Katy Padilla Stout

Katy Padilla Stout is the Democratic nominee for Texas's open 23rd District along the border. She is an attorney and former elementary school teacher who, according to her campaign website, practices child welfare and education law at a family firm in Carrizo Springs. She won the March 3, 2026 Democratic primary with 52.1% of the vote in a four-candidate field.[1][2][3]

Padilla Stout describes herself as a lifelong Texan raised by a single mother and says her father and grandparents were migrant farmworkers from South Texas. The San Antonio Report says she was born and raised in San Antonio.[2][4] She graduated from Lee High School in San Antonio and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, in education according to her campaign website, in 2007 according to the San Antonio Report.[2][1][4] She taught elementary school in Northside ISD before attending law school, and she earned a law degree from the South Texas College of Law in 2013. She built a practice focused on child welfare and education law and says she now works with her father at their family firm based in Carrizo Springs.[2][1][4]

Padilla Stout has served since 2017 as an appointed member of the Bexar County Child Welfare Board, and she sits on the board of directors of Artvango Therapeutic Services, a nonprofit that provides expressive therapies for children.[2][4] She says she lives in San Antonio with her husband, a career prosecutor, and their four children, two of whom they adopted through foster care. In the San Antonio Report questionnaire she said she lives in Leon Springs with her husband, Austin.[2][4] Padilla Stout won the March 3, 2026 Democratic primary with 52.1% of the vote over Santos Limon, Bruce Richardson and Gretel Marysdatter Enck.[3][1]

Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.