On Wednesday, Governor Greg Abbott announced that the First Called Special Session of the 89th Texas Legislature, which is set to begin on July 21, 2025, would focus on one-and-a-half dozen agenda items Among those 18 items, one in particular is especially noteworthy from a policy perspective—banning taxpayer-funded lobbying.

The charge itself calls for:

BAN TAXPAYER-FUNDED LOBBYING: Legislation prohibiting taxpayer-funded lobbying, including the use of tax dollars to hire lobbyists and payment of tax dollars to associations that lobby the Legislature.

For anyone unfamiliar with taxpayer-funded lobbying, it can be thought of simply as local governments spending tax dollars to lobby state government for more government. The effects of this practice have been nothing short of disastrous.

One consequence has been to stunt the conservative agenda, either through the defeat or watering down of high-profile legislation, and to permit the advancement of a progressive vision for cities, counties, school districts, and special districts. As a result, local government today is far bigger, costlier, and more intrusive than a state like Texas ought to have.

And as prior research demonstrates, this is a well-funded operation too. In fact, during the 2023 Regular Session, local governments spent as much as $98.6 million to lobby the Legislature for more spending, higher taxes, and greater regulatory authority. And this figure doesn’t include the monies spent on pro-government associations, like dues paid to the Texas Association of School Boards or the Texas Municipal League, nor the many in-house lobbyists employed by governments directly, otherwise known as intergovernmental relations teams. All of which is to say, the nearly $100 million in taxpayer-funded lobbying expenditures that we’ve been able to track is only a partial representation of the larger overall activity.

With so much money weaponized against the public interest and with such a pressing need to prevent the California-zation of Texas, it’s time for the Legislature to finally end this harmful practice.

Let’s hope state lawmakers feel the same.