after he had declared his candidacy for federal office.
Paxton’s report omitted listing as assets seven properties worth about $5.2 million collectively, including the Utah condos for which he did not disclose mortgages. He co-owns all of his known real estate holdings with his estranged wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, property records show.
Federal rules do not require candidates to report as assets personal homes or properties from which they don’t earn money, even if the properties are worth millions.
At a time when voters feel anxious about their own personal finances and dislike the idea of politicians getting rich in office, it would be wise for Paxton to be more transparent about his wealth, said Texas ethics and campaign finance lawyer Andrew Cates.
Paxton declined to be interviewed and did not answer detailed questions about how he filled out the disclosure forms. Madison Cercy, a spokesperson for his campaign, said Paxton “has had a long and successful career outside of public service, including running his own small business as a lawyer. Stirring up partisan allegations is nothing more than a bad attempt to manufacture controversy where none exists.”
Questions about Paxton’s integrity have dogged him in the race for U.S. Senate. His opponent, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, entered September with a narrow polling lead — uncharted territory in a state where Republicans have not lost a statewide race in 32 years.
A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll released last week found that just a third of respondents viewed Paxton as “honest and trustworthy.” The same day the statewide poll was published, a super PAC supporting Talarico hit the airwaves with an ad that labeled the attorney general as “the most corrupt politician in Texas.”
Federal law requires candidates who aren’t currently in Congress to report all loans exceeding $10,000, except those for personal residences. Paxton did not report three mortgages totaling $1.3 million for condos at the Black Desert Resort in southwest Utah. He purchased the properties in February; the reporting period for the most recent disclosure ran through mid-May.
“It’s kind of mind-boggling to think about having four homes at one resort property and imagining those are for personal use,” said Cynthia Brown, a senior lawyer at the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The most significant changes between Paxton’s 2025 and 2026 reports were the valuations of an Oklahoma lodge and a plot of land outside of Fort Worth, whose value he said had increased by millions of dollars. He appears to have switched from reporting the properties’ assessed values, which are set by the local county, to the loftier estimates of what they would fetch on the open market.
Paxton’s move to significantly revalue his assets without explaining why is “very strange,” said Margaret Dylus-Yukins, senior counsel for ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
The ethics committee did not respond to requests for comment. Candidates or senators who willingly falsify financial disclosures can be fined up to $50,000 or prosecuted for making a false statement to the government, a felony. The committee rarely investigates senators and has not formally sanctioned a member in 19 years.
This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive their stories in your inbox every week.