Austin – Only five members of the Texas House of Representatives voted for the public interest 100% of the time this past legislative session, according to the biennial Legislative Scorecard on major public interest issues released today by Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG). The scorecard is based on representatives’ votes on contested consumer and good government bills during the 2007 regular legislative session. The average score for the House of Representatives was 46% with six members failing to cast a single vote in favor of the public interest.
“We acknowledge and appreciate those representatives who have demonstrated their commitment to defending the public interest with their votes in this and past legislative sessions,” said TexPIRG advocate Matthew Tejada. “Despite the efforts of many legislators, Texans only achieved modest improvements on issues of consumer rights and democratic governance.”
The scorecard lists votes on nine key issues, including toll-roads and transportation development, smoking bans, homeowners’ rights and electricity price reform. Unfortunately, due to the lobbies of powerful interests, gains in several other areas were not achieved. Some of the money intended to help offset high electricity prices will be directed for that purpose over the next two years, but legislators failed to ensure that all of such funds now and in the future will be used for that explicit purpose. Lawmakers also managed some improvement in democratic transparency by requiring that all final votes on bills be recorded name by name, though the more important earlier votes on bills can still go unrecorded.
One clear victory for consumers was the passage of a bill that gives local roads authorities first crack at winning contracts to build new toll roads. Public entities have an inherent advantage over private companies for financing and operating new toll roads. Plus, with a public entity, any excess revenue from such toll roads will go back into local transportation projects instead of into the pockets of private investors. This will be an increasingly important measure as Texas ramps up construction of new toll roads around the state, including those that are a part of Gov. Perry’s increasingly unpopular Trans Texas Corridor.
The Representatives scoring 100% were Lon Burnam, David Leibowitz, Trey Martinez Fischer, Marc Veasey and Michael Villareal. Those scoring 0% were Charlie Howard, Carl Isett, Delwin Jones, Edmund Kuempel, Tommy Merritt and Paul Moreno. Moreno’s score is a result of being absent for all of the votes considered, including one unexcused absence.
As there were few contested public interest votes in the Senate this session, TexPIRG did not release a scorecard for Senators. The scorecard and description of votes is available for download online at: http://www.texpirg.org/advocacy/congressional-scorecard.
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TexPIRG is a statewide, non-partisan, nonprofit policy research and public interest advocacy.
