Donations are a necessary evil when running for elected office. While some elected officials can’t refuse special interest money, they can choose how they respond to contributions. Special interest money becomes a conflict of interest when elected officials vote in favor of their donors instead of their constituents.
In the case of House District State Representative Eddie Lucio III (D-Brownsville), the real estate industry is leading the charge. According to the most recent personal financial statement filed with the Texas Ethics Commission, Eddie Lucio III reported receiving income from multiple real estate and construction management firms, including Noble Texas Builders, LLC, a Texas-based construction management and development company; and Popp Hutcheson, PLLC, an Austin-based law firm which claims to devote “100% of its practice to property tax liability” to help corporations and commercial real estate companies reduce their property tax burdens.
According to the Popp Hutcheson website, the firm currently “represents more than $45 billion in commercial property value across the state of Texas.” In addition, the Austin-based law firm offers lobbying and legislative consulting services for corporate clients who are looking to reduce the amount of money they have to pay in property taxes each year.
As stated on the firm’s website, the Popp Hutcheson’s legislative affairs team takes a “collaborative approach to the legislative process” by joining forces with Hill Co Partners’ lobbying team and organizations like “The Association of Realtors, the Texas Taxpayers & Research Association, and the Texas Hotel & Lodging Association” to help fight corporate clients’ property tax liabilities.
According to the National Institute on Money in Politics, a non-partisan organization which tracks campaign contributions to federal, state and local candidates across the country, State Rep. Lucio has collected campaign contributions totaling almost $3 million. Some of his largest contributions come from the real estate and construction industries with combined contributions of over $342,000.
Additionally, over the course of his tenure as a State Representative, Eddie Lucio III has accrued over $117,000 in campaign contributions from special interest groups tied the same organizations and corporations that help pay his personal income, including – Popp Hutcheson PLLC, Hill Co PAC, Texas Realtors PAC, The Association of Realtors, and the Associated General Contractors of Texas PAC.
His largest non-individual industry donor has been the tort reform lobby, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR). Over the years, TLR has donated $182,000 to Eddie Lucio III’s campaigns. Lucio voted for legislation that TLR supported year after year. During the 2019 legislative session, Lucio III co-authored a bill, HB 2439, which would limit cities’ ability to regulate construction of housing and commercial buildings. According to the witness list of the Senate Committee hearing on HB 2439, Texans for Lawsuit Reform and the President of the Associated Builders & Contractors of Texas, as well as the President of Texas Association of Builders were all listed as a registered lobbyists “in support” of the bill’s passage.
Lucio III sided with the special interest groups and corporations that benefit his professional occupation and personal income again in 2019, when he voted in favor of a bill which prohibits municipalities from considering the value of a dwelling or the cost of constructing or improving a dwelling in determining its permit fees.
According to the bill analysis report, HB 852 was heavily lobbied and backed by the Texas Realtors Association, Texas Builders Association, and Associated Builders and Contractors of Texas, because if passed, the bill would “keep cities from using construction fees as a backdoor tax for funding other services.” However, opponents of the bill “feared” passage would “present an infringement on local control and place a burden on less affluent homeowners” because it would limit municipality’s ability to determine building permits and inspection fees.
Lucio III also co-authored TLR’s top legislative priority through the House in 2019. HB 2826 gives the attorney general outright authority to determine who will represent a local governmental entity in construction defect lawsuits involving general contractors, architects, and engineers rather than its own governmental body. The legislation became effective on September 1, 2019.
Millions of Texans have been laid off and are struggling to make ends meet while Eddie Lucio III has repeatedly demonstrated his allegiance to the special interest groups who finance his campaigns. Texans are left in the dark about how much legislators and their private sector employers ultimately benefit from legislation that they help to push.
