Photo: FRANCOIS PICARD / AFP / Getty Images
As the Harris County budget battle continues, it’s been revealed that since 2023, as much as $5.5 million has been set aside by various agencies and departments within Harris County to pay for lobbying efforts.
According to data from Transparency USA and OpenSecrets, agencies like the Harris County Metropolitan Transit Authority, the County Attorney’s Office, and even the Commissioners Court itself have paid as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars for lobbying efforts.
One of the worst parts of all this is that there’s virtually zero accountability for this money. Harris County GOP Chair Cindy Siegel spoke with KTRH about this and said, "We know Harris County, in recent years, has not been transparent when it spends taxpayer dollars."
She also made the point that government officials should use their own time and money to advocate for legislation that’s important to them, just as many citizen activists do. She asked, "Why do we allow our elected officials to spend taxpayer dollars this way—to lobby other elected officials?"
Siegel pointed out that this has been a significant issue for voters throughout Texas for several years now, and abolishing taxpayer-funded lobbying is currently a plank in the Texas GOP platform. Unfortunately, a bill that would have accomplished that died in the Dade Phelan-controlled Texas House this session.
Siegel said that because the legislature failed to act, it’s up to voters to vote out elected officials who support spending taxpayer funds this way, namely County Judge Lina Hidalgo and the Democratic county commissioners up for reelection in 2026.