How Interest Groups Influence Texas Government
Overview
How Interest Groups Influence Texas Government
Learning Objective
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Analyze the techniques used by interest groups to influence Texas government
Introduction
Texas interest groups use a wide variety of techniques to attempt to influence public policy, but most fall into two primary areas: electioneering and lobbying.
Electioneering
Electioneering is what groups do to influence who the policymakers will be. While federal law has strict limits on the amount of money that can be raised and contributed in federal races, Texas law permits groups to form political action committees that can receive and donate unlimited amounts of money to state and local election campaigns (Note: Home rule cities in Texas can limit contributions to candidates for city positions by ordinance).
The Texas Association of Realtors PAC raised nearly 2 million dollars during the 2018 election cycle, donating $1.2 million to candidates. Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a group that advocates for civil justice reform, donated $1.3 million, spread over 100 diﬀerent candidates.
PACs in Texas have diﬀerent approaches to political involvement. Many interest groups follow – oﬃcially or unoﬃcially – the friendly incumbent rule. They avoid backing challengers to incumbent legislators – even when those challengers might be more in line with their group’s interests.
Why?
Because challengers rarely win, and many groups fear retaliation from a spurned incumbent legislator more than they value the chance – often a long shot – to replace that incumbent with a more supportive candidate.
Whatever an interest group chooses to do in an election, the election is eventually over, and a winner is sworn into oﬃce whether the group supported or opposed him. That’s when electioneering gives way to lobbying.
Lobbying
Lobbying is simply the process of advocating for your group’s interests. Some groups hire professional lobbyists to represent them in Austin. Others rely solely on volunteers.
Grassroots lobbying involves getting large numbers of constituents to contact their legislators on behalf of a particular issue. When done well, grassroots lobbying is incredibly eﬀective with legislators, who are strongly motivated to please voters who live in their districts. Less well known but also eﬀective is “grasstops” lobbying, which involves generating smaller numbers of contacts from people of special importance to legislators – possibly including their largest campaign contributors, local party oﬃcials, mayors or school superintendents. Even small numbers of highly influential people can sometimes make a significant impression.
Like lawmakers, many lobbyists are lawyers, and the persons they are trying to influence have the duty of writing laws. That the disciplines of law and lobbying are intertwined could be seen in the case of a Texas lawyer, Kevin Glasheen, who had been seeking compensation for his unfairly imprisoned client. Glasheen's exonerated-prisoner client had trouble paying the legal expenses, which totaled $1,024,166.67. Glasheen then lobbied the Texas state legislature to pass a bill that increased the payout to exonerated prisoners from $50,000 per year to $80,000 per year. It succeeded, making it possible for his newly freed client to pay the lawyer's fees (the lawyer was later sued for his billing in wrongful conviction cases).
Legislators frankly rely on interest groups for information. The 2019 legislature considered 10,877 individual bills and resolutions. Part-time legislators cannot possibly know how each of those proposed changes in state law might impact various industries and interests unless representatives of those groups tell them.
References and Further Reading
Top Ten PACs of the 2018 Texas Election Cycle. Transparency Texas. September 6, 2017.
Who Are the Biggest Spenders in Texas Races? Becca Aaronson. March 1, 2016.
Vertuno, J. (2019, August 23). Texas gun rights lobby pushing back on calls for new laws. AP News. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
Schwartz. J. (2011, May 9). Exonerated Inmates Fight Lawyer's Lobbying Fees. The New York Times. Retrieved September 9, 2019.
Licensing and Attribution
LICENSED MATERIAL, ORIGINAL
How Interest Groups Influence Texas Government. Authored by: Andrew Teas. License: CC BY: Attribution