Freshman state Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, got a taste of being a rookie last week when he called a press conference to announce new legislation and was promptly upstaged by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio. The occasion was understandable: Rose’s bill (HB 456) would forbid legislators to act as paid lobbyists before state agencies. Wentworth garnered headlines last fall when Travis Co. Attorney Ken Oden announced he was looking into the possibility that Wentworth had been violating current law by doing just that, on behalf of his legal client, Metabolife Inc.
Rose said the bill was about “the present, not the past,” and that he had promised Dist. 45 voters it would be his first piece of legislation. Then reporters peppered Wentworth with questions about the status of Oden’s investigation and noted that Rose may have defeated incumbent Rick Green at least in part because Green was also under investigation for lobbying the Texas Dept. of Health. Wentworth said Oden’s (ongoing) investigation was the result of a “good faith difference of opinion” about the law and said the new bill (which he will carry in the Senate) will eliminate any ambiguity. Similar bills have been defeated for several sessions, Wentworth said, but he hopes that this Legislature will want to eliminate any public “perception” of conflicts of interest.
Wentworth acknowledged that allowing legislators to work in or represent industries they regulate inevitably creates the possibility of conflicts but added that Texas voters have repeatedly made it plain they prefer “poorly paid, part-time legislators.” Rose said that Speaker Tom Craddick told him he will support the legislation.
This article appears in January 31 • 2003.
