Abbott Backs Six GOP Reps Who Opposed
Lobby Ban But Slams VanDeaver for Same
Capitol Inside
April 22, 2024
Governor Greg Abbott took to social media during the weekend to parrot unsubstantiated claims that GOP State Rep. Gary VanDeaver of New Boston opposed a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying four years ago because he had something to gain from his position on the bill.
Abbott shared a post from State Senator Mayes Middleton - a Galveston Republican who sponsored the lobbying prohibition in 2019 as a member of the House - that accused VanDeaver of working as a lobbyist without proper registration after voting to kill the ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying in Senate Bill 29 in 2019.
"This is shocking, but true," Abbott said on Saturday night on X. "It explains why more than half of the voters in VanDeaver‘s district voted against him."
VanDeaver is one of four House Republicans who Abbott is seeking to oust in the runoff vote on May 28 as payback for their opposition to school vouchers in special session last fall. Abbott helped challengers for the GOP defeat five VanDeaver colleagues for the same central reason in the initial primary election last month. Abbott said late last week that he's certain that he will have the votes to pass school choice when lawmakers meet again in 2025.
The governor based the scalding rhetoric on Middleton's translation of a report in an obscure publication known as the Dallas Express. Abbott's camp had been shopping the ostensible story around last week. Abbott responded to Middleton's post with the piece less than an hour after it emerged on X. The governor sought to give the impression that he'd been aghast by the article and Middleton's interpretation of it.
But the article that's the genesis for the weekend tag-team analysis focused on campaign contributions that VanDeaver accepted from lobbyists who represent clients in the public sector like cities, counties and other governmental entities. The publication mentioned VanDeaver's ostensible consulting for the firm Powell Law Group in the final paragraph of the story after bringing it up in a report several days earlier.
"Rep. Gary VanDeaver appears to have taken campaign donations from lobbyist groups representing government entities while voting against a bill to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying," according to the opening line in the Dallas Express account.
But the Express stories neglected to point out that a half-dozen House Republicans who Abbott is backing for re-election in 2024 also voted to bury Middleton's taxpayer-funded lobby ban in the regular session in 2019.
The group of current GOP representatives who Abbott has endorsed despite votes against SB 29 includes State Reps. Trent Ashby of Lufkin, Angie Chen Button of Garland, Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi, John Smithee of Amarillo and Lynn Stucky of Sanger. All of those six House members have received donations from the same lobby firms that the Dallas Express cited in the story on VanDeaver since voting no on SB 29.
Twenty-five House Republicans teamed with Democrats to kill SB 29 in regular session five years ago. Most if not all of them have taken campaign cash since that time from the same lobby firms that are cited in the Express article. Guillen was a Democrat at the time.
The group of representatives who turned thumbs down on the Middleton measure included State Senator Tan Parker - a Flower Mound Republican who's one of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's allies in the east wing now. Partrick backed Parker's promotion to the upper chamber in 2022 without a whisper of criticism about his vote to kill the taxpayer-funded lobby prohibition.
Abbott appeared on April 14 at a rally for Stucky in Denton in a bid to stave off a challenge from Andy Hopper in a runoff on the ballot in House District 64. Stucky trailed Hopper by almost 3.5 points in the March election when they garnered 43.3 percent and 46.7 percent of the vote respectively.
"Rep. Stucky has the experience and STRONG conservative values that will help me ensure Texas remains the land of freedom and prosperity," Abbott wrote on X after the event.
But Abbott declined to bring up Stucky's vote against the taxpayer-funded lobbying measure in SB 29. Stucky and VanDeaver are the only Texas lawmakers on the OT ballot with votes to preserve lobbying for public interests at the state level.
Abbott - ironically - never expressed an opinion on taxpayer-funded lobbying until the apparent outing of opposition to the practice that's implied in the attack tweet aimed VanDeaver. The governor - by the same token - stayed out of the school vouchers fight during his first eight years as the top Texas leader before emerging from the shadows on the issue for the first time last year.
Middleton failed to get a hearing in the House on the proposal as a Senate member in 2023. The Middleton proposal died in the House State Affairs Committee in 2021 when he was a state representative.
Abbott chose not to note in the VanDeaver attack that Texas leaders and lawmakers often find work in the private sector as consultants for firms that lobby without registering as lobbyists with the state. These are often known as "of counsel" posts when they actually employed on the staff of an enterprise that lobbies. Lawmakers rountinely vote on bills that could be construed as conflicts of interest based on the source of their income.
Former House Speaker Dennis Bonnen - a top Abbott ally - is an example of a Texas politician who works as a consultant for private clients without having registered first as a lobbyist. Bonnen was the top House leader in 2019 when SB 29 died on the floor without an attempt by the chair to save the bill.
The governor has no evidence to show that the contributions that House Republicans like Stucky and VanDeaver received from the groups that the Dallas Express spotlight were tied in any way to SB 29 or other specific proposals. Both of the firms that the publication named have given substantially to lawmakers who support a prohibition on taxpayer-funded lobbying as well.
more to come ... |
