The Texas Observer

It’s been a busy week for Gov. Rick Perry, who, three days after his inauguration, slipped out of Texas unannounced Friday to attend to business in Washington, D.C., this weekend. Perry met with Texas’ Democrats in Congress and quietly announced that he was canceling lucrative lobby contracts the state had with Todd Boulanger and Drew Maloney, two lobbyists who were cronies of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. Ostensibly, Maloney and Boulanger were representing the state’s interests in Washington (and here we thought that’s what congressmen were for).

Boulanger once worked with Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist now doing time in a minimum security federal prison in Maryland, where’s he’s better known as inmate No. 27593-112. Maloney was a top DeLay aide who was heavily involved in the TRMPAC scandal that got DeLay a felony indictment in Travis County. In 2002, Maloney exchanged many emails with DeLay’s fund-raiser, Warren RoBold, like this one.

Now, with the Democrats controlling Congress, even Texas Republicans had to admit there was little reason to spend $360,000 a year in taxpayer money on lobbyists hired for their access to Republican leadership, if that’s what you call Abramoff’s pay-for-play gambit. Not surprisingly, the PR on this announcement was left to the Texas Dems who have fought against the contracts. “For four years, House Republicans voted to protect these corrupt lobbyists. I am happy to see that our efforts have finally paid off,” Texas House Democratic Leader Jim Dunnam said in a statement.

The cancellation didn’t get a lot of attention since it was announced Friday afternoon — timing normally designed to bury unflattering public notices. As of Monday morning, a Google news search turned up only two stories about the canceled contracts.

The lingering question: Was Perry simply funneling taxpayer money to DeLay cronies or did the people of Texas actually get something for the more than $900,000 paid to Maloney and Boulanger since 2003? Tom Alexander, a spokesman for Boulanger’s firm, Cassidy & Associates, told the Dallas Morning News, “We are confident we provided an unmatched level of service that delivered positive results for the people of Texas.”

Oh really. And what, exactly, were those results?

We called Mr. Alexander to ask that exact question, and left a message for him. We also left a message for Maloney. When we hear back, we’ll tell you what they say.

Well, the House has new rules and they look surprisingly like the old rules. The only concession the leadership seems to have made to demands for a cleaner process is that now all votes on third reading, which is final passage, will be public. West Texas Democrat Rep. Pete Gallego also managed to add a rule that makes the text of all amendments public as they are being debated on the floor. This service is already provided to lobbyists who can afford to pay for it. Inconsequential as it may sound, Burt Solomons, who carried the rules bill, put up a terrific fight against it.

Meanwhile, wireless Internet in the House, preventing those under indictment from being in the chamber or the back hall, forcing public disclosure of business dealings with lobbyists or fellow members, and mandating that bills with 100 co-signers or more automatically go straight to the floor—among other good-government provisions—all failed to pass.