August 19, 2005

Texas Senate Leaders Cite Greedy Lobbyists
But Say Senators Weren't Influenced by Them

Key Senate Member Accuses Lobbyists of Working
Against Positions Advocated by Business Clients

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Texas Senate leaders - despite vowing to not play the blame game - pointed to the lobby Friday as the chief culprit behind the collapse of the school finance effort that culminated with the Legislature's sine die adjournment just before noon.

Speaking to reporters after gaveling an end to the summer's second special session, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst shifted the focus of his criticism for the sessions' failure from the House to "rich, greedy lobbyists." The Republican Senate leader singled out the petrochemical and oil and gas industries and their hired guns at the Capitol without naming individual names. Pressed by reporters, Dewhurst came up with two examples of the lobbyists to whom he'd just referred.

But State Senator Ken Armbrister, a Victoria Democrats who's one of the chamber's most influential members, took it a step farther, saying that some lobbyists were advocating positions contrary to those taken by the industry executives and management officials they are hired to represent.

During meetings with plant managers in his Southeast Texas coastal district, , Armbrister said he'd learned that that company officials would volunteer to pay more in business taxes if they could receive significant relief from local property taxes. But the veteran senator said lobbyists for the companies in Austin had worked to kill measures that would have cut local school taxes by forcing the private sector to pay more at the state level.

But after chastising the business lobby, Dewhurst said that special interests had little or no effect on the Senate. When Houston Chronicle reporter Janet Elliott asked the lieutenant governor about the possible influence of special interests on his decision to remove a broad-based business tax from the Senate's package, Dewhurst acknowledged that he had "temporarily backed off" the business tax proposal at the request of Governor Rick Perry. Dewhurst indicated that the governor thought they should approach school finance in steps and consider business taxes the next time around.

Dewhurst had been a major force behind the development of an expanded business tax before he cast the tie-breaking vote in the first special session for an amendment that carved it out of the Senate revenue plan to pay for property tax relief and public school reforms. It was clear at that time that the tax bill would have been defeated if the business tax overhaul remained in it.

Business lobbyists haven't been the only special interest group in the crosshairs of legislators during a special session that ended after 30 days when the House adjourned first and the Senate called it quits less than two hours later. Earlier this week House Speaker Tom Craddick lashed out at school superintendents for high-pressure lobbying that prompted some members to reconsider votes they had cast for the school funding plan.

Craddick said Friday that he didn't want to point fingers of blame but repeated his assertion that forces representing education had a major impact on the outcome of the special sessions that failed to produce a school finance plan this summer. Craddick said the Legislature worked hard on trying to solve the school funding crisis but "just couldn't get there."

In pointing to special interests in their respective damages assessments, Craddick and Dewhurst by the session's final few days had taken a markedly different course than they had with remarks less than a week ago essentially blaming each other for the Legislature's inability to achieve the mission it set out to do in regular session and again in the two special sessions that spanned two full summer months.

While business and education interests worked the Capitol feverishly during the special session and first called session, there's been little evidence of either during the second 30-day special session. Superintendents and teachers had to get back to work when the school year started - and like the business lobby - education advocates in Austin believed the school funding and tax plans have been dead ever since Craddick two weeks ago suggested that the Legislature adjourn them so it can wait for a state Supreme Court order before moving again on the school funding front. Lobbyists for business and education have been on stand-by alert during the past two weeks in order to be prepared to strike quickly if the bills had been revived.