The brother of Rand Paul and youngest son of Ron Paul had hinted he might run for Congress. Paul son rules out Texas Senate bid

A third member of the Paul family isn’t headed to Congress, at least not yet.

Texas physician Robert Paul, a son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and brother of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), said Thursday that he isn’t planning to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey Hutchison, though he’d hinted last week that he might be interested.


“I’m honored that people think I’m ready to run, but I think they want me to run because I’m related to Ron Paul,” Robert Paul told students at the University of North Texas on Thursday, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“I think the biggest thing I have that’s similar to my dad is that I’m honest,” he said. “I’m never going to say I won’t ever run for office, but I think running for Senate probably is not going to happen this time.” He added: “I think about it all the time. That doesn’t mean I have plans to do it.”

Last week, though, Paul was singing a slightly different tune, telling the Star-Telegram that he was “very happy as a physician” but has “a lot of interest in the debt” and suggesting that he might run.

There already are more than half a dozen Republicans who have declared that they’re running for Hutchison’s seat. Some already have raised substantial amounts of money and, unlike Paul, have held other elected offices.

When one student asked Paul what it would take to get him to run for Congress, Paul said that both he and his family would need some convincing. “You’d have to get my wife on board with it, my kids on board with it and me on board with it,” he said. “I really don’t want to go to Washington. But as my kids get older, there might be a chance.”

That chance, Paul said, is rooted in what his father has always said about running for public office: “My dad told us something like, ‘If you understand liberty, and understand what the problems are, and you do nothing, then you are part of the problem,’” he said. “I’m never going to say never.”