Last month, the bill attempting to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying appeared unlikely to make it out of the Texas House State Affairs Committee. The atmosphere has shifted in the last week, after so many people came to testify at a hearing for House Bill 749 that the meeting lasted until early the next morning. The sheer volume of advocacy has thrust the lobbying ban bill back into the spotlight, and we’re seeing a surge of renewed interest in the Texas lobbying conversation. 

For the 2020 election cycle (2019 – 2020), more than $109 million in taxpayer dollars was being spent to lobby Austin politicians. With our Lobbying Data feature, Texans can see which organizations hired lobbyists, who they hired, and how much they spent. In addition to pulling back the curtain on lobbying — the largest source of money and influence on Texas lawmakers — we have also divided the organizations hiring lobbyists into two categories: those who are taxpayer-funded and those who are privately-funded. 

Texas politicians and PACs are required to file reports with the Texas Ethics Commission listing all their campaign contributions and expenditures. The most recent reports — which include all transactions for the last half of 2018 — were just released. Two major things to pay attention to in these reports: 1) final numbers on both donations and spending for the 2018 Election Cycle, and 2) perhaps even more interesting, a list of all donations made to Texas politicians after the election.