• Only legislators can take a bill prohibiting taxpayer-funded lobbying and turn it into a free-for-all giving tax-funded lobbyists carte blanche to avoid public disclosure. That is exactly what State Rep. Chris Paddie (R–Marshall) and his State Affairs Committee managed to do with Senate Bill 10.

• Only worse.

• SB 10, of course, was the pre-watered-down version of a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying. As passed by the senate, it would only apply to cities and counties; meaning, the original version of SB 10 allowed school districts and other taxing jurisdictions to continue using your money to hire lobbyists to work against your interests.

• But even in that limited state, Mr. Paddie and the State Affairs Committee have made it worse. In fact, they made it so bad that the Texas Public Policy Foundation – which rarely offers criticism of the House Republican leadership – felt they had to issue a statement against a measure they previously supported.

• As Jeramy Kitchen reports, SB 10 as amended by Paddie and his committee would do two things. First, it purports to expand the bill to all taxing jurisdictions. Sounds good, right? But the more important thing it does is allow all those taxing jurisdictions to hire lobbyists, and gives lawyers working as lobbyists special permission to no longer disclose their lobbying paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission.

When people like Dade Phelan tell you that they appoint Democrats to chair key committees in the overwhelmingly Republican House of Representatives because "that tradition has served us well over the years" the US he is talking about is not you and I @Sanguine he's talking about the lobby which they really serve.