Abbott vetoes ethics measure
Governor blocks bills for ethics reform that created loopholes
The governor says the legislation with a spousal loophole was flawed.
AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott shaped public policy and his political image as he wielded one of the biggest powers of his constitutionally limited office: the veto, which he used on 42 measures.
With a Sunday deadline looming to decide on legislation, Abbott finished Saturday with vetoes that included killing two ethics reform bills. Both created loopholes for a spouse’s financial dealings that Abbott found unacceptable.
“At the beginning of this legislative session, I called for meaningful ethics reform. This legislation does not accomplish that goal. Provisions in this bill would reduce Texans’ trust in their elected officials, and I will not be a part of weakening our ethics laws. Serious ethics reform must be addressed next session — the right way. Texans deserve better,” Abbott said in a veto statement regarding one of the measures, House Bill 3736.
In all, Abbott killed 42 of the 1,408 bills and resolutions approved by lawmakers, not counting his line-item vetoes in the budget. That puts his vetoes in the middle of the pack for Texas governors, tying then-Gov. Mark White in 1983. Gov. Ann Richards vetoed 35 in 1991, and Preston Smith vetoed 66 in 1969.
It’s a much smaller tally than the 82 chalked up by his immediate predecessor, Rick Perry in the first session he was governor, although Perry issued fewer in later years.
In addition to vetoing entire bills, Abbott cut $233 million from the $209.4 billion, two-year state budget through his line-item veto authority.
Abbott’s action wrapped up the work of the legislative session that ended June 1. Campaign promises
It followed months of effort by Abbott and his staff, often behind the scenes and helped along by an early charm offensive that included coveted invitations to the Governor’s Mansion.
Abbott helped to coax passage of legislation on his top priorities such as tax relief, expanded gun rights including open carry of handguns and funding aimed at improving early education programs.
“The bottom line is that the legislation that did make it to his desk fulfilled many of his campaign promises — sometimes not quite as substantive as he might have hoped, but nonetheless he was able to say, ‘Look, I campaigned on ‘X’ and here’s ‘X’ on my desk. And so I think from a substantive standpoint, it was relatively successful session for a beginning governor,” said political scientist Jerry Polinard of the University of TexasPan American.
An exception was the ethics legislation. Abbott’s veto of house Bills 3511 and 3736 by Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, left him with little to show for his push to reform ethics, a difficult issue to pass in the Legislature.
An omnibus ethics reform measure earlier died in the Legislature due to a dispute over regulating dark money, leaving only several separate bills to head to Abbott’s desk in piecemeal fashion.
The Davis legislation contained ethics reforms as sought by Abbott but also would have eliminated a requirement that lawmakers disclose information about their spouses’ financial dealings.
That loophole, pushed by Sen. Joan Huffman, RHouston, was viewed as weakening state law. Huffman said it was intended to address an overly broad reporting rule adopted by the Texas Ethics Commission.
“I’m disappointed this Senate amendment put the governor in the position of having to veto two ethics bills that were originally written to make government more transparent and accountable,” Davis said.
Huffman, the bills’ sponsor, said that Texas law since 1973 has required public officials to disclose their spouses’ financial activity “if the public of- ficial has actual control over it.” But she said the Ethics Commission went further in 2014 by broadly requiring public officials to disclose any spousal activity in which the officials have an ownership interest — including activity over which officials have no control or knowledge.
In the wake of pushing the amendment to the ethics bills, Huffman was targeted with an ethics complaint from a member of the Texas Democratic Party’s executive committee. The complaint accused her of failing to report businesses from which her husband receives financial benefit.
Huffman said Saturday that she would abide by the 2014 commission rule, and that she would have had to do so even if the bills became law. She noted that the bills only would have applied to personal financial statements filed in 2016 and later. Watchdogs applaud
She said that she will disclose her husband’s financial activities “even though I had no control over, or in most instances no knowledge of my spouse’s financial activities.”
Ethics-watchdog groups applauded the two vetoes. “Gov. Abbott closed the doors to a new wave of corruption by vetoing” the two bills, said Tom Smith, Texas director of Public Citizen. “If these bills had become law, legislators’ spouses could have become enriched by those who wanted favors from the member and we’d never know if there was a payback.”
Texas’ governor “at least in terms of constitutional authority is one of the weaker governors in the nation,” Polinard said.
But the veto is a key power of the governor’s office, which also is defined by the person who fills it. That notion was embodied by Perry, who could play hardball with his veto authority and used the bully pulpit to full advantage, setting the veto record in 2001 and killing 50 bills in 2005 and 56 in 2007.
Abbott has his own, generally measured style in dealing with lawmakers, in line with his experience as a judge and attorney general. In deciding whether to sign or veto legislation, he received staff recommendations but spent long hours considering the measures, according to his spokesman, Matt Hirsch.
“He’s the final act on the passage of legislation, and without his approval or consent, it doesn’t happen,” said White, of Houston. “For that reason, he sets policy for the state and its future. I think it weighs very heavily on him.”
White, a Democrat who also was elected governor after a stint as attorney general, said a background as a lawyer imparts a particular mindset to the office.
While the state benefits from having people from a variety of backgrounds serving as governor, White said that lawyers, particularly those who have served as attorney general or judge, “have a better understanding of the frailties of the law.” After his first session as governor, White vetoed 42 bills.
“It’s kind of like, I have a feeling for medicine, but a trained physician has a different feeling for it, and a different understanding,” White said. “I think that a lawyer brings that same different feeling and different understanding to the job of governor, and it’s one that should bear great benefits to the people of Texas.” ‘Balancing needs’
White said that Abbott “has done very well, I think, in many respects. … I was pleased to see his emphasis on early childhood education. The differences we might have — I’d probably want more money for it, but then again, he’s got the job of balancing the needs of the people of Texas against the resources that we have available to meet those needs.”
The number of measures vetoed by Abbott further helps to define his style against the example of the brash Perry, a fellow Republican whose veto of 82 bills was a record.
Abbott also has said he sees no need to call lawmakers into a special session, despite urging from some conservatives. They want him to bring lawmakers back reinforce the state’s opposition to gay marriage as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on whether it’s okay to ban such weddings. Politically risky
Abbott already has signed legislation sought by conservatives to more tightly restrict minors’ ability to get abortions without their parents’ permission and affirm pastors’ right to refuse to peform samesex marriages. Calling a special session aimed at defying the U.S. Supreme Court would be, at best, politically risky.
“Nobody questions his conservative credentials. But I think he is deliberately trying to avoid being branded as an ideologue and so I think he’s picking his spots fairly carefully,” Polinard said.
An adverse appeals court ruling in a case challenging the school funding system might force a special session, but that wouldn’t be considered an Abbott failure, Polinard said.
“Procedurally, if he is able to avoid calling a special session, it puts another check mark in his favor,” he said. “It makes him look like he’s more in control and that the Legislature basically accomplished what he had hoped they would do.”