Lobby Restrictions - Senate Bill 29
Senate Bill 29 would have prohibited political subdivisions, including cities, counties, school districts, and transportation authorities from hiring contract lobbyists to influence legislation specifically related to taxation, bond elections, tax-supported debt, and ethics.
The City of Houston supports transparency measures for lobbying contracts. In fact, Houston testified in support of Rep. Matt Shaheen's House Bill 433. However, Sen. Bob Hall & Rep. Mayes Middleton's SB 29 was an effort to ban local officials from hiring lobbyists.
The premise of the bill is that local government lobbyists advocate against the interests of taxpayers. This website is an effort to show exactly what the City of Houston's Lobby Team worked on during the 86^th^ Session and dispel the notion that the City of Houston is against the taxpayer interests. Residents and taxpayers ultimately have the ability to set the legislative agenda.
Local government lobbyists often protect the interests of residents against private lobbyists. This bill would remove local control and have a chilling effect on local engagement at the Legislature. If local governments could not lobby the Legislature, future legislation that constituted an unfunded mandate could further cost taxpayer money.
Rep. Middleton amended his bill to make it limited to cities and counties ONLY on tax-related issues. Under Middleton's perfecting amendment, lobbying was defined as making an expenditure to influence a member of the legislative body to influence legislation. Prohibited lobbying would be limited to four areas: taxation, bonds, tax-supported debt and ethics. Dues could still go to chambers of commerce that might be lobbying on behalf of cities and counties.
Further amendments continued to dilute Middleton's bill. Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, attached an amendment to exclude rural counties and cities because of their limited budgets.
Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, added more specificity to the tax language and an additional area of study for the potential impact of the regulations on various areas of the government code.
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, attached language for jurisdictions to post information about hired lobbyists on their websites. For the record, the City of Houston already complies with this aspect and makes the information easily searchable on our standalone website.
The final vote on the bill was 58-85-2 against the bill on the House floor, with a bipartisan mix on both sides of the vote.