TAB wants the Lege to quit it with bathroom bills

The talk is good. We’ll see about the action.

Texas lawmakers spent too much time this year debating bathrooms and immigration, and took their eyes off some matters vital to economic growth, such as phasing out the business-franchise tax and easing road congestion, the head of the state’s top business lobbying group said Tuesday.

Texas Association of Business chief executive Jeff Moseley, releasing a scorecard that rates each lawmaker based on selected votes, said his group was pleased to help block a bill that would require transgender Texans to use restrooms that match their gender at birth. It was sorry lawmakers went too far in adding a “show me your papers” provision to a new law banning sanctuary city policies that prohibit police and sheriff’s deputies from asking people about their immigration status.

But Moseley said the business group would have preferred lawmakers pay more attention to things that could spur the Texas economy, such as repealing the franchise or “margins tax” and continuing the use of agreements under which private firms build toll roads. “We were very successful in making sure that a lot of bad ideas didn’t make it to the House floor,” he said. “A lot of those issues that we thought were unnecessary, that were a distraction, those didn’t make it forward to the floor.”

[…]

To prevent future legislation it views as discriminatory and bad for business, the association is upping its game, Moseley said. The group has state and federal political action committees, but they’ve been largely symbolic, handing out endorsements and sometimes $1,000 checks.

In September, the organization started actively fundraising to support business-minded candidates in the March primaries. In a matter of weeks, it raised $200,000, he said.

“The board feels like there’s more opportunity to be a voice for our members and to speak out on business issues in the primary election,” Moseley said.

The TAB scorecard for the 2017 sessions is here. Note that only the Senate was graded on the bathroom bill, because that bill never came to the floor in the House. One has to approach this sort of thing with a good deal of caution, as beyond the broad strokes like opposition to bathroom bills and “show me your papers” laws there are plenty of things that progressives will not care for in TAB’s priorities, and the devil is in the details of others. I could see fit to eliminating the margins tax, for example, as it is an ungodly and underperforming mess, but only if it is replaced by something worthwhile. In the meantime, I’m willing to join hands with them if they put some resources into defeating the likes of Konni Burton and Jonathan Stickland, both of whom scored poorly on their card. You gonna walk the walk, TAB? For related testifying-before-House-committee action, see the Chron and the Trib.

Related Posts:

This entry was posted in That's our Lege and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to TAB wants the Lege to quit it with bathroom bills

  1. mamacita says:

    Thank you for sharing this. Maybe it will help convince pro-business Republicans that siding with the Texas Taliban is not a going-forward proposition.

    Now I’m off to learn about that Business Margins Tax…

  2. Bill Daniels says:

    The whole subject is embarrassing, and the legislature should just let this issue go. TAB is right on this one. Perhaps the transsexual advocates and the Dan Patrick moral majority folks could just make a (pun intended) back room agreement for both sides to just drop it?

    The whole issue is like two dogs humping in a park. No one really wants to see that.

Comments are closed.