Spinning Out of Control?

by Robert Bryce

Former House Speaker Gib Lewis, whose bronze bust graces the Capitol, is one of several former legislative leaders who now lobby for high-dollar clients. photograph by John Anderson

Hundreds of lobbyists will pass through the Texas Capitol this spring. But only two have been immortalized in bronze.

The busts of former House Speakers Billy Clayton and Gib Lewis stand guard just outside the entrance to the cafeteria in the Capitol Extension. The two busts stand atop expensive granite pedestals (the State Preservation Board says they cost $2,300 each) sandwiched between the busts of two lions of Texas politics, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Sam Rayburn and former U.S. Vice President John Nance Garner. The sculptures of former president Lyndon Baines Johnson, former lieutenant governors Bill Hobby and Ben Ramsey, and former state senator A.M. Aikin Jr. stand sentinel across the way.

While the bronze fixtures of Rayburn, Johnson, and the others are testaments to public service, the busts of Lewis and Clayton are proof that the revolving door between government service and the lobby is flourishing. How big a problem is the revolving door? In a report released last week, Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group, called the revolving door an "ethical minefield." The group asks, "what public interests were sold down river to curry favor with future clients before the official left office?"

The report offers facts, figures, and a long list of former state employees who are now working in the lobby. Predictably, the report was not well-received by lobbyists. One prominent lobbyist named in the study points out that he left the House nearly two decades ago. "Does that qualify as a revolving door?" he asked. Others scoffed at the report, saying the pay figures were exaggerated. While that may be the case, the TPJ examination put a much-needed spotlight on the lobby. Lobbyists are perhaps the most visible example of the government business.

Over the past few decades, as government has increased in size and scope, the number of people making a living off its machinations has mushroomed. The government business includes everyone from political consultants and lobbyists to newspaper reporters and pollsters. Lobbyists stand out, however, partly because they must report their income and business-related expenditures to the Texas Ethics Commission. And those records are available for all to see. So far this year, 1,250 lobbyists have registered with the agency. Several hundred more will add their names to that list before the year ends.

In 1997, according to TPJ, 110 of the 1,600 registered lobbyists were former public officials. Of the 110 "revolvers," 91 are former legislators. In all, the 110 lobbyists earned up to $44 million in 1997. According to TPJ's figures, that's about one fifth of all the money paid to all registered lobbyists that year, which means the revolvers earned, on average, over three times as much as their non-revolved colleagues. Making TPJ's hit list were some of the state's most powerful lobbyists, including former governor Ann Richards (who lobbies at the federal level, not at the Texas Capitol), Buddy Jones, Rusty Kelley, Mike Toomey, Don Adams (a former state senator who has a lobby contract from the City of Austin), and of course, Lewis and Clayton.

But there is more recent evidence of the revolving door, and it comes from the City of Austin's lobby list. In 1997, Hugo Berlanga was representing Corpus Christi in the Texas House and making $7,200 a year. This year, his eight lobby clients will pay him somewhere between $310,000 and $625,000 (see "Nouveau Hugo," p. 30). The city has also hired former Texas Sen. Carl Parker, at a minimum of $25,000, as well as former legislators Froy Salinas and Cliff Johnson, who will get at least $50,000 apiece, to work the Capitol.

Lobbyists and their cell phones are a familiar sight in and around the Capitol. photograph by John Anderson

But while Austin has hired several former legislators to lobby at the Capitol, virtually all of the lobbyists hired by the Lower Colorado River Authority to work the halls of power are former legislators. The authority has five principal lobbyists and all five -- Nub Donaldson, Lynn Nabers, Robert Saunders, Stan Schlueter, and Mike Toomey -- are former legislators. Agency spokesman Robert Cullick says the LCRA, which will spend $214,800 this year on lobbyists, didn't plan on hiring former legislators. Instead, he says, "We have lobbyists because we have businesses and our mission which are deeply affected by legislative action. It's one of those things that you don't like to do, but you've got to do," he said.

While the LCRA and the City of Austin appear to be flooding the Capitol with lobbyists, no one compares to Southwestern Bell. The San Antonio-based telephone giant has registered 102 lobbyists with the Ethics Commission this year. Its parent company, SBC, has another 10 registered lobbyists. But perhaps the company is simply playing it smart. After all, its Texas businesses produce billions of dollars in revenues every year. Spending a few hundred thousand dollars on lobbyists may just be good business.

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Business Is Booming

This legislative session, billions of dollars are riding on issues like electric deregulation, telephone regulation, and tax breaks for high-tech business. Simply put, the government business is big business. "When I came to the Legislature in 1962, our biennial budget in 1963 was just over $1 billion," says Clayton, who recalls that in those days the lobby consisted of a handful of special interests. "Back in them days there were the big four -- the railroads, Continental Oil and Gas, the Texas Manufacturers Association, and the Texas Chemical Council. Beyond them, it fell off pretty fast. There wasn't over a hundred lobbyists in town during the session." Compare that, says Clayton, to this year's session. "What will the budget be this time? Why, it'll be $90 billion if it's a nickel," he says. "And that means more people, more product, more programs, more initiatives that need outsourcing, a lot of consulting work. It's a larger gamut. And there are more people looking to get a slice of that business."

For former government employees, the opportunity to be a lobbyist has become so lucrative few can pass it up. John Hall, the former chairman of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, now lobbies for oil giant Mobil and trash giant Waste Management. Former railroad commissioner and legislator Lena Guerrero now lobbies for Longhorn Partners Pipeline and El Paso Electric.

photograph by John Anderson

House Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, has never been a fan of lobbyists. And in his own office, he has imposed the strictest revolving door policy in state government. Laney's senior-level employees must agree that they will not lobby at any level immediately following their stint in the Speaker's office, a prohibition which extends for one full session after leaving the Speaker's office. This policy gets high marks from one prominent lobbyist, who calls Laney's policy "a good one. ... It addresses the immediate influence if there is any." On Monday, Lt. Gov. Rick Perry followed Laney's lead by announcing a similar plan which prohibits former employees from lobbying for a full session of the Legislature. But Perry's plan only prohibits lobbying members of the lieutenant governor's staff. In a press release, Perry said his new policy "helps preserve the public trust by putting the brakes on the revolving door." (The governor's office has the same policy as Perry's.)

Although Laney wants to slow the revolving door, he also says he believes that legislators are seldom swayed by lobbyists. House and Senate members are "strong enough individuals and are intelligent enough to make their own decisions on how they vote," Laney says. Still, he admits the revolving door issue is problematic. "If there's a perception of a problem, there's probably a little bit of problem," he says. "And I'm sure we will try to address some of the perception problems." However, Laney offered no specifics.

The Legislature has shown extreme reluctance to limit legislators' ability to lobby. In each of the past two sessions, Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, has introduced a bill designed to slow the revolving door. His proposals have never gotten out of committee, though, and this session, Krusee may not even bother trying to slow the revolving door. "I've had trouble passing it in the past. And the Legislature hasn't changed a whole lot since then," says Krusee. But that hasn't lessened the legislator's belief that something is wrong with the system. "I think some people in the public wonder about motives of politicians when they see them playing both sides. I think it's a public confidence problem," he said.

Although the TPJ report focused attention on the lobby, the group did not help itself when it came to proposing a solution. Their recommendation -- that legislators and state agency officials be subject to a lifetime ban on lobbying -- is almost laughable. Such a prohibition (which was endorsed in an editorial by the local daily) is far too punitive and stands absolutely no chance of becoming law. Remember, Krusee couldn't even get his anti-revolving door proposal out of committee. "It's draconian and it would be patently unconstitutional, and I don't think it would stand much chance of passage," says Kent Caperton, a former member of the Texas Senate who now has a spate of lobby clients including Southwestern Bell Telephone and the Associated Electric Companies of Texas. Caperton, a member of the "$200,000 club" and perhaps the single highest-paid member of the lobby this session (see list, p.28), offers no apologies. "I was a citizen legislator. That doesn't mean that because I was a member that I forfeited what I think are opportunities to advocate the interests of clients of my choice," he says.

Caperton admits that the number of legislators who have joined the lobby may be troubling for some people. But he also points out that it's not just legislators who are traveling through the revolving door. In recent weeks, two high-profile state employees have quit their jobs to take lucrative positions in the private sector. Geoff Connor, former general counsel for the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, recently quit the agency to take a job at the mega-law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. The firm has numerous clients that will benefit from Connor's inside knowledge of the workings at TNRCC. And Rick Jacobi, longtime general manager of the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, quit his post last Friday to take a job at Envirocare, a waste disposal company that hopes to get a state contract allowing it to bury radioactive waste at a site it owns in Andrews County.

Which brings us back to the busts outside the cafeteria. Lewis and Clayton are both lobbying for Envirocare. Lewis is being paid less than $10,000; Clayton between $50,000-$100,000. Clayton points out that Envirocare's foe in the fight for the radioactive waste contract, Waste Control Specialists, is owned by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons. According to a recent article in the Dallas Morning News, Waste Control has hired 20 lobbyists, at a cost of up to $1 million, to work for the company this year. Of those lobbyists, a half-dozen are former legislators. They include former state senators Bill Haley, Carl Parker, and Bill Sims, and former House members Berlanga, Hilary Doran, and Jim Rudd. Waste Control has also hired Austin pundit/public relations guru Bill Miller, and Tony Proffitt, who was former Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock's press secretary. To top it all off, Clayton points out that Simmons gave a $100,000 contribution to Lt. Gov. Rick Perry. That contribution, says Clayton, coupled with all those lobbyists, could influence the decision about which company gets the lucrative contract to bury the state's radioactive waste. "I just want to make sure there's a level playing field for my clients," said the former speaker.

A level playing field. What a great idea. If only there were a bronze monument to the level playing field inside the Capitol. After all, the lobbyists already have theirs.

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The Texans for Public Justice report is available on the Web at http://www.tpj.org. The lobby lists are available at http://www.ethics.state.tx.us