Texas elected officials will now face criminal charges or fines if they fail to disclose properties they own or rent out.
State officials must now list all known property holdings on their annual personal finance statements, according to a rule passed by the Texas Ethics Commission this week, KVUE reported. The new requirement comes months after The Texas Newsroom reported state Attorney General Ken Paxton failed to disclose nine properties he and his blind trust own.
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The personal financial statement is designed to show how public officials make money and spend it so the public can keep an eye on conflicts of interest or potential self-dealing. The financial statement Paxton filed in July shows only a single property in Collin County among his interests in real property.
However, mortgage and appraisal records show the attorney general or his blind trust spent millions on 10 properties in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Utah and Hawaii. Those include multiple Texas homes, a vacation cabin in Oklahoma and several Florida properties, with six of those purchases made since 2021, The Texas Newsroom reported.
When he filed his 2023 personal financial statement, which didn’t include six properties found by The Texas Newsroom, Paxton wrote that he thought the rules on property ownership and rental income were “somewhat abstract.”
During a January campaign event for a Texas House candidate in San Antonio, Paxton called the concern a “made-up issue.”
“I’ve disclosed everything I’m required to disclose,” Paxton told Texas Public Radio.
The Texas Office of the Attorney General didn't immediately respond to Bisnow's request for comment from Paxton.
The properties missing from his financial statement could be seen as reason for an investigation, Jim Clancy, the former chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission, told The Texas Newsroom at the time. A dramatic spending increase from an official with a single reported source of income raises the possibility of a conflict of interest, he said.
“This is actually a very important document because of the possibility for improper influence of an officeholder,” Clancy said.
This isn’t the first time the Republican in his third term in office has been linked to ethical issues.
Paxton faces a legal ethics lawsuit due to his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the FBI is investigating him for alleged corruption.
Paxton was acquitted on 16 articles of impeachment last year following a trial around accusations of various misdeeds, including abusing his power to assist Austin real estate developer Nate Paul. The 37-year-old CEO of World Class Capital has been charged with 12 federal counts of loan and wire fraud for allegedly making misleading and false statements to obtain money for property purchases and other businesses. He is scheduled to stand trial on the fraud charges in February.
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