Cities and other municipalities are wasting taxpayer money on lobbyists, the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce said in a recent publication. In the current legislative session, the Greater Arlington Chamber is calling on legislators to support bills to end taxpayer-funded lobbying.
The Arlington Chamber defines the practice as using taxpayer resources to advocate against the taxpayer by lobbying to raise people’s taxes.
“No Texan would want that,” the chamber said in the post.
The upcoming 87th Texas Legislature will make an effort to control taxpayer-funded lobbying, the chamber said.
“We hope to see well thought out language that corrects inappropriate behavior but protects the legitimate interests of all parties,” the post states.
During the 86th legislative session, Senate Bill 29 attempted to address taxpayer lobbying. The bill passed the Senate. Rep. Mayes Middleton (R-Wallisville) sponsored the House version but was unable to get it passed. Middleton pulled the bill off the floor twice in order to make it more palatable to no avail.
The Arlington Chamber says Senate Bill 29 was too loosely crafted.
“A concern among Chambers, PTAs and other groups that receive support from taxing entities is that we not get caught in the unintended consequences of loosely written legislation like SB 29,” the Chamber wrote.
The Arlington Chamber article questioned whether some of the lobbyists for taxing entities are even doing what they are paid to do. During the last legislative session, legislation limiting property tax caps did not go the way cities and counties would have liked in spite of municipality-paid lobbyists. The Chamber says that legislators have told them that they rarely get visits from taxpayer-paid lobbyists.
“Taxing entities are wasting their money when they hire lobbyists,” the post states.
The chamber points to the passage last session of two bills that substantially reduced the ability of cities to control planning and development.
House Bill 2439 and House Bill 3167 were pitched as “freeing the development community from out of control city permit and zoning processes,” the chamber noted.
It would be reasonable for cities and counties to ask where their lobbyists were on those, the chamber wrote.
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