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Abbott Takes Aim at Leftist Locals
with Lip Service End on Lobby Ban
Capitol Inside
October 23, 2025
Governor Greg Abbott threw some muscle on Thursday behind a move to ban local government officials in Texas from hiring lobbyists to represent them at the Capitol complete with a petition drive designed to showcase grassroots support for legislation that would accomplish that.
A prohibition on taxpayer-funded lobbying died in the Texas House in the regular session and two special gatherings of the Legislature in 2025. The proposal originated in the Senate as a high-ranking priority for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick - and Abbott included in the call for both special sessions. But the measure failed from neglect in the House State Affairs Committee without hearings or votes in all three trips through the statehouse this year.
While the proposal had the Republican governor's official blessings as an item on the summer calls, Abbott did little or nothing to try to pry the lobby prohibition from a House that's been a predictable burial ground for the legislation for the past 12 years. But he appears poised to channel considerable political capital to the issue in the midst of a backlash from the Texas GOP and the activists who control it for allowing the measure to fizzle while the governor ran the table with the other items on his summer agendas.
Patrick - by the same token - did not deploy the same aggressive tactics on lobbying for local governments for a blitz on resistant House Republicans like he did near the regular session's end when he steamrolled the House leadership team on a THC ban that Abbott eventually vetoed. Patrick may have been resigned to the measure's demise without Abbott's vigorous intervention beyond a token endorsement with the addition of the issue to the special session calls.
The governor had shown no interest in the subject before tacking it to the call of two special sessions in 2023. But he's driving the bandwagon now - and he's portraying leaders in Texas cities and counties in and outside of blue strongholds as left-wingers who thirst for bigger government.
"It’s simple: your hard-earned tax dollars should NEVER be used against you," Abbott said in an email from his re-election campaign. "But across Texas, local Leftist governments are using taxpayer money to hire high-powered lobbyists whose mission is to bloat government, raise taxes, and fight conservative reforms at the Capitol.
"This practice is corrupt, unacceptable, and a complete abuse of the appropriation of hard-earned taxpayer dollars," the governor added in the email. "And it’s time to END it once and for all.
Abbott offers supporters a chance to rally behind the attack on local government outside lobby hires with a link in the email to a petition that proponents can sign to show their support. But Abbott won't have an opportunity to sign a prohibition on taxpayer-funded lobbying for nearly two years if he doesn't summon lawmakers back for a third special session in the midst of an election year.
Patrick sponsored the first such ban in 2013 when he was still a state senator. The Senate has passed proposals to ban such an activity on a perennial basis during a dozen years with Patrick as the lieutenant governor. None have gone anywhere, however, in the House.
But the lieutenant governor faced heat from the right after eight Senate Republicans teamed with Democrats to amend the proposal in the regular session in a way that gutted it. The Texas GOP passed a resolution in March condemning the Senate amendment - and the state party organization adopted a resolution October 7 blaming the lobby restriction plan's demise on GOP leaders and their Republican allies at the Capitol. The most recent resolution contends that the outcome "represents a pattern of deliberate suppression of Republican grassroots priorities by Republican leadership."
more to come ...
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