Texas officials flout hiring rules
AUSTIN — At first glance, Hector Valle would seem like an odd fit for the state agency that oversees all public land in Texas.
When the 37-year-old applied to join the Texas General Land Office last October, saying he wanted to be the agency’s “special counsel” — a job that did not exist — his only work experience was as a Dallas anti-gang prosecutor.
Valle had a special qualification, however: He had gone to law school with George P. Bush, the frontrunner in what was then an upcoming election for land commissioner.
Two weeks later, Bush won. Six days after that, Valle was on the payroll, making an annual salary
of $115,000.
Valle, who recently became a volunteer fundraising “bundler” for the presidential campaign of Bush’s father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is among scores of political aides, campaign workers and friends of statewide elected officials who have been brought into Texas government over the past year without facing any public competition for their jobs, a Houston Chronicle examination has found.
Despite a two-decade-old law mandating job openings be advertised to the public, Bush and Gov. Greg Abbott, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Comptroller Glenn Hegar, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Railroad Commissioners David Porter, Christi Craddick and Ryan Sitton have bent the rules to hire at least 150 people with personal or political connections, state records show.
More than 15 percent of hires
Overall, the officials have given unadvertised jobs to 179 people — 15.4 percent of their 1,161 hires between Election Day 2014 and Sept. 1, according to a review of records documenting all of the hires and job postings in that time.
The list includes at least 70 people who worked on the campaign or in a previous office of the official who hired them, 15 former aides to former Gov. Rick Perry, a half dozen lobbyists and two children of state lawmakers.
Their salaries average about $90,000 and total around $16 million. They range from $30,000, for Rosemary Graber, an Abbott campaign worker who was hired as a receptionist for Hegar, to $223,500, for Anne Idsal, the granddaughter of an adviser to former President George H.W. Bush who was hired by his grandson as the Land Office’s general counsel. Idsal since has been promoted to chief clerk.
It is not uncommon for politicians to bring trusted aides with them into public office. The hires by the Texas state officials are different in that they include jobs most would think would be filled by nonpartisan bureaucrats — and because they appear to run afoul of the 1991 law.
Unanimously approved by the Legislature, House Bill 2556 required “any agency, board, bureau, commission, committee, council, court, department, institution, or office in the executive or judicial branch of state government that has an employment opening for which persons from outside the agency will be considered shall list the opening with the Texas Workforce Commission.”
Despite that, the statute does not appear to have ever been enforced. Officials at the Workforce Commission, State Auditor’s Office, Attorney General’s Office and Department of Public Safety, as well as the Public Integrity Unit at the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, said they did not remember ever enforcing the law.
Workforce Commission spokeswoman Lisa Givens said she could not say anything else about job postings, citing another law that she said prevents the agency from releasing any information about the postings on its public website. The Chronicle obtained records from the agencies and confirmed the findings with spokespeople.
The records show that Bush has relied on unadvertised jobs the most, making 76.4 percent of his hires without a posting, 55 out of 72, including 14 in July, nine months after the election. Sixty-nine of Abbott’s 100 hires so far were not posted, but most were in his first week, when he faced an usually high turnover and had to move quickly because the legislative session already was underway. The others varied from 3.7 percent, by the Railroad Commission, to 9.6 percent, by the Agriculture Department.
Bush’s office did not return messages seeking comment. An Abbott spokesman said the governor “has a constitutional responsibility to govern on his first day in office and as such must have essential personnel in place.” Other officials defended their hires.
“Each employee selected was highly qualified for his or her role,” said Lauren Willis, a Hegar spokeswoman, adding “this cir-
cumstance is a rare exception to the rigorous hiring process our agency typically follows.”
For some lawmakers, however, the quiet hires raised questions about whether officials were harming taxpayers by rewarding cronies.
“These are very important jobs, and not all political jobs,” said state Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, vice chair of the House Government Transparency & Operation Committee. “You get elected to whatever position, you want to hire people who are loyal to you. I get that. But the law is the law for a reason, and we cannot lose the people’s trust.”
After hearing the numbers, Walle said he planned to ask his colleagues in the Legislature to consider changing the law to crack down on the practice.
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, said she was especially concerned that few of those who got jobs without competition were veterans, who are supposed to get priority in state hiring. She said she also wanted the Legislature to look at strengthening the law.
Several Republican lawmakers declined comment, including the chair of Walle’s committee, Gary Elkins of Houston.
Few official complaints
Lawmakers, who exempted themselves from the original law, have amended it once. In 1999, they added a provision allowing agencies to make hires without postings when undergoing a reorganization mandated by the Legislature. Otherwise, they have allowed the requirement to remain on the books as Chapter 656 of Title 6B of the Texas Government Code.
The law has occasionally received media attention over the years, but there has never been a comprehensive analysis of how often officials have skirted the requirement.
In some of the past cases, agencies that have been criticized for violating the law have pointed to language in the code allowing certain officials to make certain
appointments. But there are only a few allowed appointments, and besides, the code does not say they can be hired without a job posting.
A half dozen government watchdogs said they have not filed any complaints about violations of the law. Some questioned whether it would be worth the trouble, saying that posting a job opening would not stop an official from hiring someone with connections.
“There are a million things wrong with the world, and we can’t complain about all of them,” said Craig McDonald of Austinbased Texans for Public Justice.
The total of 179 people in the Chronicle analysis does not include those with connections who were hired after a job posting, but it has happened. In one example noted by the Austin American-Statesman, former Perry spokesman Rich Parsons won a $115,000-per-year job at the Railroad Commission that was publicly posted for just one day.
Employment lawyers said postings can make a difference, though. If a job is posted, said Susan Motley, president of the Texas Employment Lawyers Association, applicants who do not get the job can file a public records request for the application of the person who was chosen and, potentially, sue for discrimination.
“Of course, if a job isn’t posted, then someone would never know that the job existed and would not know to apply or request records,” Motley said.
Seth Hutchinson, organizing coordinator for the Texas State Employees Union, said job postings are important.
“Laws to prevent favoritism and nepotism in the hiring of state employees should always be followed to make sure that Texans are getting the best-qualified and most capable individuals in public service,” Hutchinson said.
It is impossible to tell if the state officials could have gotten more qualified employees by opening up the application process. Some of those who have been hired for unadvertised jobs had years of experience in government, while others did not.
Bush, in particular, has drawn criticism from his predecessor, Jerry Patterson, for firing longtime agency workers and replacing them with loyalists. Idsal graduated from Baylor Law School in 2010, and the commissioner’s chief of staff, J.R. Hernandez, the son of an adviser to former President George W. Bush, got his undergraduate degree from Baylor in 2008.
Miller has given his unposted hires the highest salaries, with an average of about $150,000, largely due to his creation of four new “appointed” assistant agriculture commissioner positions, each paying $180,000 per year. The commissioner filled those jobs with two former colleagues from the state House, a campaign aide and the wife of a campaign consultant.
Bush also hired the wife of a campaign strategist, for a $48,000-a-year job. Abbott hired the brother-in-law of his campaign finance director, the sister of an aide to a lawmaker and a son of Republican state Rep. John Zerwas. And Hegar hired a son of GOP state Sen. Brian Birdwell, who had also worked on Hegar’s campaign.
‘Age-old tradition’
In all, 42 of the 179 unposted hires had worked on the campaign of the officeholder who hired them; 28 had worked for the official in another capacity; 67 had other political connections and 13 had personal or family ties.
National government ethics expert Bob Stern said those with personal connections were the most concerning because they likely had the least qualifications for their jobs.
Stern, a onetime general counsel of California’s ethics agency, said he was disappointed to hear about the situation in Texas but not surprised because politicians throughout history have rewarded those who helped them get power.
“It’s an age-old tradition,” he said.