Phil Major

Wood County, the city of Mineola and other local government agencies are coming out in opposition to a bill by State Sen. Bob Hall and a companion bill in the House of Representatives that will basically take away the right of cities, counties, school districts and others to lobby the state legislature.

While it is true that this is a massive overreach by state government to try to tell cities, counties and others what to do, the issue is more complicated than that.

First of all, let me explain that I usually don’t see eye to eye with Sen. Hall. He was our senator before we moved to Mineola and boasted of being the most conservative senator in Texas. You might think that would be a badge of honor in a conservative area of a conservative state, and he certainly had little trouble winning a second term. But in some circles he has also been labeled largely ineffective in getting meaningful legislation passed. But that’s a debate for another day.

The overarching issue is that our state leaders chafe demonstratively when the federal government tries to tell them how to run Texas. But when Texas cities, in particular, try to do what’s apparently best for their own communities, suddenly the state leaders think they know better. So things like bans on plastic shopping bags and restrictions on where you can drill a natural gas well have come under fire.

Of course, the biggie this time around is the so-called defund the police movement. We won’t discuss that here today other than to say that most small police departments and rural sheriff’s offices can justify every dollar they are receiving. Why the governor thinks he should punish the city of Austin for how it wants to spend its public service dollars is another matter.

So from that standpoint, I support the cities and counties because I think they should be able to lobby for or against effective legislation that benefits or hurts cities and counties.

And if state lawmakers don’t want to give them a fair shot, then that’s just too bad. They were elected to listen.

But there is one huge problem.

The three organizations that primarily represent the cities (Texas Municipal League-TML), the counties (Texas Association of Counties-TAC) and the schools (Texas Association of School Boards-TASB) are among the worst at trying to keep public information from being public.

Having been involved in the battles over the Texas Open Records and Texas Open Meetings laws for several decades, I can tell you that, if TML, TAC and TASB had their way, very little information from local government would be available to the public.

And that’s a big problem in two ways.

First, this is the public’s government, operated with the public’s money, and the public has the right to know what’s going on. That is not up for debate. The gatekeepers do not get to decide what we should and should not know. They just get to make it public and move on.

Second, the public’s money should not be used to thwart the public’s rights.

But in order for TML, TAC and TASB to lobby on behalf of cities, counties and schools, those public entities have to be members. Where do you think the money comes from to pay the dues and attend conferences? That’s right, from the pockets of taxpayers.

So although Sen. Hall and I may have arrived at the same conclusion through a different path, I may have to support him on this.

Incidentally, full disclosure here, the organization to which we pay dues to represent us in front of the legislature, the Texas Press Association, is supporting these bills, putting us in direct opposition to the folks with whom we work every day like county judges, city managers, mayors and school superintendents.

Hopefully we can agree to disagree, and perhaps lawmakers can find some middle ground that keeps taxpayer money from hurting taxpayers while allowing local leaders the right to be represented in Austin.

Incidentally, Sen. Bryan Hughes and Rep. Cole Hefner supported similar bills in the legislature two years ago, but I’m told that with the amount of (your) money TML has to spend, the bills likely will fail again, and your money will continue to be used to help keep you in the dark.