{"id":47346,"date":"2025-11-13T02:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T02:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47346\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T02:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T02:30:08","slug":"former-state-rep-chris-paddie-fined-for-lobbying-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/47346\/","title":{"rendered":"Former state Rep. Chris Paddie fined for lobbying violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\tAudio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former state Rep. Chris Paddie, R-Marshall, was fined $105,500 for violating a revolving door lobbying law designed to prevent legislators from becoming lobbyists immediately after leaving office, according to an order from the Texas Ethics Commission.<\/p>\n

A state law passed in 2019 forbids former elected officials from registering as lobbyists if they contributed money to officeholders less than two years before their registration. Paddie, who decided not to seek reelection<\/a> in 2021, contributed $54,000 to House representatives and candidates late that year while he was still in office before registering as a lobbyist in May 2022, according to the ethics commission report<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis suggests intent to cultivate or maintain influence with the Legislature in advance of his retirement, which is what the statute was intended to prohibit,\u201d the ethics commission\u2019s order said of the $54,000 in donations.<\/p>\n

Paddie unregistered a week after he first registered as a lobbyist amid media reports about his lobbying, but reregistered later in the year and contributed $55,500<\/a> back into his campaign account with personal funds to cover the amount contributed, which was considered a loophole in the law. The ethics commission released an opinion<\/a> in February 2023 clarifying using personal funds would not cure a past violation, after which Paddie once again unregistered.<\/p>\n

The ethics commission also found that Paddie accepted more than $900,000 from lobbying clients he had contracts with between April 2022 and January 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The $105,500 fine was issued last week with \u201cthe willful nature of the violations, the respondent\u2019s lack of good faith in responding to the complaint, and the need to deter future violations\u201d in mind, according to the report. Payment of the fine is due 30 days after its issuance, according to the order. Paddie helped to create the portion of the election code he violated in coauthoring House Bill 2677<\/a> in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27365,27,27366,29,1862,293,28,6748],"class_list":["post-47346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-chris-paddie","tag-texas","tag-texas-ethics-commission","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-house-of-representatives","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-well-b-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}