NewzAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched his campaign for Senate last year, he skipped the local pageantry. Instead, records show, the conservative firebrand announced his bid on Fox News, cleared his calendar and booked a hotel in Augusta, Georgia, during the storied Masters golf tournament, a trip that cost to Texas taxpayers at least $25,000. The trip reflected a transformation that has unfolded over Paxton’s 11 tumultuous years as Texas’ top law enforcement official: His focus has increasingly extended beyond state lines.
As he steadily built a national political profile and became a star in President Donald Trump’s MAGA universe, Paxton took frequent trips and spent less time in Texas, according to an Associated Press review of state records. Since assuming office, Paxton left nearly 730 workdays blank on his official calendars and took over 275 out-of-state trips to places such as the California wine country, Caribbean resorts and European tourism hot spots. The travel cost Texas taxpayers a minimum of $1.9 million to cover expenses charged by his security detail, records show.
It is unclear how Paxton has financed much of his portion of the travel. The pattern became more pronounced as Paxton’s profile rose. Early in his tenure, his official calendars were packed with job-related duties.
In 2021, more than 90 workdays were blank — a number that reached to 112 in 2024, the last full year the AP had records for. Texas does not require the attorney general to report his day-to-day whereabouts, and other state records do not often reveal the length or purpose of the out-of-state travel. Texas, however, keeps records of monthly expenses incurred by his security detail.
Those records show reimbursements for travel outside Texas spiked from about $30,000 in 2015 to nearly $400,000 in 2024. “There is clearly a pattern of behavior here that may make some voters questions how seriously Ken Paxton has taken the job,” said Joshua Blank, the director of research for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Paxton’s record as attorney general and his travel have become an issue in the Senate campaign, a race that could prove pivotal in deciding party control of the chamber.
His Democratic opponent, James Talarico, criticized Paxton for spending July 4 in Great Britain and accused him of focusing more on his stand… Since assuming office in 2015, Paxton left about 730 workdays blank on his official calendars and took over 275 out-of-state trips to places such as the California wine country, Caribbean resorts and European tourism hot spots. The pattern became more pronounced as Paxton became a ubiquitous presence in conservative media and filed a stream of partisan lawsuits to oppose Democratic President Joe Biden’s agenda, endearing himself to Trump.
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