On July 21, 2025, State Senator Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) introduced Senate Bill 12, a measure to outlaw taxpayer-funded lobbying. If signed into law, SB 12 would mark a major victory for Texas taxpayers, targeting the unjust practice of governments using public funds to advocate against the very people who fill their coffers.
Simply stated, taxpayer-funded lobbying occurs when local governments use your money to lobby against you and your interests. Governments hire lobbyists to push for higher taxes, bloated bureaucracies, and policies that undermine Taxpayers and families. The Texas Public Policy Foundation reported a staggering $98.6 million spent by local entities in 2023 to lobby state lawmakers, just on contract lobbying.
In addition to direct contract lobbying, the Texas Municipal League (TML), Texas Association of School Boards (TASB), and Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA) are some of the more prominent lobbying groups funded by your taxes.
Earlier this year, TML lobbied against a bill that allows citizens to petition themselves out of a city after the municipality fails to provide services, such as water and sewer, to those they forcibly annexed and collect property taxes from.
TASA lobbied against a bill ending the “golden parachute” for government employees. They wanted to maintain the status quo, which allowed government employees to collect hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars after their employment was terminated.
TASB lobbied against the Texas School Choice bill (SB 2), the State’s first school choice program. TASB and similar organizations are dependent upon that money flowing from your pocket, to the government coffers, and into their pockets.
The Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying Ban stalled out during the regular session earlier this year. Sen. Middleton authored the same bill, then numbered SB 19, which passed the Senate in March, but fell flat in the House State Affairs Committee. Representative Ken King, who chairs the House State Affairs Committee, never gave SB 19 a hearing. The exact same thing happened during the 2023 legislative session when Representative Todd Hunter chaired the State Affairs committee.
These lobbyists are a powerful force working against taxpayers. Fortunately, Governor Abbott added this to the call for the special session, and grassroots activists are eager to end this corrupt, anti-taxpayer practice once and for all.
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