TxDOT and the ‘lobby’

January 25, 2008

By Ben Wear, Austin American-Statesman

Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton, at least according to anti-toll activist Terri Hall of Comal County, basically got up in front of hundreds of people in Hempstead on Tuesday and admitted that TxDOT is breaking the law.

What Houghton said at a town hall meeting on the Trans-Texas Corridor proposed tollway TTC-69, according to clips on YouTube, concerned lobbyists in Washington. Here’s what he said:

“We hire lobbyists up there to represent the interests of the State of Texas,” Houghton said, going on to talk about how the state has been successful in what eventually ended up in the last big transportation reauthorization bill, passed by Congress in 2005. The state’s allocations of federal transportation dollars increased somewhat in that law, and there were regulatory changes that TxDOT had sought to streamline the approval process for roads. “That’s why we employ the lobbyists in D.C.”

Now, was the “we” in those sentences TxDOT, or the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations in D.C.? The state office, according to its Web site, has someone named Cady North on its staff who is assigned to the Texas Department of Transportation. A state employee would not fall under the prohibition below, found in the Texas Government Code:

Sec. 556.005. EMPLOYMENT OF LOBBYIST (a) A state agency may not use appropriated money to employ, as a regular full-time or part-time or contract employee, a person who is required by Chapter 305 to register as a lobbyist. Except for an institution of higher education as defined by Section 61.003, Education Code, a state agency may not use any money under its control to employ or contract with an individual who is required by Chapter 305 to register as a lobbyist.

Houghton certainly seemed to be talking about TxDOT. And Hall, who has formed groups to oppose Bexar County toll roads and sue TxDOT over its spending on public relations, cited records of private lobbyists hired by TxDOT.

I asked TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott about Hall’s allegations. He sent this back by e-mail Thursday:

“The January 23, 2008 press release from TURF attempts to interpret documents received through the discovery process for their ongoing litigation against TxDOT,” Lippincott said in the e-mail. “As we have said, it is our responsibility to engage Texans in a meaningful dialogue about transportation. It is not possible to meet our state’s transportation goals without public awareness and public involvement. In light of the ongoing litigation, it is not appropriate to comment to the media on every document the plaintiffs receive through the normal course of discovery.”

I replied that, actually, I was asking not about any documents turned up in discovery for Hall’s lawsuit, but rather Houghton’s statements and the seeming prohibition in the government code against TxDOT hiring lobbyists. Lippincott said Thursday he would get back to me on that. I’ll let you know when he does.