Attorney General Ken Paxton has been running a pretty lackluster campaign. Here he is, just this week, pulling his tour bus up to an almost empty airplane hangar in Beaumont.
Turns out that Paxton doesn’t need an audience in Beaumont when the lobbyists are getting personal invitations. All Paxton needs is a few people in Washington, DC, with clients. Emails obtained by Documented, a democracy watchdog group, show his fundraiser spent this fall asking for exactly that.
Between September 1 and October 30, Fundraising Inc. sent DC donors at least nine emails on Ken Paxton’s behalf. The September emails offered access to the sitting Texas Attorney General, right next to the ticket prices.
Every one of these emails is signed by Alexandra Kingston, the firm’s president. Paxton would be in DC on September 23 and 24, his last trip before the election. Kingston listed open half-hour slots for anyone with “clients or members who would like to sit down with AG Paxton.” Three fundraisers ran alongside the open time slots: a Texas delegation reception, an agriculture industry breakfast, and a reception at TSG Advocates. Tickets ran from $1,000 to $5,000.
After his DC trip, the language changed.
On October 6, Kingston offered phone and video calls with the sitting Texas Attorney General and US Senate candidate to anyone who could round up friends or colleagues. Bundlers were promised that every dollar would be tracked, plus a private event with Paxton in DC after the election.
The email was closed with, “Support given now will not be forgotten.”
Punchbowl News first reported the memo, and the Daily Beast followed, as a story about a campaign falling behind.
Over the course of these memos, the language went from “clients or members” to “friends or colleagues” to just “support given now will not be forgotten.”
People with clients are lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants whose clients may have business before the state’s top lawyer.
Who is doing the remembering?
Fundraising Inc. launched in 2021 as Axiom Strategies’ fundraising arm, with Alexandra Kingston as the president. Axiom is a Republican political consulting firm founded by Jeff Roe.
Paxton’s committees have paid Fundraising Inc. $134,478.93, according to Team Paxton and Paxton Victory FEC filings. That includes $9,048.53 for catering on September 23, the first day of the DC trip, and $10,062.05 for catering on October 6, the day “will not be forgotten” first went out.
The promises in these emails came from the campaign’s paid fundraiser, on the campaign’s dime.
Who paid after breakfast?
Nothing in these memos says what was discussed in those 30-minute time slots, but Team Paxton’s October quarterly report says who wrote the checks afterward. Six days after the “Paxton Agriculture Industry Fundraiser,” six agriculture PACs gave $21,000.
US Peanut PAC
Western Peanut Growers PAC
PECAN PAC
American Peanut Shellers Association PAC
ARAPAC (Agricultural Retailers Association)
USA Rice Federation PAC
What do US Senators vote on? Farm bills, trade deals, and the laws behind EPA and food safety regulations.
Donors that week also included people who list their jobs as lobbyists or in government affairs at NestPoint Associates, Woodside Energy, Origin Advocacy, EFB Advocacy, Covenant Government Affairs, and Williams & Jensen. Reince Priebus of Michael Best gave $3,500. So did CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp.
Who got credit?
Here’s how bundling works. A lobbyist calls ten clients, and each writes $5,000 instead of the lobbyist writing a check for $50,000. On a campaign’s public report, you see ten names, but you don’t see the lobbyist who collected them.
So, when Kingston said, “we will track every dollar,” she meant it’s like a running tab of who brought in the money, so the campaign knows who to thank later. It’s like a referral code for access to a United States Senator.
Congress decided that voters should see that tab, too. Once a lobbyist brings in more than $24,000, the campaign must file a separate report called Form 3L, naming the lobbyist and how much they raised. Under FEC rules, it counts the moment the campaign tracks what a lobbyist raised, or rewards them with access to an event. The emails from Kingston promised both.
As of publication, FEC records show no Form 3L from Paxton’s committees for the quarter covering his Washington trip. Money raised after October 14 shows up in the report due December 3. If lobbyists bundled for Paxton and no Form 3L appears, voters never learn whose support he promised not to forget.
Why it matters.
A sitting Attorney General, the top law enforcement officer in the second-largest state in the country, had his paid fundraiser offer Washington lobbyists half-hour meetings for their clients, keep a tab on who brought in the money, and promise that none of it would be forgotten.
That last part is the problem. Paxton doesn’t stop being Attorney General until January. If he wins, he goes to the Senate and votes on the farm bills and trade deals. If he loses, he stays in an office that investigates companies, sues them, settles with them, and hires private lawyers to do it for the rest of his term.
Either way, someone is keeping a list of promises due.
Tuesday is Election Day. This is the last chance.
Ken Paxton told us who he was for a decade. He was indicted for securities fraud, impeached by his own party’s House on bribery and corruption charges, and acquitted by a Senate full of his friends. Some people don’t change; they just get bigger offices.
Paxton couldn’t fill a hangar in Beaumont. Let’s make sure he can’t fill a Senate seat either. Find your polling place at VoteTexas.gov, bring your ID, and bring somebody with you.
Show up Tuesday. Make him remember that.
3 days until the November election!
Election Day: November 3, 2026
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The commercials of the men that are saying vote for Paxton because he would be the better Senator make themselves look really bad. Do you think they realize how bad it makes them look or do you think they were just paid well. I want to say that they could never pay me enough to do that but I could get desperate. 🤷🏻♀️