key lobbying bill could fail again
Effort to close lawmaker-to-lobbyist revolving door with a 2-year ‘cooling off’ period unravels in House.
When lobbyist John Otto walks into the Capitol, he passes Department of Public Safety troopers who draw their salaries from money appropriated by 2015’s House Bill 1, the current state budget.
As he walks down the pristine hallways, the lights are on, the elevators are running and water flows from the water fountains, all thanks to HB 1.
And when he reaches the office of a legislator he is being paid to lobby, he greets staffers who, like the lawmaker they work for, are also getting paid because of HB 1. The author of that bill? Otto. The Republican from Southeast Texas who chaired the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee left office in January after declining to seek re-election. He has since made between $175,000 and $350,000 lobbying for clients such as the Texas
Association of Realtors and the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants, according to a new report from Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning government ethics group.
Otto is emblematic of what watchdogs call the revolving door between the Legisla
ture and the lobbying industry, in which recently retired elected officials turn their relationships with former colleagues into fat paychecks from big business. The for
mer six-term legislator from Dayton didn’t respond to a request for comment.
After Gov. Greg Abbott made ethics reform one of his priorities this legislative session, lawmakers have introduced a package of measures aimed at increasing transparency of elected officials’ finances, regulating lobbyist activity and stiffening penal- ties for those convicted on corruption charges.
Some of the ethics bills are making their way toward the legislative finish line, but HB 504, originally intended to establish a two-year “cool- ing-off ” period during which ex-lawmakers would be banned from becoming lob- byists, appears to be foundering.
The Senate swiftly approved a similar measure months ago, but a House committee gutted it, ethics watchdogs say. It has yet to make it to the House floor for a vote.
‘Revolving door’ still turning?
The House’s retooling of the bill has alarmed its author, Sen. Van Taylor, R-Plano.
“It’s a pretty shocking step backwards,” Taylor said of the new version being carried in the House by Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth.
Geren declined to comment on the changes he made to the bill, other than to say, “There were some
members that had some con- cerns.” Rather than temporarily banning ex-lawmakers from lobbying, the bill would now allow them to lobby immedi- ately but prohibit them from using confidential information they learned while on
the state’s payroll, which is already illegal.
Carol Birch, legislative counsel for the Texas office of the Ralph Nader-founded nonprofit Public Citizen, said she calls the new version “the lobotomy bill” because the only way to enforce it is to delete the memories of ex-lawmakers.
Thirty-three state legislatures and Congress have
imposed some type of moratorium on lawmakers becom-
ing lobbyists, Taylor said. “When you’ve got people voting one day and the next day becoming a lobbyist, it certainly calls into question the allegiances of the person who’s casting those votes,” he said.
Some reform bills advance
The first bill the Senate approved this year was Taylor’s far-reaching Senate Bill 14, composed of measures that received broad support in a failed 2015 attempt to pass an ethics reform pack- age.
The House has taken up those measures as six separate bills and passed two this week:
■ HB 505 by Geren, which would prohibit ex-lawmakers who become lobbyists from
making political donations with money that is left over in their campaign accounts when they retire.
■ HB 501 by Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, which would require candi- dates and elected officials to disclose whether their private businesses receive government contracts.
Geren said he expects another of his measures, HB 500, which strips state pensions from elected officials convicted on public cor
ruption charges and allows them to be removed from office, to move forward soon.
Two other bills are still pending in the House General Investigating and Ethics Committee: Geren’s HB 502, aimed at preventing
lobbyists from circumventing reporting requirements by splitting bills when they wine and dine lawmakers; and Capriglione’s HB 503 to prevent elected officials from becoming lobbyists while they are still in office, a measure designed to address
local government officials who lobby the state.
That committee approved the watered-down version of the “revolving door” bill more than two weeks ago and sent it to the vote-scheduling House Calendars Committee, where it is pending.
Despite the slow progress in the House, Capriglione said he thinks ethics reform proponents will be pleased by the time lawmakers finish their work at the end of the month.
“Better late than never, I guess you could say. I’m looking forward to a happy end
ing,” he said. “We’re going to make substantive changes in ethics reform this session.”
Abbott spokesman John Wittman said, “Meaningful ethics reforms that reinforce the faith and trust that Texans place in their government remain a priority for the governor.”