Meet Steve Bresnen. He is a lobbyist for trial lawyers and gambling interests. Now, as a supporter of H2O4Texas PAC, he’s pitching in with the business lobby to help pass the water fund amendment this November.
Bresnen seems to be making a habit of being on the wrong side of average Texans. Bresnen spoke in favor of SB 346 during the regular session. It was a measure designed to expose general interest conservative non-profits to harassment by forcing them to reveal documents to the public that are currently confidential. The bill gave a pass to unions. Liberals in Washington DC have lusted after this kind of bill for years but haven’t been able to get it. With the help of our liberal Republican House leadership it passed but Governor Perry prudently vetoed it.
Bresnen seems to be a ruling class utility man, making him no friend of average Texans. The water amendment he is promoting is not Texas-friendly either.
As we have discussed previously, the water amendment will cook our state’s books by arbitrarily keeping $2 billion of water money from counting against the spending cap. What is the point of spending caps if our elected officials simply cook the books when they hit the limit?
The water amendment will also create a veritable slush fund for connected people to sell land and services for outsized sums, and with very little oversight. The amendments offered on the bill that were designed to make the water fund more transparent and accountable were opposed by all but the conviction conservatives who authored and supported them. They were defeated by the moderates and liberals.
Water and SB 346 are two places where we see sometimes-enemies — the trial lawyers and the business lobby — teaming up with each other against average Texans. The two groups will always have their fight about the ease or difficulty of suing in Texas, but that hasn’t stopped them from joining forces when an unrelated ruling class opportunity presents itself. Like the bill designed to chill accountability, this water amendment is designed to benefit the ruling class at the expense of average citizens.
This cooperation between trial lawyers, the business lobby, and gambling interests has been especially evident since Joe Straus took over as Speaker of the House in 2009. His family business is gambling, and the gambling oligopoly badly wants slot machines. However, he was voted Speaker by the Democrats — practically a wholly-owned subsidiary of the trial lawyer lobby. And, he has an “R” next to his name, which puts him in bed with the business lobby too.
Straus would rather focus on things like these and others where lobby factions are aligned, like water and the anti-accountability SB 346. He’d rather not focus on things they fight on, issues the ruling factions would like him to take their side on. One such example is TWIA reform, which did not happen this session.
Clients of notorious ruling class consultant Bryan Eppstein’s have pushed for both the water fund and the anti-accountability SB 346.