Good morning,

It’s bad enough that so many politicians casually ignore the wishes of the citizenry; but more often than any of us realize, politicians and bureaucrats are using taxpayers’ money to actively lobby against the citizens.

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan

Monday, August 24, 2020

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The attitude of city, school, and county officials towards taxpayers was summed up in the title of a presentation by the Texas Municipal League: “ Shaking The Money Tree [[link removed]].”

Put simply: They want unfettered access to your wallet, and they will use your own money to block any legislation empowering taxpayers.

So you understand just how little the Texas Municipal League – an entity funded and operated by cities – thinks of the citizenry, that presentation was made by the entity’s legislative counsel, Bill Longley. Cities join TML with your money, and city officials – elected and unelected alike – attend TML conferences with your money.

If your city is a member of the Texas Municipal League – and almost every city is – then you are involuntarily funding your own political opposition in the Texas Legislature.

TML is just one example. Transparency Texas reports [[link removed]] more than $107 million has been spent over the last two years by taxing entities to lobby state government against the citizens.

What is taxpayer-funded lobbying? Here’s how Ballotpedia defines it [[link removed]]: “Taxpayer-funded lobbying is defined as the practice of using funds that come directly or indirectly from taxpayers for political lobbying purposes. Taxpayer-funded lobbying is one government lobbying another.”

ACTION: Let your mayor and city council know you expect them to stop using tax dollars to lobby in Austin... and stop funding the TML.

Texas taxpayers should not be compelled to fund their own political and legislative opposition. Republicans should put a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying at the top of their to-do list.

That was the message sent by Texas Republicans in the GOP primary [[link removed]]. According to 1.86 million GOP primary voters, Texas lawmakers should ban taxpayer-funded lobbying. In fact, conservative activists, grassroots leaders, and the Republican Party of Texas have long vocally demanded a strong, outright ban on taxpayer funded lobbying.

Clearly, not every Republican elected official has been listening.

This is why the 2019 failure of the Texas House to pass an outright ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying was such a betrayal.

The ban passed the Texas Senate, but it was gutted and killed in the House. Brandon Waltens wrote an “autopsy report” last summer specifically on the ignoble death of the ban [[link removed]].

Senate Bill 29 by Sen. Bob Hall (R-Edgewood) would have banned the practice across the board, prohibiting counties, cities, school districts, and other local entities from spending taxpayer dollars for the purpose of lobbying the state legislature.

SB 29 passed out of the Senate on April 17, but was stalled in the House for more than a month as opponents like State Rep. Drew Springer (R-Muenster) watered it down. The House leadership, under the direction of disgraced, outgoing Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Lake Jackson), allowed opponents to further weaken the measure on the floor by exempting school district bureaucracies from the lobbying ban.

The House ended up voting to kill SB 29, with 85 House members – Democrats and Republicans – opposing this important taxpayer protection.

The issue was a hot topic in at least one GOP primary runoff race this summer. One Republican opposing the ban was House District 2 incumbent Dan Flynn; he voted against the ban in 2019 and vowed to continue opposing it in 2021. Apparently the citizens had other ideas, and overwhelmingly selected conservative reformer Bryan Slaton to replace Flynn.

ACTION: Demand that BEFORE the November election your state representative and state senator publicly commit to ban all taxpayer funded lobbying in Texas.

The Texas House Republicans who joined the Democrats in opposing a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying included:

Steve Allison of San Antonio

“Doc” Anderson of Waco (changed vote)

Trent Ashby of Lufkin

Ernest Bailes of Shepherd

Keith Bell of Forney

Angie Chen Button of Richardson

Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches

Drew Darby of San Angelo

Dan Flynn of Van (defeated)

Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi

Kyle Kacal of College Station

Ken King of Canadian

John Kuempel of Seguin

Stan Lambert of Abilene

Lyle Larson of San Antonio

Rick Miller of Sugar Land (retired)

Chris Paddie of Marshall

Tan Parker of Flower Mound

Four Price of Amarillo

John Raney of Bryan

John Smithee of Amarillo

Phil Stephenson of Wharton

Lynn Stucky of Denton

Gary VanDeaver of New Boston

John Zerwas of Richmond (resigned)

Quote-Unquote

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

– Thomas Jefferson​

Number of the Day

32%

Percentage of lobbyists with taxpayer-funded clients.

[Source: TransparencyTexas.org]

Today in History

On August 4, 1821, Mexico formally achieved its independence from Spain with the signing of a treaty ending their War of Independence.

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PO Box 12862, Odessa TX 79768 Produced by Michael Quinn Sullivan and Brandon Waltens, the Texas Minute is a quick look at the news and info of the day that we find interesting, and hope you do as well. It is delivered weekday morning (though we'll probably take the occasional break for holidays and whatnot).

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