• Meanwhile a single corporation, SBC, spent even more.

The education lobby reported spending up to $6.3 million on 161 lobby contracts by the end of this year’s special sessions.¹ This huge expenditure falls short of the up to $6.9 million that a single corporation spent on lobbyists in this period. Yet few state leaders have denounced the SBC lobby (now called AT&T), which persuaded them to swallow a sweetheart special-session communications bill.

Districts
School boards made the education lobby’s largest expenditures, spending up to $2.9 million on 75 lobby contracts. The Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) dominated this lobby, spending up to $650,000 on eight lobby contracts. The Houston and Dallas school districts had the largest lobby expenditures by single districts. Many associations also lobbied on behalf of school districts with like characteristics (including big, regional, rural and growing districts).

Educators
Led by teachers unions—including the Texas Federation of Teachers, the Texas State Teachers Association and the Texas Classroom Teachers Association—educators spent up to $2.3 million on 46 lobby contracts.

Other school interests
Ten other school interests put their respective spins on school debates, spending up to $1.1 million on 40 lobby contracts. Leading the pack, Texas Businesses for Educational Excellence advocates stronger cost-accountability standards for schools.

A separate group, Texans for Educational Excellence (TEE), and Texans for Good Schools are pro-voucher groups tied to the wealthy funders James Leininger and Louis Beecherl. Texans for Good Schools operates out of Beecherl’s Dallas office. Beecherl’s long-time political operative, Bill Ceverha, is a TEE lobbyist.²

The two groups promoting private, state-funded charter schools hired nine lobbyists, who were opposed by one lobbyist for the Coalition for Public Schools, which opposes state funding for private schools.

Charter schools are exempt from an executive order that Governor Perry issued in August requiring school districts to spend 65 percent of their operating funds on classroom instruction. Critics say that Perry issued this decree as retribution against the education lobby for blocking his school-funding plans.

New York’s business-backed Teaching Commission promotes more training for teachers and linking teacher pay to merit rather than seniority. With funding from the tourism industry, SeptStart advocates a later starting date for schools.

Special-session bounce
The ideological school lobby accounted for most of the $275,000 increase in education-lobby expenditures reported between the end of the regular session and the close of the second special session. Together, Texas Businesses for Educational Excellence and Texans for Educational Excellence increased their lobby spending up to $125,000 during the special sessions.

The two pro-charter groups, which won the special gubernatorial exemption, posted the greatest relative increase in lobby spending, by spending up to $100,000 more between them. The only other education interest that increased its lobby expenditures during the special sessions was the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, which boosted its spending from $350,000 to $400,000.

Lobby TEA party
Eight elite education lobbyists reported maximum lobby incomes exceeding $100,000 from one or more education clients. Many of these lobbyists wield revolving-door credentials.

Mega-school lobbyist J. David Thompson III of Bracewell & Giuliani did prior stints as general counsel of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and chief staff lobbyist at the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB). Helping districts challenge Texas’ school-finance system, he has litigated Edgewood ISD v. Moreno and West Orange-Cove v. Neeley. The latter case set the stage for the current crisis when state District Judge John Dietz ruled last year that the school finance system in Texas is unconstitutional.

Partners Daniel Casey and Lynn Moak are revolving-door veterans. Casey, who also did a stint as TASB’s chief lobbyist, worked for the Comptroller’s Office, Senate Finance Committee and Legislative Budget Board. Casey also co-wrote the book on school finance (Basics of Texas Public School Finance). Moak is an ex-Deputy Commissioner of Education who worked in the Comptroller’s Office, Lieutenant Governor’s Office and at TEA.

As a state representative Paul Colbert helped launch student-assessment testing and the so-called Robin Hood school-finance system. Now a school-finance consultant, Colbert was an expert witness for plaintiffs in West Orange-Cove v. Neeley. Fellow ex-Representative Barry Telford parlayed a stint on the House Pensions Committee into a lobby gig at the Texas Retired Teachers Association.

Before becoming a HillCo lobbyist, David Anderson worked for textbook publishers and served as the TEA’s director of curriculum and professional development. Anderson also lobbies for the College Board and Teachscape, which sells teacher-development materials.

TASB Associate Executive Director Catherine Clark previously worked at the TASB-linked Texas Center for Educational Research and at the now-defunct State Property Tax Board.

Public Strategies Managing Director Rusty Kelley is Texas’ top-grossing lobbyist. By the end of this year’s regular session he reported that 61 clients were paying him up to $3.7 million. Kelley was a top aide to ex-House Speaker Billy Clayton, who also became a lobbyist.