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The Blast - June 16, 2025 [1]
['The Texas Tribune']
Date: 2025-06
REVISITING AN OFFHAND REMARK FROM ABBOTT IN 2023
Go ahead and add taxpayer-funded lobbying to your special session bingo chart after this weekend.
Speaking at the Harris County GOP Lincoln Reagan Dinner on Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott pointed out that the Legislature didn’t pass a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying this session.
“All I can say is we may not be done yet,” Abbott said, according to the Houston Chronicle’s Jeremy Wallace.
Although Abbott pooh-poohed the idea of a special session as recently as Wednesday, the list of rumored topics previously included redistricting, THC regulation if Abbott vetoes Senate Bill 3 and rounding up the final bail proposals. Brandon Waltens of Texas Scorecard is keeping a longer list.
The lobbying special session flare caught the attention of several conservative members of the Legislature over the weekend, as well as Texas GOP Chair Abraham George.
Before he was elected House speaker, Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, supported banning taxpayer-funded lobbying as recently as 2023. He was a joint author on bills to that effect in 2019 and 2021. (Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, was also a joint author of the bill in 2019, the session before he was elected speaker.)
The House shot down the 2019 bill 85-58. That was the last time the House had a record vote on the matter.
Diving into the pre-session Blast archives, back in August, The Blast found that only nine of the 25 House Republicans who voted with Democrats to oppose the 2019 bill are still around. Some of their successors publicly endorsed the potential special session this weekend.
Even though the House seemed to be in a position to pass the bill this session, the House State Affairs Committee failed to advance even a watered down version in the form of HB 755. Committee Chair Ken King, R-Canadian, put it up for public testimony in mid-April. Notably, he was one of those who opposed the 2019 bill.
A full ban marked one of the few priorities of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that did not pass this session. Even the Senate added an amendment to its version, SB 19, that would have codified a way around the ban.
Abbott hasn’t maintained a steady drumbeat against the use of public dollars for lobbying purposes, but he did mention it as early as 2013, during his first run for governor. He even called out the practice during his “parent empowerment” speech on the north steps of the Capitol in March 2023, linking it to his push for school vouchers.
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