Paxton Uses Force of AG’s Office to Counter Cornyn Money Edge

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), facing a significant money disadvantage in his primary race for US Senate, has gotten his message out to Republican voters at no cost through strategically timed announcements and politically savvy actions from his state office.

Leaning heavily into his attorney general communications team, Paxton twice in the leadup to the March 3 election took swipes at the conservative credentials of his opponent, Sen. John Cornyn (R), while brandishing his own bonafides through a flurry of lawsuits playing to the right-leaning sensibilities of his voter base.

As early voting opened Feb. 17, Paxton’s office teased several forthcoming lawsuits against companies he says make it possible for the Chinese government to spy on Texans. By the end of the week, he filed five, plus others against a pediatrician and hospital he says provided transgender care to minors; an online clothing company that markets chest binders to young girls; and a utility district connected to an Islamic real estate development.

The political profile Paxton has built through a dogged communications office that averaged almost two press releases a day in February has helped him gain a poll advantage in a bruising primary against Cornyn, the four-term incumbent, who finds himself trying to hold off a third candidate, US Rep. Wesley Hunt, to make it to a likely runoff with Paxton in May.

Paxton has been outraised by Cornyn in every quarter since his April campaign launch and has withstood more than $60 million in spending from pro-Cornyn groups with much of it going to drawing attention to his messy divorce and reminding voters of his 2023 impeachment.

“Paxton doesn’t have to raise a lot of money because he knows he can get attention through his office,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at University of Houston. “That’s a big part of how he’s always operated. It’s pretty savvy.”

The AG’s communications team operates like few others in government in that they almost never answer or even acknowledge questions from the press and instead focuses solely on amplifying lawsuits Paxton files in support of conservative values and those in which his team of lawyers get a favorable outcome.

His office didn’t respond to a request for comment on the role it believes it plays in elevating Paxton’s political platform.

Opinions From Cornyn’s Single Term

Paxton took the job of Texas AG in 2015, replacing Greg Abbott, who became Texas’ governor. Cornyn held the job before Abbott and stepped down in 2002 after he was elected to the US Senate. Cornyn’s record in Washington has been obvious campaign fodder for Paxton, but he didn’t stop there.

Paxton also dusted off decades-old legal opinions, issued by Cornyn from his single term as AG. Paxton rewrote the opinions, reaching conclusions that track closely with his campaign attacks on Cornyn for failing to crack down on immigration and resisting the America First agenda of President Donald Trump.

On Jan. 19, Paxton reversed a 1999 Cornyn opinion on race and diversity he said “muddied the waters” by leaving critical constitutional questions unresolved. Announced on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the 74-page opinion broadly found diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs unconstitutional in Texas government.

On Feb. 10, three weeks after the DEI opinion and one week before early voting, Paxton reversed a 2001 Cornyn opinion he said “introduced flawed reasoning” allowing for undocumented migrants to obtain occupational licenses.

“I have rescinded John Cornyn’s legal opinion that put Texans last by rolling out the red carpet for the invasion of our state,” Paxton said in a press release.

Notably, he did so without a request from a government body or official, the usual path for the AG to issue an opinion. A public records request confirmed that these are the only two times he’s issued an unsolicited legal answer in his 12 years in office.

His office didn’t respond to a question about these actions.

C. Robert Heath, who led the opinion committee under previous Texas AGs John Hill and Mark White, said these are the only two times he’s seen an attorney general give legal guidance without being asked for it. AG opinions are non-binding legal conclusions that courts are under no obligation to embrace and often don’t.

“I do not recall a single instance where we issued an opinion sua sponte in that time,” said Heath, now with Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP.

A senior adviser for Cornyn’s campaign, Matt Mackowiak, said the moves show that Paxton “sees no limits on political use of his taxpayer-funded office.”

The topic of attorney general opinions was central to Paxton’s impeachment trial in 2023. One of the articles accused him of issuing an opinion to avoid foreclosure sales of properties owned by a campaign donor. Paxton, the article said, masked his actions by asking a friend, state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), to seek an attorney general’s opinion as a straw requestor and then directed lawyers in the office to reverse their opinion in a way that helped the donor.

Paxton was acquitted on that count and all others and was allowed to return to office. The March 3 primary is his first statewide election since the trial.

State laws prohibit the use of public resources for political advertising — a ban Paxton himself has enforced against public school districts backing bond measures and political candidates.

Andrew Cates, a Texas lawyer specializing in government ethics, said it’s not clear if Paxton’s actions in criticizing Cornyn’s legal guidance are a misuse of his office.

“But it’s, I don’t know, suspect, dicey,” Cates said. “It’s very interesting that it’s specifically targeting his opponent.”