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Lobby Facts 

Lobbying the Texas Legislature is big business—and growing. In the midst of 1999’s 76th Legislature, lobbyists had registered 6,106 separate contracts with The Texas Ethics Commission. Of these contracts, 5,830 reported financial compensation. The other 276 contracts either reported maximum values of $0 (195 contracts) or failed to provide any compensation information at all.

This report analyzes the overall 1999 lobby, identifying the leading industries that spend the most on lobbyists, the leading individual lobby clients and Texas’ top hired-gun lobbyists.

Texas Lobby Facts:

• 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.

 
• Clients paid a total of between $77 million and $180 million for the 1999 lobby contracts. This 1999 maximum of $180 million represents a 19 percent increase over the comparable 1997 figure of $151 million.

 
• Despite sharp increases in the total number and value of lobby contracts from 1997 to 1999, the number of lobbyists collecting this money stayed relatively stable. There were 1,579 registered lobbyists in 1999, just three more than in 1997.

 
• The Finance, Insurance and Real Estate industry generated the most lobbying business, 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.

 
• Southwestern Bell holds the lobby client 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 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 with each reporting up to $1.8 million in contracts.

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