Contractors’ cash funds campaigns
Commissioners deny donations sway decisions
As a candidate for Harris County Precinct 2 commissioner, Adrian Garcia’s shoe-leather campaign raised money from a wide swath of residents. Wage workers and police officers chipped in alongside lawyers and real estate agents, while the big-dollar donors who dominate county politics largely ignored him.
They instead donated heavily to his opponent, two-term incumbent Jack Morman. After Garcia narrowly defeated Morman on Election Day, however, he welcomed the donors who had spurned him — engineering and architecture firms who compete for lucrative county contracts, over which commissioners hold significant influence, to design and build roads, bridges and flood infrastructure. They gave generously. In the final two months of last year, Garcia raised more money than he had in the first 10 months, even though he will next appear on the ballot in 2022. Two-thirds of the
“All you have to do is see who’s getting the projects and see who’s contributing. I think you can draw a parallel chart to see that’s the case.” The head of a small Houston engineering firm, who asked not to be identified
$478,500 he raised from Election Day to Dec. 31 came from firms, including their employees and family members, who have done business with the county in the past two years. During his campaign, that figure was 15 percent.
The reliance of commissioners on donations from companies who receive county contracts — a practice that took root in Harris County politics long before Garcia’s election — creates the impression businesses must contribute in order to receive work, scholars said. Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said the stark shift in Garcia’s donor base after Election Day was not the result of engineers suddenly having a change of heart about him, but rather a recognition he soon would control millions of dollars of infrastructure spending.
“Under the logic of payto-play, you give to power, and Garcia did not have power until his victory on November 6,” Jones said. “The moment he became a county commissioner, engineering firms and others who do business with the county flocked to him like flies to manure.”
Even with his end-ofyear windfall, Garcia’s reliance on vendor cash is dwarfed by the other three county commissioners. Each raised at least $660,000 last year, almost exclusively from this donor pool: Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, 78 percent; Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack, 88 percent; and Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle, 82 percent. Only Cagle was up for re-election in 2018.
Many of those vendor donations are difficult to trace. Fewer than 20 percent were made through political action committees set up by firms, as corporations are prohibited from donating directly. The rest were given individually by firm principals or their spouses, whose occupations often are left off of the commissioners’ campaign finance reports.
Garcia raised no objection to Jones’ argument that engineers and other vendors have flooded his campaign coffers in hopes of receiving Precinct 2 business. He said the cash will play no role in his office’s hiring and purchasing decisions.
“If you look at my voting history over the years, I’ve made decisions and taken votes that worked against some of the interests of people that contributed to me,” said Garcia, who previously served as a Houston city councilman and Harris County sheriff.
Garcia’s haul included some of the largest individual checks any commissioner candidate received in 2018, including $30,000 from a political action committee for S& B Engineers and Constructors, $20,000 from a principal at Cobb Fendley & Associates and $15,000 from engineering firm IDC Inc. president James Gonzales.
Garcia has taken the opposite approach of County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a fellow Democrat and the other new Commissioners Court member. Hidalgo took few donations from county vendors during her campaign and in January announced she would not accept any more, citing a desire to act ethically. Unlike commissioners with their precincts, the county judge has no infrastructure budget and, thus, less influence over road and bridge spending.
‘Subjective criteria’
Harris County hires scores of outside firms to perform many services, including road building, flood control projects, mowing and a phone system for inmates at the county jail. Many of these contracts are put out to competitive bid through the county’s purchasing office and awarded to the lowest bidder.
Commissioners, however, ultimately decide which firms receive professional services contracts — no-bid agreements required by Texas law to hire certain types of skilled labor, including engineers, lawyers and architects. Each contract must be approved by the five-member Commissioners Court, though the body long has followed an unwritten rule that commissioners refrain from meddling in each others’ precincts. Votes usually are unanimous and court members rarely discuss individual infrastructure contracts at their twicemonthly meetings.
County Engineer John Blount said commissioners must select engineers from a list of 290 firms approved by the county. Blount typically recommends a handful of engineering firms for a project based on their qualifications, but said commissioners make the final call.
“If we gave them a list of three or seven, and they said ‘Hey, could I use so and so? They worked real well,’ if they were qualified, we’d say yes,” Blount said.
Blount said he never has looked at commissioners’ campaign finance reports and pays no attention to their relationships with engineer donors. He said commissioners in the past have asked him, along with leaders of the flood control district and toll road authority, to attend fundraisers so engineers could introduce themselves.
Art Storey, the former head of Harris County’s Public Infrastructure Department, likewise said choosing qualified firms for county work was his primary responsibility. He declined to share his views on how he believed commissioners made their selections.
“My job was to make sure that the projects were done competently, with people who were qualified,” Storey said. He added, “Am I telling you everything I know, or believe, or suspect about those choices? Hell no, I’m not.”
Ed Emmett, who served as Harris County judge from 2007 until this year, said engineering firms should not need to become campaign donors in order to do business with the county. He said engineers have said they feel pressure to contribute to a commissioner in order to improve their chances of winning a contract that depends on his whims.
“I don’t think there’s any question about that,” Emmett said. “It’s just under state law, the way engineers and architects need to be selected, it allows it to be subjective criteria.”
Few engineers were eager to discuss their contributions. The Houston Chronicle contacted the principals of 31 engineering firms who do business with the county and donate to commissioners. Two agreed to interviews.
Sirrus Engineers Inc. President Sujeeth Draksha- ram, who last year donated $40,000 divided among commissioners Ellis, Radack and Garcia, said he felt no need to contribute in order to receive jobs. Harris County paid Sirrus $685,737 for work in 2018, according to the county vendor database.
Draksharam acknowledged the relationship between donations given and contracts received may appear a quid pro quo arrangement but said that in his experience, a commissioner’s priority is selecting competent engineers. He said they are loath to rehire firms that perform substandard work.
“If a commissioner is a friend, and you screw it up, you hear about it immediately,” he said. “They don’t hesitate to pick up the phone.”
The head of a small Houston engineering firm, who asked not to be identified because he feared losing business with the county, said he donated $4,000 to a commissioner last year because he liked his ideas. The man said he suspects there is a correlation between donations and awarded contracts.
“All you have to do is see who’s getting the projects and see who’s contributing,” said the engineer, whose firm did $30,000 in county work last year. “I think you can draw a parallel chart to see that’s the case.”
Harris County awarded 119 professional services contracts through the county engineer’s office in 2018, totaling $29.1 million, according to county records. Ninety-one percent of those contracts, which included designing roads and subdivision drainage, went to companies connected to donors. Those firms, which received $26.4 million in county work, collectively contributed $2.5 million to commissioners.
Reform a hard sell
Past county judges have proposed campaign finance reforms, without success. In the late 1990s, Robert Eckels, whose father resigned as Precinct 3 commissioner after pleading no contest to corruption-related charges, proposed a $250 limit on campaign contributions from county vendors. He was unable to persuade a single commissioner to support it.
Emmett, Eckels’ successor, created an ethics task force that recommended a number of reforms, including the creation of a county ethics board. Emmett said the county attorney concluded that Commissioners Court lacked the authority to enact much of what the task force proposed, but he acknowledged some commissioners were not keen on new rules.
The court at that time included Precinct 4’s Jerry Eversole, who resigned in 2011 after pleading guilty in a federal corruption case in which he was accused of steering county business to a friend’s firm in exchange for more than $100,000 in cash and gifts.
None of the four current commissioners said they plan to follow Hidalgo’s pledge to refuse donations from county vendors. University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus said a steady stream of checks from engineers enables commissioners to maintain massive campaign accounts. Those war chests often deter challengers and all but guarantee them the ability to outspend opponents.
“Having a bunch of money is a way to make sure nobody thinks twice about trying to match you, dollar for dollar,” Rottinghaus said.
As a result, he said, turnover on Commissioners Court is low and elections seldom are competitive. Since 1960, there have been fewer Harris County judges than popes in Rome; from 1974 to 2016, more Commissioners Court members left office after criminal indictments than were defeated at the ballot box.
Ellis said he is open to contribution limits but said the realities of politics trump academic discussions. To remain in elected office, as he has for most of his life as a Houston councilman, state senator and county commissioner, Ellis said a politician must constantly maintain a sizable campaign fund to fend off opponents.
“I got my Ph.D. … by practicing the art of politics,” he said as he pedaled a stationary bike in his office. “Not by just reading about it.”
Former Houston mayor Annise Parker said vendors should be able to contribute to city and county political campaigns because firms have an interest in ensuring politicians are competent. She noted Houston has made reforms Harris County has not, including placing limits on how much donors can contribute and how long City Council members may serve.