B.
The Nation’s No. 2 State Lobby
The adage “Everything’s bigger in
Texas” is difficult to prove or disprove where lobby expenditures are concerned.
A kaleidoscope of different state lobby reporting requirements subjects
any state lobby ranking to numerous caveats. Under Pressure, a recent
study by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity, found
that Texas had the nation’s second-highest lobby expenditures in 2003 after
California. Yet the $191 million figure that Under Pressure uses
for California is based on the actual value of lobby contracts.
In contrast, the $137 million figure that the same study uses for the Lone
Star State is based on the minimum value of Texas’ lobby contracts.
Texas braggarts will note that the $276 million maximum value of
Texas lobby contracts far exceeds the $191 million in California lobby
expenditures.
C.
Million-Dollar Clients
The remainder of this report analyzes
the 6,593 paid Texas lobby contracts reported by the end of 2003.
The 1,578 lobbyists who reported these contracts said that they were worth
a total of between $132 million and $276 million (Texas lobbyists report
contract values in ranges: e.g. “$50,000 - $99,999”).
By the end of 2003, 17 mega-clients
had maximum lobby expenditures of more than $1 million apiece (the appendix
lists Texas’ top 100 lobby clients). These 17 mega-clients collectively
spent up to $30.4 million, accounting for 11 percent of Texas’ total reported
lobby expenditures. As usual, SBC (Southwestern Bell) was far and away
Texas’ top lobby client, spending up to $7.6 million on 110 staff and freelance
lobbyists in 2003.
Million-Dollar Clients
| 2003 Lobby Client |
Contract
Value (Max.) |
Contract
Value (Min.) |
No. of
Contracts |
| SBC (Southwestern Bell) |
$7,570,000 |
$3,935,000 |
110 |
| TX Utilities Co. (TXU) |
$1,920,000 |
$870,000 |
55 |
| EDS (Electronic Data Systems) |
$1,860,000 |
$1,300,000 |
16 |
| TX Medical Association |
$1,725,000 |
$935,000 |
24 |
| City of Houston |
$1,705,002 |
$1,010,000 |
32 |
| Assn. of Electric Companies of TX |
$1,675,000 |
$785,000 |
30 |
| Verizon |
$1,665,000 |
$735,000 |
45 |
| City of Austin |
$1,510,000 |
$750,000 |
22 |
| AT&T Corp. |
$1,475,000 |
$720,000 |
29 |
| CenterPoint Energy |
$1,395,000 |
$700,000 |
21 |
| ExxonMobil Corp. |
$1,250,000 |
$735,000 |
19 |
| TX Hospital Assn. |
$1,225,000 |
$610,000 |
19 |
| Metro. Transit Authority of Harris County |
$1,165,000 |
$560,000 |
20 |
| McGinnis Lochridge & Kilgore |
$1,075,004 |
$960,000 |
7 |
| TX Assn. of Realtors |
$1,075,001 |
$685,000 |
10 |
| Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) |
$1,060,000 |
$520,000 |
19 |
| TX Assn. of School Boards |
$1,050,000 |
$525,000 |
12 |
D.
Clients By Interest Category
This report categorizes Texas’ 2003
lobby contracts by their underlying interests. Energy & Natural Resources
is the leading category, accounting for 16 percent of all lobby money.
The next largest categories are: Ideological & Single-Issue clients;
Health; and Miscellaneous Business.
Lobby Contracts By Interest
Category
| Interest
Category |
Max. Value
of Contracts |
Min. Value
of Contracts |
No. of
Contracts |
Percent
(of Max. Value) |
| Agriculture |
$6,815,001 |
$3,130,000 |
174 |
2% |
| Communications |
$18,095,500 |
$8,935,500 |
367 |
7% |
| Construction |
$12,180,002 |
$6,130,000 |
249 |
4% |
| Electronics |
$10,055,000 |
$5,015,000 |
217 |
4% |
| Energy & Natural Resources |
$42,800,004 |
$21,230,000 |
908 |
16% |
| Finance |
$13,595,001 |
$6,095,000 |
342 |
5% |
| Health |
$32,720,001 |
$15,245,000 |
822 |
12% |
| Ideological & Single Issue |
$35,850,047 |
$16,980,043 |
917 |
13% |
| Insurance |
$16,485,000 |
$6,795,000 |
548 |
6% |
| Labor |
$4,775,000 |
$2,175,000 |
117 |
2% |
| Lawyers & Lobbyists |
$16,590,018 |
$10,145,000 |
286 |
6% |
| Miscellaneous Business |
$29,045,002 |
$13,900,000 |
694 |
11% |
| Other |
$6,305,000 |
$2,880,000 |
156 |
2% |
| Real Estate |
$10,825,002 |
$5,520,000 |
219 |
4% |
| Transportation |
$12,585,000 |
$5,805,000 |
289 |
5% |
| Unknown |
$6,865,000 |
$2,505,000 |
288 |
2%
|
|
Totals:
|
$275,585,578 |
$132,485,543 |
6,593 |
100% |
|
Energy
& Natural Resources Contracts
The oil, gas and utility interests
that have long ruled Texas dominate the Energy and Natural Resources sector,
which is led by TXU (see “TXU’s Bad Breaks"). With its heavy use of joint
ventures and contractors, this industry stands to benefit from 2003 restrictions
on proportional liability, in which more than one defendant is responsible
for an injury (see “Damages Control”). Energy-industry pollution has created
business opportunities for three other major lobby clients in this sector:
Fuel Cells Texas, Environmental Systems Products Holdings and Waste Control
Specialists.
Fuel Cells Texas represents companies
developing technology that chemically converts fuel to electricity without
burning fuel. Members of this new-age trade group include such old-age
energy and chemical companies as CenterPoint, Hunt Power, ChevronTexaco,
Siemens Westinghouse, Shell and DuPont. These companies know how to jump-start
politicians. Fuel Cells Texas formed in 2001, when the legislature ordered
the State Energy Conservation Office to find ways to promote this technology.
Shortly after President Bush plugged fuel cells in his 2003 State of the
Union address, energy interests announced that they were seeking government
aid to establish an alternative-energy research complex. They then built
their Texas Energy Center at the University of Houston’s new Sugar Land
campus--in the backyard of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Governor Perry
announced a $3.6 million grant to the Texas Energy Center in 2004, in one
of the first handouts of his new Texas Enterprise Fund.
The nation’s largest contractor for
vehicle emissions testing, Environmental Systems Products Holdings (ESP)
won a $3.5 million contract in 2001 to supply the Texas Department of Public
Safety with remote-sensing devices, which measure pollution from passing
vehicles. ESP also produces half of the emissions-testing equipment used
around Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. This testing requirement is expanding
as other Texas cities struggle to comply with federal air-quality laws.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality announced in 2004 that ESP
was fixing a software glitch that improperly flunked some vehicles.
Top Energy & Natural
Resources Clients
| Lobby
Client |
Max Value
Of Contracts |
No. of
Contracts |
| Texas Utilities Co
(TXU) |
$1,920,000 |
55 |
| Assn. of Electric Companies of TX |
$1,675,000 |
30 |
| CenterPoint Energy |
$1,395,000 |
21 |
| ExxonMobil Corp |
$1,250,000 |
19 |
| Fuel Cells TX |
$950,000 |
07 |
| Waste Control Specialists, Inc |
$950,000 |
21 |
| Sentinel Resources Corp. |
$900,000 |
08 |
| Reliant Resources |
$815,000 |
15 |
| Environmental Systems Products Holdings |
$760,000 |
12 |
| Exelon Power TX |
$750,000 |
08 |
| Valero Energy Corp. |
$735,000 |
15 |
| Sempra Energy |
$670,000 |
12 |
| Entergy Corp. |
$655,000 |
20 |
| American Electric Power |
$645,000 |
12 |
| Texas Electric Co-op, Inc |
$625,001 |
08 |
Controlled by Dallas corporate-takeover
billionaire Harold Simmons, Waste Control Specialists (WCS) lobbied for
eight years for permission to dump nuclear waste in West Texas. After the
Simmons family and its Contran holding company gave $435,000 to state politicians
in 2002, the 2003 legislature agreed to let the nation’s nuclear power
plants and federal nuclear weapons sites ship low-level radioactive waste
to the company’s dumps. WCS stands to make billions of dollars off this
law, which saddles taxpayers with long-term liability for this nuclear
waste.
Against citizen opposition, Sentinel
Resources has spent five years seeking a permit for a traditional landfill
south of Houston. Two administrative law judges recommended in June 2004
that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reject Sentinel’s application,
which the judges said failed to satisfy water-quality and other concerns.
Ideological
and Single-Issue Contracts
Local governments dominated lobby
contracts in the Ideological and Single-Issue sector. This sector’s top
clients were the state’s largest city and the state capital. Austin clashes
with the legislature more than any other city due to its modest efforts
to protect its local environment.
The public transportation authorities
of Houston, Dallas and Austin also ranked among this sector’s top lobby
clients. All of these entities have hustled dollars and votes for rail
systems in recent years. Austin’s metro authority is revamping its rail
proposal, which voters narrowly derailed in 2000—the same year that Dallas
voters snubbed a bond initiative for their rail system. Houston-area voters
narrowly approved expanding their system in late 2003.
The Texas Civil Justice League and
Texans for Lawsuit Reform lobbied in 2003 for lawsuit limits, led by H.B.
4 (see “Damages Control”). A similar-sounding attorney group, Texans for
Civil Justice, opposed that legislation. The Tigua Indians’ Ysleta Del
Sur Pueblo had a big stake in recent proposals to legalize slot machines
(see “Gambling on Slot Machines”).
The Texas Municipal League (TML) did
not claim much bang for its lobby bucks. TML bemoaned a 2003 ethics law
that requires big-city officials to disclose personal financial information
(as state officials do) and applauded passage of three under-whelming “priorities.”2
Two public entities are involved in
the state’s burgeoning water wars (private water companies are classified
under “Energy and Natural Resources”). The Lower Colorado River Authority
and San Antonio Water System agreed in 2002 to pursue a complex deal in
which the city would fund reservoirs and rural water-conservation projects
along the Colorado River in exchange for a cut of the captured water.
This sector’s leading public-interest
client was the American Cancer Society, which promoted tobacco taxes, the
Children’s Health Insurance Program and an anti-obesity drive for kids.
Top Ideological &
Single-Issue Clients
| Lobby Client |
Max.
Value
Of Contracts |
No.
of
Contracts |
| City of Houston |
$1,705,002 |
32 |
| City of Austin |
$1,510,000 |
22 |
| Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris
County |
$1,165,000 |
20 |
| Texas Civil Justice League |
$990,000 |
23 |
| Texas Municipal League |
$960,000 |
13 |
| Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo Tribal Council |
$900,000 |
7 |
| Lower Colorado River Authority |
$815,000 |
23 |
| Dallas Area Rapid Transit |
$750,000 |
5 |
| Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority |
$750,000 |
5 |
| Texans for Lawsuit Reform |
$675,000 |
13 |
| Port of Houston Authority |
$640,000 |
13 |
| American Cancer Society |
$625,000 |
11 |
| San Antonio Water System |
$610,000 |
8 |
| City of Laredo |
$560,001 |
6 |
| Texans for Civil Justice |
$550,001 |
4 |
Health Contracts
The two trade associations with the
greatest interest in capping damages paid to medical malpractice victims—the
Texas Medical Association and the Texas Hospital Association—led the health
industry lobby. Other doctor and hospital interests that made heavy lobby
expenditures include the Texas Opthalmological Association, the Trinity
Mother Frances Health System3 and Save
Our ER’s, which seeks more Houston-area trauma services. Formed specifically
to cap malpractice damages (see “Doctored Malpractice Claims”), the Texas
Alliance for Patient Access allied medical with health insurance interests.
The top health insurance lobby forces
were PacifiCare, Blue Cross, AMERIGROUP and the Texas Association of Health
Plans trade group. This industry pushed two 2003 bills that now allow insurers
to charge consumers more co-payments and deductibles for fewer covered
benefits.4 The Texas Attorney General also
sued PacifiCare in 2001 for failing to pay medical bills promptly; the
parties partially settled these claims in 2003. Lawmakers passed SB 418
in 2003 in yet another effort to make insurers pay medical bills promptly.
Other major health lobby clients have
stakes in other H.B. 4 lawsuit limits, including nursing home interests
(Mariner) and drug makers. Drug interests (GlaxoSmithKline and the Pharmaceutical
Research & Manufacturers of America) also swarmed a 2003 bill that
established a preferred drug list for Texas Medicaid patients.5
Failing to kill the list outright, drug makers sought exceptions for some
drugs and then lobbied to get their products listed. In 2004 drug makers
GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer agreed to pay $9 million to settle Texas' share
of federal Medicaid fraud charges.
Top Health Clients
| Lobby
Client |
Max. Value
Of Contracts |
No. of
Contracts |
| TX Medical Assn. |
$1,725,000 |
24 |
| TX Hospital Assn. |
$1,225,000 |
19 |
| GlaxoSmithKline |
$800,000 |
7 |
| TX Alliance for Patient Access |
$650,000 |
9 |
| PacifiCare |
$560,000 |
11 |
| TX Ophthalmological Assn. |
$535,000 |
7 |
| McKesson Corp. |
$500,000 |
5 |
| Blue Cross & Blue Shield of TX |
$450,001 |
5 |
| Trinity Mother Frances Health System |
$450,000 |
7 |
| TX Dental Assn. |
$435,000 |
8 |
| Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers
of America |
$425,000 |
7 |
| AMERIGROUP Corp. |
$420,000 |
11 |
| TX Assn. of Health Plans |
$405,000 |
8 |
| Mariner Post Acute Network, Inc. |
$400,000 |
7 |
| Save Our ER's |
$400,000 |
8 |
Miscellaneous
Business Contracts
The Miscellaneous Business sector’s
gambling, alcohol and pornography industries have major stakes in the “sin-tax”
debate. Forecasts of massive state budget shortfalls overshadowed Texas’
2003 legislative session. Lawmakers largely addressed the fiscal crunch
in 2003 through spending cuts—postponing the dicey issue of how to increase
revenues for the special session that Governor Perry called in early 2004.
With most lawmakers unwilling to consider a state income tax or closing
corporate tax loopholes, “sin taxes” emerged as the most painless way to
boost revenues. One exception was a failed House proposal to increase the
state sales tax and apply it to previously exempt services (thereby offending
the refined tastes of the Texas Association of Interior Design).
Governor Perry kicked off the 2004
special session with a proposal to raise $7 billion in new revenues, led
by the following sin-taxes:
-
$2.6 billion from cigarettes;6
-
$2 billion from legalizing slot machines;
and
-
$90 million from fees on topless bars.7
The governor’s sin-tax list hit tobacco
but sidestepped the nation’s next two leading causes of preventable deaths:
diet and exercise problems (No. 2); and alcohol (No. 3). This was a coup
for the alcohol lobby, led by Miller Brewing, Wholesale Beer Distributors
and Anheuser-Busch. Similarly, the obesity epidemic is feeding liability
and sin-tax concerns within the junk-food industry (see Kraft and Texas
Soft Drink Association).
Unlike these purveyors of legal sins,
the gambling industry actually lobbied for passage of a new sin tax—if
the state would legalize slot machines at race tracks and Indian reservations
(see “Gambling on Slot Machines”).
Top Miscellaneous Business
Clients
| Lobby Client |
Max.
Value
Of Contracts |
No.
of
Contracts |
| MEC Lone Star |
$750,000 |
5 |
| Miller Brewing Co. |
$705,000 |
13 |
| TX Assn. for Interior Design |
$600,000 |
6 |
| Wholesale Beer Distributors of TX |
$585,000 |
9 |
| Silverleaf Resorts, Inc. |
$560,000 |
8 |
| Rio Grande Valley Partnership |
$500,000 |
5 |
| Amusement & Music Operators of TX |
$480,000 |
10 |
| Kraft Foods North America |
$480,000 |
10 |
| GTECH Corp. |
$450,000 |
4 |
| Oberthur Gaming Technologies |
$410,000 |
6 |
| Crown Cork & Seal |
$400,000 |
8 |
| Anheuser-Busch Co's |
$365,000 |
9 |
| TX Petroleum Marketers & Convenience
Store Assn. |
$355,000 |
9 |
| Greater Fort Bend Economic Development Council |
$325,000 |
4 |
| Gulf Greyhound Partners |
$310,000 |
3 |
| TX Soft Drink Assn. |
$310,000 |
9 |
Dallas-based Silverleaf Resorts has
generated class-action lawsuits and hundreds of complaints with the Better
Business Bureau and the state Attorney General and Real Estate Commission.
Customers have complained that Silverleaf used high-pressure and deceptive
tactics to sell time shares in low-end resorts that reportedly are poorly
maintained. |
Top Lobby States in 2003
| State |
Value
of 2003
Lobby Contracts |
| California |
$191,041,807 |
| Texas |
*$137,402,500 |
| New York |
$120,000,000 |
| Massachusetts |
$58,936,454 |
| Minnesota |
$43,925,842 |
| Washington |
$33,277,396 |
| Maryland |
$30,500,000 |
| Connecticut |
$30,127,231 |
| New Jersey |
$26,672,823 |
| Michigan |
$26,571,893 |
*This
figure exceeds the $132 million minimal value
of 2003
lobby contracts used in this reportbecaus the
Center's
study also includes lobbyists' wining-and-
dining
expenditures. |
Damages
Control: The Lawsuit-
Protection
Lobby
Spores of the biggest business
lobby coup of 2003—a new crop of lawsuit limits—may have germinated in
2001, when Rep. Joe Nixon filed mold claims on his $369,500 home. Farmers
Insurance, which initially paid $300,000 on the lawmaker’s mold claims,
paid Nixon another $13,000 more during the 2003 legislative session for
damage that contractors did to Nixon’s yard. A whistle-blowing Farmer’s
mold manager complained that her superiors “strong armed” this extra payment
to curry favor with a powerful lawmaker, a complaint that Travis County
prosecutors rejected. Nonetheless, “Moldy Joe” Nixon emerged as the insurance
industry’s best friend in the 2003 legislature.
During that session,
Nixon ostracized “frivolous” mold claims on his legislative web site and
used a perk only available to lawmaker attorneys to delay the trial of
an insurer that denied a Baptist church’s mold claims. Most importantly,
Nixon authored H.B. 4, a grab bag of lawsuit-limits to benefit every major
industry. This law imposes numerous new hurdles on plaintiffs who seek
to recover damages involving: Medical-malpractice; Nursing homes; Product
liability; Asbestos; Class actions; and Multiple defendants who share responsibility
for an injury.
Apart from the four
local-government clients in the million-dollar club, the industry of every
other million-dollar client urged lawmakers to pass H.B. 4. Four million-dollar
clients testified directly in favor of this legislation: the Texas Medical
Association, the Texas Hospital Association, the Association of Electric
Companies and ExxonMobil.
Plaintiff attorneys
and consumer organization led opposition to this legislation. Trial lawyer
interests spent up to $2.6 million on 2003 lobbyists, led by Asbestos Free
Texas (up to $985,000). The second largest plaintiff client was Linebarger
Heard Goggan ($915,000), a firm that specializes in landing municipal tax-collection
contracts--and fending off related ethics scandals. The Texas Trial Lawyers
Association, the chief opponent of H.B. 4 as a whole, was the next largest
plaintiff client ($650,001). |
TXU’s
Bad Breaks
TXU was one of four
power companies that agreed to pay $10.5 million in 2002 to settle Texas
Public Utility Commission charges that they improperly made $29 million
by manipulating Texas’ deregulated market. TXU became Texas’ largest electric
and gas utility in 1997, when it acquired Lone Star Gas. The merger saddled
TXU with a defective gas pipeline that has caused eight explosions and
five deaths since its installation in the early 1970s. Arguing that replacing
these pipes would cost $130 million, TXU sought Texas Railroad Commission
approval in May 2003 to hit North Texas gas customers with a huge rate
increase. The City of Dallas and other opponents of the rate hike argued
that TXU should eat these costs because it should have foreseen this problem
when it bought the moldering pipeline. Opponents also said repair costs
escalated because the utility failed to tackle the problem sooner. Apart
from its stable of lobbyists, TXU also retained Public Strategies to conduct
a public-relations campaign to counter “fear-mongering” by critics of the
defective pipe. “It was never our intention to prosecute this in the media,”
a TXU spokesperson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “But we’ve been backed
into the corner.”
TXU’s rate-hike request
bitterly divided the three Railroad Commissioners, forcing them to choose
between a large bloc of voters and a big campaign donor. The only commissioner
facing voters in 2004, Victor Carrillo held out until the end of a May
2004 hearing before casting the deciding vote to deny most of the rate
increases that TXU sought. Commissioner Michael Williams blasted the decision
as “capricious, contrary to the law and an act of sheer cowardice.” By
voting against the utility, which he said “did not operate in a prudent
manner,” Commissioner Charles Matthews sidestepped a firestorm. Matthews
earlier ignited a 2000 ethics scandal by declining to recuse himself from
a rate-hike request by TXU—the longtime employer of his son.
|
Doctored
Malpractice Claims
A key part of H.B.
4 (see “Damages Control”) capped the damages that Texas courts can award
to medical malpractice victims. The law caps non-economic medical malpractice
damages (for pain, suffering, disfigurement and impairment) at a maximum
of $250,000. Fearing constitutional challenges, lawmakers also floated
a constitutional amendment to allow such caps. The amendment passed in
September 2003—with 51 percent of the vote.
This battle pitted the
medical and insurance lobbies against plaintiff attorneys. As the battle
raged, media stories contained troubling reminders that the state was limiting
malpractice damages--without limiting malpractice itself:
-
Baylor Medical Center doctors
had good and bad news for Nelda Jordan Miles of Grapevine after her February
2003 cancer surgery. The bad news was that they removed the wrong kidney.
The good news was that kidney that they meant to remove was not cancerous,
after all.
-
The Arandas family of East
Texas filed a lawsuit in March 2003 against Baylor Medical Center and Dallas’
Children's Medical Center after an organ-donor blood mismatch killed their
baby girl, Jeanella.
-
Shortly before Texans voted
on the damage-cap amendment, mechanic Hurshell Ralls settled a lawsuit
against the Clinics of North Texas and the two doctors who amputated his
penis after a diagnosis of penile cancer. Post-operative pathology revealed
that Ralls did not have cancer, after all.
Two leading champions
of caps on malpractice damages were the Texas Medical Association and the
Texas Hospital Association, which had maximum lobby expenditures of more
than $1 million apiece in 2003. The pro-caps lobby argued that skyrocketing
malpractice awards triggered skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates that
were putting doctors out of business. If this were true, then capping
malpractice damages would rollback insurance rates and save the medical
profession from extinction. Governor Rick Perry’s Insurance Commissioner,
Jose Montemayor, wrote lawmakers in March 2003 that the proposed caps “would
translate to a 17 percent to 19 percent reduction in rates.” Yet lawmakers
quietly stripped out Rep. Patrick Rose’s amendment to mandate rate reductions.
Lacking such accountability,
just one medical malpractice insurer lowered its rates in early 2004. Montemayor
then told lawmakers in April 2004 that the highly specific numbers that
he cited a year earlier were theoretical figures that were not intended
to suggest that malpractice insurance rates would actually decrease by
any specific amount. In fact, a couple insurers applied to regulators to
increase their malpractice rates by at least as much as Montemayor had
said that rates would fall. When regulators balked at a 19 percent rate-hike
request by GE Medical Protective, this malpractice insurer announced in
2004 that it would dodge regulation altogether. |
Gambling
On Slot Machines
Gambling and Indian
interests carefully laid the groundwork for Governor Rick Perry’s 2004
proposal to raise $2 billion over three years by legalizing video-lottery
slot machines at Texas race tracks and Indian reservations. These two interests
collectively spent up to $4.8 million on 90 lobby contracts in 2003 (Indian
tribes are classified in the Ideological and Single-Issue sector). The
race
track industry hired former Perry Press Secretary Ray Sullivan and paid
more than $200,000 to former Texas Secretary of State Elton Bomer. Gambling
interests also dropped $572,175 into Perry’s war chest in the four years
preceding the governor’s slots proposal (2000-2003).
The top race-track
lobby clients were Magna Entertainment Corp.’s MEC Lone Star, which owns
Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, and Gulf Greyhound Partners, which owns
Gulf Greyhound Park south of Houston. While lottery contractors such as
GTECH and Oberthur Gaming must compete with slot machines for gambling
dollars, GTECH bet on both ponies by buying a company that makes video
lottery terminals. Finally, the Amusement and Music Operators of Texas
(AMOT) represents owners of “eight-liner” gambling machines. After the
Attorney General’s Office seized more than 2,000 of these illegal machines
in recent years, AMOT urged lawmakers in late 2003 to legalize slot machines
and give its members a piece of the action. But slots and other revenue-raising
proposals crapped out with lawmakers in the 2004 special session.
|
|
