The 'K Street' Effect Hits Texas

III. Elite Lobby Contributions Quadrupled

While the lobby incomes of Texas’ top 25 lobbyists increased 53 percent from 1999 to 2003, their campaign contributions increased many times this amount. Texas’ top 25 lobbyists in 1999 contributed a total of $195,095 of their own money to Texas state PACs and candidates in the corresponding 2000 election cycle (covering 1999 and 2000). By 2003, the top 25 lobbyists were digging much deeper into their pockets, spending a total of $838,342 on the corresponding 2004 election cycle—a 330 percent increase. Where a top lobbyist in 1999 contributed an average of $7,804 to state political campaigns, by 2003 a top lobbyist gave $33,434 of his or her own money to state politicians.

Political activity by the lobby firms and PACs affiliated with these elite lobbyists increased even more. PACs and firms affiliated with 2003’s top 25 lobbyists contributed almost $2.3 million to state PACs and candidates in the corresponding election cycle—a 417 percent increase over what PACs and firms associated with 1999’s top lobbyists spent on the 2000 election cycle. The price of political influence was skyrocketing in Austin.

Elite Lobbyists' Political Contributions Soared
In Texas Between 1999 to 2003

State Contributions By the PACs and Firms
of Texas' Top 25 Lobbyists in 1999 and 2003

Donations By 1999’s Top Lobbyists

†Total does not double-count money from PACs or firms with multiple lobbyists in the top 25.
*Excludes double-counting of internal transfers (e.g. the $9,135 that HillCo lobbyist ‘Buddy’ Jones gave to HillCo PAC.

Only eight lobbyists from 1999’s top 25 list still made the cut in 2003. The accompanying tables listing the elite lobbyists in 1999 and 2003 suggest that campaign money played a role in this reshuffling. Note that three of 1999’s elite lobbyists were not associated with a single individual, firm or PAC contribution (Homero Lucero, Cliff Johnson and Reggie Bashur). Four other elite 1999 lobbyists were associated with contribution totals of less than $10,000 (Kent Caperton, Hugo Berlanga, Don Adams and Angelo Zottarelli). No such pikers made the top 25 list in 2003, when the smallest contribution amount associated with an elite lobbyist was $15,659 from the pocket and firm of Speaker Tom Craddick’s lobby pal Bill Messer.

Public Strategies lobbyist Rusty Kelley--who rocketed to the head of the 2003 lobby with up to $5.2 million in income--contributed a stunning $433,008 of his own money to state politicians in the corresponding 2004 election cycle. “If you’re asking me if I’d give [political] money if I didn’t do what I do,” Kelley candidly told the San Antonio Express-News earlier this year, “the answer is obviously no.”

HillCo’s Buddy Jones, who ranked No. 1 in 1999, still ranked among the state’s top 10 lobbyists in 2003. During this period his firm’s HillCo PAC expanded 586 percent. HillCo PAC ranked 102 among Texas PACs in 2002, when it spent $102,818 to influence state politics. By the 2004 election cycle, HillCo PAC ranked No. 15, spending $705,343.⁶

Donations By 2003’s Top Lobbyists

 ◊Equals half of the contributions by this lobby couple, which sometimes gives jointly.
 †Total does not double-count money from PACs or firms with multiple lobbyists in the top 25.
 *Eliminates double-counting of internal transfers (e.g. $267,628 that Buster Brown’s campaign fund gave to his Texas Our Texas PAC and the $289,809 that the Hughes & Luce firm gave to the Hughes & Luce PAC).

To be sure, factors other than a K Street-style squeeze on the lobby were at play in Austin during this period. Notably, after Republicans consolidated their political hold by taking control of the state House in 2002, some Democratic lobbyists fell out of Texas’ lobby elite. Yet this partisan consolidation alone fails to explain why not one top Democratic lobbyist was replaced by a Republican or independent lobbyist who made little or no political contributions. These data strongly support that the K Street effect had hit Austin’s Congress Avenue, where the word on the street was that Texas’ top lobbyists must pay to play.

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©Copyright Texans for Public Justice, July 2006