Ken Paxton's history of unanswered questions and the potential impact on his Texas Senate campaign
Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton's refusal to answer questions about his property acquisitions and voting residence went viral last week. It happened in Fort Worth during a news conference the Republican nominee held to announce that two dozen Texas sheriffs had endorsed his campaign.
When Paxton opened the news conference to questions from the room of reporters, CBS News Texas began asking him about a New York Times report that the Attorney General had increased the number of properties he owned to 15, worth $9 million. His annual salary is reportedly $153,000. Paxton said he wouldn't answer that and instead wanted to talk about the Sheriffs' endorsements.
A reporter for the Dallas Morning News asked Paxton about a Texas Tribune-ProPublica report that said he voted six times in a Collin County location based off an address at which he no longer lived. The reporting came after his office released guidance in February that "it is illegal to misrepresent your residence on election records." Paxton declined to answer.
It's not the first time the Attorney General hasn't wanted to answer questions about allegations surrounding him. In February 2022, before the Republican primary in the Attorney General's race, CBS News Texas traveled to a Paxton news conference in far east Texas to ask him about criticism from his three opponents.
At the time, Paxton was under investigation by the FBI after his top hand-picked lieutenants in his office went to the law enforcement agency, alleging potential bribery and other crimes against him.
When asked how he would respond to his Republican challengers who openly criticized his ethics and integrity, Paxton said, "Let me just say we're going to keep this to the topic at hand. I'm not going to talk about my campaign. I'm not going to talk about campaign issues. Literally, this is part of my job. This is an important issue for Texas."
In May 2023, after a Texas House committee recommended Paxton be impeached, the Attorney General held a news conference at his office at the Texas Capitol. He read a statement, but before reporters could ask him any questions, he walked out.
The next day, the full Texas House voted to impeach Paxton. In September of that year, Paxton was acquitted and cleared of any wrongdoing in a trial held by the Texas Senate. The Biden administration ultimately dropped its FBI investigation without filing any charges against Paxton.
While Paxton answered a limited number of questions at some of his campaign events for the March primary, he has not agreed to an extensive interview with local reporters, only conservative media. CBS News Texas has requested interviews with him multiple times, but have not been granted one.
After his news conference, CBS News Texas again requested an interview with him, and asked his campaign if they had a statement or answers to the questions we asked. As of early Friday afternoon, the campaign hadn't replied.
In an interview with CBS News Texas, SMU Political Science Professor Matthew Wilson said he doesn't think the news conference will have a big impact on the Senate race.
"I don't think that particular incident in and of itself hurts him a lot politically, but clearly there will be pressure going forward for him and for his campaign to speak to some of these issues surrounding his voting residence, surrounding his property acquisitions," Wilson said of Paxton
"He'll have to provide a response," added Wilson. "I understand him not wanting to get into a back-and-forth about that at an event that he wanted to be tightly focused and scripted about law enforcement. But that said, we know that voters have some ethics concerns surrounding Attorney General Paxton, and that he'll have to speak to those questions at some point."
Wilson said that as Attorney General, Paxton hasn't had to answer reporters' questions about his ethical concerns.
"I think the lesson that he has drawn from his previous campaigns is that he can largely avoid doing that. That is, he's run multiple times statewide and prevailed in both primaries and general elections since the ethical cloud started to surround him. And he looks back and says, 'look, I didn't have to get into the weeds of these issues with either local or national reporters. In these previous campaigns, I still prevailed,' and so, I think that's the playbook that he will largely try to stick to," Wilson said. "I think that Ken Paxton realizes that people's perceptions of his ethics are largely baked in at this point. These accusations of various types have been swirling around him for years, and I think most people in Texas have made up their mind, one way or the other, about whether they find those things disqualifying."
Paxton's news conference came after the Democratic nominee, James Talarico, challenged Paxton to three televised debates. While Paxton's campaign has said he wants to debate, the two campaigns are still negotiating.
In response, the Talarico campaign issued a statement that read in part, "If Ken Paxton can't answer these simple questions, what is he planning to do in a debate?"
Asked about the potential debates with Talarico, Wilson said he doubts there will be three, but that there could be one.
"I think a lot depends on where Paxton feels like his campaign stands come Labor Day," Wilson said. "Does he feel like he's got a small but reliable lead, or does he feel like he truly is in serious danger of losing this race? Does he feel like he's a little bit behind? If he feels like he's a little bit behind, it probably increases his willingness to debate."
"But a debate is a format that you can't control," added Wilson. "He may fear that in a side-by-side with James Talarico, he may not come across as favorably, that he might be asked something that puts him in an uncomfortable position. So, it would not surprise me if the Paxton campaign finds some reason not to debate, either by objecting to moderators or to format, or to venue, the reality is any candidate, Democrat or Republican, who wants to find excuses not to debate, can usually do so."
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