Last month, the bill attempting to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying appeared unlikely to make it out of the Texas House State Affairs Committee. The atmosphere has shifted in the last week, after so many people came to testify at a hearing for House Bill 749 that the meeting lasted until early the next morning. The sheer volume of advocacy has thrust the lobbying ban bill back into the spotlight, and we’re seeing a surge of renewed interest in the Texas lobbying conversation.
We thought it would be a good time to revisit the way Texas lobbying data works so that you can get the most out of your search — in particular, how entities are classified, why prospective compensation is the most useful metric, and the reason lobbying numbers are in ranges (as opposed to the exact numbers we expect from campaign finance).
