Austin:  A new study found that 1,700 different special interests will spend up to $180 million to influence Texas politics during the 1999 Legislative session. The cost of these special-interest lobby tricks is up 19 percent over what the lobby spent during the 1997 legislative session, according to the study, Austin's Oldest Profession: Texas' Top Lobby Clients and Those Who Service Them.

"Legislators are rubbing shoulders with 1,579 lobbyists, almost all of whom hustle for business interests," said Texans for Public Justice Director Craig McDonald  "While our legislative process is dominated by corporate interests, there is virtually no counterbalancing lobby to represent Bubba. Nowhere on the list of Texas' biggest lobby spenders will you find a single group dedicated to the interests of consumers, the environment or human services. No wonder these citizen interests repeatedly get steam rolled in Austin."

Among the secrets revealed in Austin's Oldest Profession:

• Southwestern Bell holds the lobby heavyweight title, spending up to $5 million on 127 lobbyists. Bell spent almost twice the $2.6 million in lobby fees reported by No. 2-ranked EDS Corp. Next came the City of Austin ($1.8 million), Reliant Energy ($1.8 million), AT&T ($1.7 million) and Texas Utilities ($1.4 million).
• Ex-legislator Neal "Buddy" Jones, Jr. and his partner, ex-TNRCC Director Dan Pearson, were Texas' top hired guns, together reporting 64 contracts worth up to $2.3 million. Justin J. Howard and Baker & Botts?' lobbyist Pamela Giblin followed, each reporting up to $1.8 million in contracts.
• Deep pockets are spending between $77 million and $180 million on 1999 lobbyists. This $180 million figure represents a 19 percent increase over the up to $151 million spent on the lobby during the 1997 session.
• The Finance, Insurance and Real Estate industries cast the biggest lobby shadow, taking out 1,703 contracts worth up to $34 million.  The Energy and Natural Resources industry ranked second, with 870 contracts worth up to $31 million. The No. 3-ranked Communications & Electronics industry spent up to $22 million on 596 contracts.
• Special interests took out 6,106 lobbying contracts during the 1999 legislative session. This represents a 10 percent increase over the 5,531 contracts reported during the 1997 session and a 612 percent increase over the 857 contracts reported in 1987.

Lobby spending reported to the TEC and used in this report includes only expenditures for directly lobbying government officials.  It does not include the money, estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars,  spent on grassroots lobbying and public relations activities to support or oppose legislation.  Expenditures for television,  radio and print advertising,  phone-banking, direct mail campaigns, and similar non-direct lobbying activities do not have to be reported.

Data analyzed in Austin's Oldest Profession comes from reports that lobbyists filed with the Texas Ethics Commission as of March 25, 1999. Lobby fees are reported in broad ranges (such as $50,000 to $99,999).

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