# Lone Star Liberty PAC A pro-[[Ken Paxton]] super PAC active in the 2026 Texas Senate race ([[TX-Sen-2026]]). Axios reported on **September 5, 2026** that the committee had **launched a $15 million advertising effort that week**, and that the [[Senate Leadership Fund]] — the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader [[John Thune]] — **has been sharing polling data and research with it**. That sharing arrangement is the reason this page exists. Senate leadership backed John Cornyn against Paxton in the Republican primary; routing research to an outside pro-Paxton group is one of the mechanisms by which an establishment that opposed a nominee supports him without spending under its own name. ## FEC record Verified against FEC filings on **2026-09-12**. **FEC ID C00901223**, registered **April 2, 2025**, treasurer **Robert Phillips III**, organized as a Super PAC (independent-expenditure-only, unauthorized). It predates the Paxton–Cornyn primary, not just the general. Its disclosed independent expenditures total **$32,773,029.14** across **59 Schedule E line items**, running from **September 10, 2025** through **September 4, 2026** — more than twice the "$15 million advertising effort" Axios described as launching the week of September 1. The Axios figure was not wrong so much as narrow: it described one week's booking, not the committee's filed spending. | Election | Direction | Target | Amount | |---|---|---|---| | General 2026 | oppose | [[James Talarico]] | $14,285,675 | | General 2026 | support | [[Ken Paxton]] | $3,586,620 | | Runoff 2026 | oppose | [[John Cornyn]] | $6,510,984 | | Runoff 2026 | support | [[Ken Paxton]] | $1,540,141.66 | | Primary 2026 | oppose | [[Wesley Hunt]] | $6,101,858.48 | | Primary 2026 | oppose | [[John Cornyn]] | $747,750 | The pattern answers the "Texas-specific or portable vehicle" question: every line is the Texas Senate seat, and the committee has spent against **both** of Paxton's Republican rivals as well as his Democratic opponent. It is a Paxton vehicle, not a Texas one. Its largest single expenditure is **$6,365,020** opposing Talarico (spent September 4, filed September 9) — under the **$10M** single-buy floor at which design doc §7.4 would make a buy its own Deal record, so its spending rolls up on [[TX-Sen-2026]] rather than becoming Deal pages. ## Who funds it Verified against FEC Schedule A on **2026-09-12**. The committee has **158 disclosed receipts**. Its largest: | Contributor | Amount | Receipt date | Type | |---|---|---|---| | **Preserve Texas Inc** (McLean, VA) | $600,000 | 2026-05-04 | see below — **not** a PAC | | **Chelsey Milton** (AZ, "homemaker") | $500,000 | 2025-06-06 | individual | | [[Jonathan Knutz]] (TX, Legacy Medical Consultants) | $500,000 | 2026-04-29 | individual | | [[Jonathan Knutz]] (TX, Legacy Medical Consultants) | $500,000 | 2025-12-31 | individual | | [[Jonathan Knutz]] (TX, Legacy Medical Consultants) | $100,000 | 2025-08-18 | individual | | **Thomas J Henry Law PLLC** (TX) | $396,107 | 2026-05-12 | organization | | **Thomas J Henry Law PLLC** (TX) | $250,000 | 2026-05-07 | organization | | **Douglas Scharbauer** (TX, Midland Chamber of Commerce) | $250,000 | 2026-05-18 | individual | | **Paul McLaren** (TX, self) | $250,000 | 2025-05-14 | individual | | **Gary Heavin** (TX, Curves International) | $250,000 | 2025-05-21 | individual | | **Gary Heavin** (TX, Curves International) | $250,000 | 2026-04-13 | individual | The money is overwhelmingly **Texas money** — a medical-device executive, a Midland civic figure, a Corpus Christi personal-injury firm, the founder of Curves — which distinguishes this committee from the national vehicles spending in the same race. The exception is **Preserve Texas Inc**, which sent **$1,025,000 from McLean, Virginia** and is the conduit-shaped item here. It gets its own section below, because it is the largest single funding source on this page and because what it is has been recorded on this page incorrectly. No single receipt reaches **$1M**. Its largest funder by a wide margin is [[Jonathan Knutz]], chief executive of the Fort Worth regenerative-biomaterials company Legacy Medical Consultants, at **$1,100,000 across three receipts** — recorded as an aggregate Deal at [[Knutz 1.1M to Lone Star Liberty PAC]]. Knutz had **no itemized federal contribution of $5,000 or more in the 2024 or 2022 cycles**; his first large giving of this cycle went to [[Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]]'s joint fundraising committee and the [[Libertarian Party]] apparatus before turning to Paxton. **Preserve Texas Inc** is second at **$1,025,000 aggregate** — a figure this page previously understated as a single $600,000 receipt — and **Thomas J Henry Law PLLC** third at $646,107. ## Preserve Texas Inc — the conduit, and a correction > [!warning] Corrected 2026-09-22 > This page previously listed Preserve Texas Inc as a **"Virginia PAC"** contributing **$600,000**. > Both halves were wrong. It gave **$1,025,000 across four checks**, and it is **not a PAC** — it is a > Virginia nonprofit that has never registered as a political committee with the FEC and files no > disclosure of its donors. The "PAC" label came from this vault reading the entity-type code on a > single receipt; the filer itself coded the four checks inconsistently as **ORG, PAC, PAC and COM**. > **Do not trust filer-supplied entity-type codes as evidence of what an organization is.** All four receipts, verified against FEC Schedule A for committee C00901223 on **2026-09-22**: | Receipt date | Amount | Entity type as coded by the filer | |---|---|---| | 2026-02-11 | $150,000 | ORG | | 2026-02-25 | $200,000 | PAC | | 2026-05-04 | $600,000 | PAC | | 2026-05-21 | $75,000 | COM | | | **$1,025,000** | | All four list a **McLean, Virginia** address. On the filed record this is the **largest single source of money into this committee** after [[Jonathan Knutz]], and it is the only one whose ultimate funders are unknown. ### What CBS News reported CBS News reported on **2026-09-02** that Preserve Texas is a Virginia nonprofit **incorporated by John Plishka**, who is simultaneously the **treasurer of [[Ken Paxton]]'s Senate campaign**, according to Virginia corporate documents. Preserve Texas has made contributions to no federal committee other than this one. [[James Talarico]]'s campaign filed a complaint with the FEC the same week, alleging that Paxton and his treasurer are spending unlimited-source money outside federal contribution limits to promote Paxton's candidacy. The complaint invokes the provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that bars candidates and their agents from establishing or controlling outside groups to collect money the candidate could not lawfully accept. Both organizations deny it. A Lone Star Liberty spokesperson, **Greg Keller**, said the PAC follows all regulations and laws, and countered that Talarico's own side uses "redboxing" to signal to super PACs. A Preserve Texas spokeswoman, **Preya Samsundar**, said the group is an independent 501(c)(4) doing civic engagement and issue advocacy, that it is not established, financed, maintained or controlled by any candidate or candidate's agent, and that Plishka's services are purely administrative — recordkeeping, filings and back-office support, with no strategic role. > [!note] Why this probably goes nowhere before the election, and why that is the point > Election-law scholar Richard Hasen told CBS the allegations raise a plausible claim **against the > treasurer**, while noting it does not automatically reach Paxton — the unregulated money would have > to be raised and spent at Paxton's direction or with his knowledge. Either way the **FEC lacks a > quorum** to vote on opening an investigation, following a series of departures including > [[Donald Trump]]'s firing of a Democratic commissioner. A complaint filed in September 2026 against > conduct from February 2026 will not be adjudicated before November 3. > > This is the vault's cleanest documented instance of the **campaign-treasurer-as-dark-money-incorporator** > pattern: the same individual signs the candidate's FEC reports and incorporates the nonprofit that > funds the super PAC supporting him, and the enforcement body that would test whether that is legal > cannot convene. **Still unestablished:** who funds Preserve Texas; whether its 501(c)(4) status has been confirmed against IRS records rather than taken from a spokeswoman's statement; and what else, if anything, Plishka incorporated. The Virginia corporate filings are cited by CBS but have not been pulled directly into this vault. ## What is still not established > [!warning] September receipts and the research-sharing claim > The donor list above runs through the committee's last filed report. As a monthly filer its > **September** receipts are not due until **October 20, 2026**, and the pre-general report lands in > mid-October — so the money funding the current advertising burst is not yet visible. The Axios claim > that [[Senate Leadership Fund]] shares polling and research with it is still **single-sourced** and > is not the kind of arrangement that appears on a Schedule E — a coordinated-spending or > joint-fundraising agreement would have to be disclosed separately, and none has been. ## Context It is the largest of four outside money channels stacked behind Paxton in September 2026, alongside [[MAGA Inc]] (see [[MAGA Inc 20M Texas Senate IE Program]]), [[America PAC]], and the newly registered No Going Back PAC, which filed $1.87M of pro-Paxton and anti-Talarico direct mail on September 8. Paxton had been outraised by [[James Talarico]] roughly seven to one — $68M to $9M through the end of June — which is the gap all four are filling. On the filed numbers, this committee has supplied more of that gap-filling than MAGA Inc's own name has. ## See Also - [[MAGA Inc 20M Texas Senate IE Program]] - [[TX-Sen-2026]] - [[Ken Paxton]] · [[James Talarico]] - [[Senate Leadership Fund]] · [[MAGA Inc]] · [[America PAC]] - [[Independent Expenditure]] - [[2026 Senate Races Hub]]