‘Hired guns’ draw fire
Cities’ use of tax dollars to pay lobbyists debated
AUSTIN — In the runup to this year’s Texas legislative session, Mayor Sylvester Turner decided to switch Capitol lobbying firms.
In was Hillco Partners, considered by many the most powerful player in Austin lobbying. Out was a firm led by a political adviser to House Speaker Joe Straus.
What didn’t change was the monthly fee that the city pays when legislators are in session — $110,639. In return for that hefty fee, city officials expect representation for Houston taxpayers by lobbyists with expertise, clout and deep ties to legislators and high-ranking state officials.
Houston isn’t alone in paying big bucks to lobby state government. San Antonio, Dallas, Austin and Fort Worth all also use outside lobbyists, commonly referred to as “hired guns,” to advance their legislative agendas and kill bills they oppose.
Taxpayers in those five cities collectively have paid about $5 million to lobbying firms since 2015, but information is sparse because the state does not
maintain a database on lobbyist expenditures by local governments. Businesses and other special interests spend vastly larger amounts on influencing the executive and legislative branches, but the state keeps no data on that either.
Houston also spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on governmental relations staffers who are not registered as lobbyists.
Some longtime conservative operatives — including Peggy Venable, who was President Ronald Reagan’s education liaison — believe big cities and other local governments should be barred from spending tax dollars on lobbying.
Venable, now a senior visiting fellow at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for lobbying that advocates against their interests, such as cities lobbying against bills that could lead to lower taxes.
“Our tax dollars are being used against us, and we have absolutely no say in what these lobbyists are doing and no knowledge of the details of the issues they are working on,” said Venable, the former state director for Americans for Prosperity.
Cities and other local governments “deserve a seat at the table” when legislators make decisions, said Bennett Sandlin, general counsel of the Texas Municipal League, which lobbies on behalf of cities.
“Mayors are busy filling potholes and putting out fires. It’s unrealistic to expect a mayor to keep up with 6,500 bills filed during a regular session,” he said.
The debate over whether tax dollars should be tapped for lobbying state government has intensified this year as Republican leaders have sought to limit the powers of municipalities.
In a recent interview with the Fox Business Network, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said citizens are “happy” with state governments, but not city governments.
“Our cities are still controlled by Democrats. And where do we have all our problems in America? Not at the state level run by Republicans, but in our cities that are mostly controlled by Democrat mayors and Democrat city councilmen and women. That’s where you see liberal policies. That’s where you see street crime. The only place Democrats have control are in our cities and they are doing a terrible job,” Patrick said.
At a Bell County Republican Party dinner last June, Gov. Greg Abbott, who has referred to ordinances such as Austin’s to protect tree cutting as “socialistic,” lashed out at the capital city.
“Once you cross the Travis County line, it starts smelling different. And you know what that fragrance is? Freedom. It’s the smell of freedom that does not exist in Austin, Texas,” he said.
Hiring heavyweights
Texas’ five largest cities have hired some of the most powerful lobbyists to defend themselves against Abbott, Patrick, and the GOP-controlled Legislature and also to advance their interests.
Turner was the driving force behind hiring Hillco Partners last October to lobby for the city.
Bill Kelly, Houston’s director of government relations, said Turner, knowing he had to pass pension reform, wanted to work with the firm he had the “best working relationship with, and City Council agreed by unanimously approving the contract.”
Hillco was founded by political communications specialist William J. Miller and Neal T. “Buddy” Jones, former chief of staff to House Speaker Gib Lewis.
Hillco also lobbies on water utility issues for Dallas.
Focused Advocacy — founded by former House member Curtis Seidlits, an ex-senior vice president of public affairs for the power giant Energy Future Holdings — lobbies for San Antonio and Fort Worth.
And McGuire-Woods Consulting, which has offices in six states and Washington, D.C., represents Dallas and Austin. Kwame Walker, a vice president for state government relations, is a former general counsel to state Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas.
The state’s five largest cities — Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and Fort Worth — spent $2.4 million on lobbying from July 1, 2014 to July 2015, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle with public records requests. That spending climbed slightly in 2016-2017, to $2.5 million.
That amount could increase if state leaders continue to restrain the power of cities, but “cities are pretty strapped for funds,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
“Democrats are winning the big cities and that is one thing the Republicans can’t control at the Capitol. The best that they can do is to limit what those jurisdictions can do in terms of policy. When Republicans quash local efforts to innovate, it limits the ceiling for local leaders to emerge as statewide leaders,” Rottinghaus said.
Turner said he was proud of the results from the city’s lobbying team during the regular and special sessions.
“You can imagine with my background, I fielded many calls and messages from friends and made several trips to Austin during this session,” the mayor said in a written statement. “I am concerned about the attacks on local control that some in the Legislature have advanced. Republicans and Democrats have recognized the government closest to the people continues to be the most responsive, and I thank the members who respect that principle.”
During the regular session, city government devoted most of its lobbying effort to the pension reform law that took effect July 1. The measure is intended to pay down the city’s $8.2 billion pension debt over 30 years by issuing $1 billion in pension obligation bonds, cutting retiree benefits by $2.8 billion and capping future costs if the market dips.
The city worked with state Rep. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, to add a definition of “improvised explosive device” to the state penal code after Houston police encountered a person trying to sell parts of a pipe bomb at a gun show last year in the George R. Brown Convention Center, said Kelly, the city’s director of government relations.
Hillco successfully lobbied in favor of a bill to create two special purpose districts around NRG Stadium to sell bonds and impose fees and taxes to aid development projects.
Hillco also is the lobbyist for the Texans pro football team.
Losing some battles
But there also were major defeats for Houston.
The city opposed the so-called sanctuary cities bill during the regular session and officials felt they were making progress until the House amended it to change the time when a law enforcement officer could ask about a person’s immigration status from “legally arrested to legally detained,” Kelly said. That change will allow officers to make such inquiries during routine traffic stops.
Police Chief Art Acevedo and members of the city’s government relations team urged Sen. Charles Perry, the Lubbock Republican who carried the bill in the Senate, to reject the amendment — but to no avail.
The city lobbied against a bill that ended city regulation of ride-sharing companies and replaced it with state control. The bill, which Abbott signed into law, bans the fingerprinting requirement for what Houston refers to as “transportation network companies,” but the impact was even deeper.
Kelly said Houston’s ordinance required ride-sharing, taxi, and limousine companies to provide a minimum number of vehicles equipped to handle electric wheelchairs. The state law wiped out the city’s requirement and “replaced it what is effectively no requirement,” according to the city’s website.
Hillco also lobbied against the bill that would require the state’s largest cities to hold a public vote before they annex surrounding property. Abbott signed the measure into law last week.
In response to the Chronicle’s public records request on lobbying expenditures, the city provided records on the annual salaries of the government affairs employees in the mayor’s office that total $336,633 this year.
Those employees, including Kelly, are not registered lobbyists. That enabled them to sit down with state Sen. Konni Burton, the Colleyville Republican who has a policy against meeting with government-funded lobbyists.
Kelly said he and Jesse Ozuna, the city’s assistant director for government affairs, and Houston police officials met with Burton to outline concerns about her bill to repeal civil forfeiture. That practice allows law enforcement officers to seize personal property without filing criminal charges against the owner.
Houston officials explained how the bill could impair the seizure of vehicles with multiple compartments to conceal drugs and cash, offered expert witnesses for hearings, but “we were not trying to lobby her by buying dinners or making contributions,” Kelly said.
Opening doors, minds
Lobbyists who specialize in state government are needed because of their relationships with legislators and policy expertise, Kelly said.
“They are able to help open those doors and open those minds,” he said.
But lobbyists hired with the “people’s tax dollars” — either working for firms or associations like the Texas Municipal League — are unnecessary, said Burton, because local governments can use their elected officials and employees to explain their constituents’ needs. Houston, for example, used 179 city employees as “legislative liaisons” to track bills affecting their departments.
Burton filed a bill during the regular session to prohibit local governments from using taxpayers’ funds to lobby state government. The bill was dead on arrival. It didn’t even get a hearing in a Senate committee.
She also sponsored a bill requiring the governing bodies of local governments to vote in open session if they want to fund lobbing efforts with public dollars. Burton said the goal was to make it easier for citizens to track lobbying expenditures. The Senate passed that bill, but it died in a House committee.
Venable, the senior visiting fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said she isn’t giving up her efforts to persuade the Legislature to prohibit local governments from using tax dollars to hire lobbyists.
“I have been told that ‘you will never get this because these lobbyists are too powerful.’ And that makes me double-down, because then we’re in the worst situation if we as taxpayers cannot challenge this good ol’ boy system,’” she said.