In the final days before the election, Sen. Glenn Hegar, the Republican nominee for comptroller, banked $120,000 in campaign contributions–namely from political action committees and high-dollar individual donors.
Mike Collier on the left, Glenn Hegar opposite
That figure is the same amount as his Democratic opponent Mike Collier garnered in contributions between Sept. 26 and Oct. 25, highlighting Republican candidates’ fundraising advantage in the state.
Mike Collier received $17,500 in the last week, according to finance reports.
The Zachry Corporation PAC, Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association and the Holts, the family that owns the largest Caterpillar dealership in the U.S. and the San Antonio Spurs, all cut $10,000 checks for Hegar’s campaign, according to new campaign finance reports.
Candidates for state comptroller, Sen. Glenn Hegar and Mike Collier, are heading into the final week of the election on uneven footing.
Mike Collier pictured on left, Glenn Hegar opposite
Hegar, the Republican, has $2.1 million cash on hand, while Collier, the Democrat, has $10,000 left in his coffers, according to new campaign finance filings.
Those reports show Hegar, a rice farmer from Katy, banked more than $900,000 in contributions between Sept. 26 and Oct. 25. Collier, a Houston-area accountant, raised more than $120,000 in the same period.
But Collier has pumped more money into the race in the last month. The Democrat has spent nearly $240,000, mostly on advertising. Hegar has spent $92,000 in the last four weeks.
The two are set to debate tomorrow night in Austin. Theirs is the only down ballot debate scheduled for the general election. Details found here.
Mike Collier, the Democrat running for comptroller, lambasted his Republican opponent Sen. Glenn Hegar Thursday for voting against an early attempt to put tighter audit measures on the Texas Enterprise Fund.
The State Auditor’s Office released a report last month on the TEF, a fund started in 2003 to entice businesses to move or expand in Texas, which found that Gov. Rick Perry’s office had doled out more than $220 in taxpayer dollars to companies that never submitted applications or specific promises to create jobs.
In the fund’s early years there were several attempts in the Legislature to place greater scrutiny on how the money could be used. In 2005, Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, proposed an amendment to a bill related to the enterprise fund that would have, among other things, required that companies meet specified performance targets (i.e. create X many jobs) before receiving the total TEF grant.
Hegar, then a representative in the Legislature, voted with other Republican and Democratic members to table that measure—effectively killing the amendment.
“Hegar kept climbing the political insiders’ ladder by voting down Enterprise Fund reforms, and he still refuses to be transparent about how he will fix these broken systems,” Collier said.
Hegar’s campaign did not provide comment.
The two candidates are scheduled to debate in Austin Oct. 29, details here.
AUSTIN—Mike Collier, Democratic nominee in the comptroller race, is again accusing his Republican opponent, Sen. Glenn Hegar, of being beholden to special interests because of a bill that was bottled up in the Senate committee Hegar headed.
Mike Collier
Hegar’s campaign says the accusation is absurd.
The bill aimed to crack down on undervalued commercial properties and the appraisal appeal process, and was opposed by groups that have contributed nearly $200,000 to Hegar’s political campaigns.
“Texans need an independent watchdog as Comptroller, not another career politician who is a lobbyist’s lapdog,” Collier said.
Hegar’s campaign brushed the attack off as election-season mudslinging.
“This is more of the same from our opponent’s failing, negative campaign as he continues to implode,” said David White, campaign manager for Glenn Hegar.
Glenn Hegar
The most recent campaign buzz stems from a 2013 proposed bill to address the appraisal appeals system.
Commercial property owners frequently protest their building’s assessed value and sue appraisal districts in an attempt to lower that figure—it’s an option few residential homeowners take because lawyer fees can be costly.
Dick Lavine, a fiscal analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said appraisal districts are often quick to settle because they feel that commercial property owners are not required to provide substantial evidence of inequity. Also, the appraisal district picks up the legal fees if the court rules that the property value is lower than the original assessment.
“Appraisal districts felt like plaintiffs [commercial property owners] were cherry picking what properties were comparable.
There might be 60 similar buildings and they would pick 5 of the lowest valued buildings and say ‘There you are,’” Lavine said.
The bill, authored by Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, would have tightened the definition of “comparable” for commercial properties valued at over $1 million, using language similar to that which appraisal districts use to assess homes. It would have increased the number of comparables that appealing property owners must provide as evidence for inequity in hearings.
The nitty gritty on the bill
Davis filed the bill Mar. 7. It was referred to the senate finance committee Mar. 13 and was then referred to the finance subcommittee on fiscal matters on Mar. 18. As chairman of that panel, Hegar had the authority to schedule hearings for proposed bills. Hegar scheduled the bill for an Apr. 18 hearing.
The subcommittee met eight times between Mar. 18 and Apr. 18.
According to hearing witness lists, 13 groups registered in support of the bill, including the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts, the Texas Association of School Boards, Texas Conference of Urban Counties and a number of individual appraisal districts.
Representatives from nine groups registered against the bill, though only an attorney for the Texas Association of Realtors testified. Groups opposed to the bill included the Texas Association of Realtors, the Texas Apartment Association, the Texas Association of Manufacturers, the Texas Chemical Council and the Texas Oil & Gas Association
The subcommittee on fiscal matters did not vote on the bill.
The comptroller’s race
In a new press release, Collier slams Hegar for the death of the bill, calling it a result of money from special interests. It’s the second time it has come up in the campaign. The bill would have made the appraisal process more fair to residential property owners but it didn’t make it through committee because Hegar sided with lobbyists, he said.
“The situation has gotten out of hand and Hegar’s record shows he has no interest in fixing our broken property tax system,” he said.
Since 2006, Hegar has received $197,500 in campaign contributions from the groups that opposed the appraisal bill, campaign reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission show.
Hegar’s campaign said Collier was playing politics and called it a “ridiculous attack.”
AUSTIN—Mike Collier said Tuesday that he’s the candidate to reform and “end corruption” at the state’s comptroller office by enforcing checks and balances in the agency.
He used incentive programs such as the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Major Events Trust Fund to highlight his plans, which include the return of an independent audit division in the office and stripping the agency of its management of certain incentive programs.
Republican candidate Glenn Hegar has said he also supports returning the audit review to the comptroller’s office.
Recent independent reports revealed both funds had been abused by top executive offices in the state.
“When you have these sorts of things happen in the corporate world, people get fired…and you reform and re-engineer,” Collier, an accountant, said.
“We’re going to go in there and reform it, shake it up and design systems and processes…to make sure that when money leaves the state it’s legal and properly authorized,” he said.
Last month, the first independent audit of the Texas Enterprise Fund found that the governor’s office awarded $222 million for job creation to companies that never submitted applications or promises to create jobs. The state auditor report—commissioned by the Legislature—came more than a decade after the fund’s creation.
“Who is our financial watchdog in Texas if we’re just now finding out about this?” he said.
The Texas Performance Review team needs to return to the comptroller’s office in order to investigate such funds in a manner that is not at the whim of the Legislature, Collier said, adding that the Legislature is too persuaded by politics.
Texas Performance Review, which Collier said would be renamed to the Texas Accountability Team, began in 1991 under the John Sharp administration in order to audit agencies and eliminate waste in government. In 2003, the Legislature moved the responsibility to the Legislative Budget Board.
Throughout his campaign and again Tuesday, Collier called for the division to be reinstated in the comptroller’s office.
“There really needs to be an independent, roving team that can go in and inspect these things and not wait to be directed by the Texas Legislature,” he said at a press conference in Austin.
Sen. Glenn Hegar, the Republican nominee in the race, voted in favor of moving the Texas Performance Review to the LBB, but has said he supports moving it back to the comptroller’s office.
Collier also suggested moving the Major Events Trust Fund outside of the office to avoid conflicts of interest. The comptroller should revamp its accounts payable system to ensure that “T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted” on applications and the office of the attorney general should periodically audit the comptroller’s office, he said.
Early voting runs from Oct. 20 to Oct. 31. The election is Nov. 4.
Democratic comptroller candidate Mike Collier lets us in on a little secret in a TV ad released today: He doesn’t know his way around a farm.
The ad, which will air in Houston and Dallas media markets beginning Oct. 17, shows Collier’s feeble attempts at riding a tractor and spraying a hose.
He wants to make the point to viewers that he’s an accountant running for the job of chief financial officer, not a farmer like his Republican opponent Sen. Glenn Hegar.
“People have asked if I would make a good farmer. Well, I’m not a farmer, my opponent is,” he says in the ad.
“I’m a CPA with 25 years experience forecasting revenues and two decades of rigorous financial analysis. So if you need a farmer, hire Glenn Hegar. But when you’re electing comptroller, hire the accountant.”
Last month, Hegar, a rice farmer from Katy, released a web ad that features him performing (more successfully) many of the same tasks that Collier mocks in his recent ad.
“I grew up in the farming business and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that work never stops, so you might as well embrace it,” Hegar says in the ad.
Hegar has not aired any TV ads since the GOP primary where he faced three Republican opponents. The Democrat, running as the underdog in a Republican-dominated state, has spent more than $350,000 on video advertising in the last three months, according to new finance reports. That doesn’t include the cost of airing the most recent ad in Dallas and Houston, his campaign said.
Early voting begins Oct. 20 and runs through Oct. 31. The election is Nov. 4.
Transcript: I’m Mike Collier, people have asked if I would make a good farmer. Well, I’m not a farmer; my opponent is. I’m a CPA with 25 years experience forecasting revenues and two decades of rigorous financial analysis. So if you need a farmer, hire Glenn Hegar. But when you’re electing comptroller, hire the accountant.
Guys, come here. [Motions to cows] Let’s talk about the numbers, the numbers. Hey guys! Nobody wants to talk about the numbers.
AUSTIN—Candidates in the race for state comptroller have agreed to one televised debate, though watching the debate requires a Time Warner Cable subscription for North Texas viewers.
Mike Collier, a Democrat from Houston, and Sen. Glenn Hegar, a Katy Republican, will face off 7 p.m., Oct. 29 in Austin. The 30-minute debate is sponsored by Time Warner Cable News. It will be broadcast to the Austin, San Antonio and Hill Country media markets.
The debate will be viewable statewide through the TWC’s On Demand service, as well as online here: http://sanantonio.twcnews.com/content/politics/.
As chief financial officer, the comptroller’s office collects all taxes owed to the state and estimates the state’s tax revenue for the biennium, among other duties. Lawmakers use the revenue estimate to set the two-year budget.
“Senator Hegar looks forward to discussing the important issues facing our state,” said David White, a spokesman for the campaign.
“Texans deserve to hear from the person who will be accountable for their tax dollars. I’m honored to receive this opportunity to show Texans how I will be their financial watchdog in the Comptroller’s office, not just another career politician,” Collier said.
The debate comes late in the campaign season. Early voting begins Oct. 20 and runs through Oct. 31. The general election is Nov. 4.
AUSTIN—Democratic candidate Mike Collier is entering the final four weeks in his bid for comptroller against Republican state Sen. Glenn Hegar at a cash disadvantage, despite having outraised his rival in campaign contributions since July 1.
Mike Collier, Democratic candidate in comptroller race
Collier, a Houston accountant and businessman, raised nearly $444,000–propelled largely by a $300,000 donation from CarMax co-founder Austin Ligon. Hegar raked in nearly $390,000 in contributions for the same 3-month period.
But the Democrat, who’s the underdog in a GOP-dominated state, also outspent the Katy Republican nearly three-fold in the most recent quarter. That leaves Collier with about $80,000 cash on hand, a sliver of Hegar’s $1.3 million.
The general election race for the state’s chief financial officer has been one of the noisiest down ballot races—at least from one side.
Collier has campaigned heavily, touting his accounting expertise and errors made by the current comptroller’s office, including inaccurate revenue estimates and mishandled tax dollars.
“This race is becoming a referendum on corruption and incompetence. Collier is the right choice and donors of both parties know that,” said Zach Brigham, campaign manager for the race.
He’s ran web and TV ads—which have aired in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Midland markets since July—highlighting comments regarding school cuts and property taxes that Hegar made at Tea Party meetings.
Following an investigation that found the comptroller had mishandled funds for bringing the F1 races to Texas, Collier made the state’s Major Events Trust Fund a major campaign issue. He said that, if elected, he would keep tax money from going to Austin’s Circuit of the Americas track until the arrangement for the funding proves legal and also proposed moving the funds out of the comptroller’s office.
Hegar has been relatively quiet on the issue, saying that he would follow the rules regarding the fund. He also said he had voted for a senate bill to reform the fund.
His campaign has centered on the conservative ideals of small government and deregulation. Hegar has not run TV ads since the primary race when he faced Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, Debra Medina and former representative Raul Torres. His campaign said he’s kept busy touring and speaking at various events.
Sen. Glenn Hegar
“Senator Hegar is working tirelessly and traveling across our state to communicate his message of job creation and innovation to the people of Texas,” said David White, senior advisor to the campaign.
According to the most recent reports, Collier received a $300,000 contribution from Austin Ligon, co-founder of CarMax and prolific donor. Nearly half of his money spent in this quarter has gone toward advertising.
Hegar’s top donors were Tilman Fertitta, executive at Landry’s restaurants, and Hillco PAC, a lobbying firm, which each gave $25,000. The biggest chunk of his campaign expenditures went to staffing and consulting fees. Hegar started his comptroller bid with nearly $2 million cash on hand from his senate coffers, according to state campaign reports.
The two are scheduled to debate Oct. 29 on the Time Warner Cable News, which will air in some Texas markets—not including Dallas—and stream online for TWC subscribers.
The election is Nov. 4 and early voting begins Oct. 20.
Republican comptroller candidate Glenn Hegar spoke to the state GOP convention in Fort Worth in June. (Tom Fox/Staff photographer)
Democratic comptroller nominee Mike Collier says his Republican opponent Glenn Hegar bragged to a Houston-area tea party interviewer last year that he was proud of the Legislature’s 2011 budget cuts to public schools. On Friday, Collier released a web video to prove it.
“It’s embarrassing and unacceptable that Glenn Hegar takes pride in cutting education despite our extraordinary prosperity,” Collier said in a statement.
“Hegar does not share our values, and he poses a profound threat to something Texans have held dear since our founding, … a great educational system,” said Collier, a Houston businessman.
Hegar spokesman David White called Collier’s 40-second video “a distortion.”
Though Hegar, a state senator from Katy, joined other Republican lawmakers in approving $5.4 billion in cuts to schools in the budget-cutting session of 2011, “Senator Hegar believes in adequately funding our education system,” White said.
Collier’s “entire campaign amounts to a distortion of truth and negative campaign commercials,” said White, Hegar’s senior adviser.
The Montgomery County Tea Party posted video of its interview with Hegar on its website late last year. At the time, Hegar was running against three other Republicans for the party’s nomination to succeed Susan Combs, a Republican who is giving up the post after two four-year terms.
Democratic comptroller candidate appeared at a League of United Latin American Citizens event in Dallas on Saturday. (Andy Jacobsohn/Staff photographer)
For his ad, Collier harvests some of Hegar’s quotes, and — the Hegar camp says — pulls them out of context. He does it to buttress his ongoing effort to tie Hegar to Combs, who supported Hegar in the GOP primary.
Collier, other Democrats and many educators have criticized Combs for botching a two-year revenue estimate at the start of the 2011 session. Her move caused “unnecessary cuts,” Collier said Friday.
In the tea party group’s video, which you can watch at the bottom of this post, Hegar at 38 minutes, 23 seconds into the tape delivers what Collier considers the offending quote: “Some people were saying, oh, we’ve put more money in education. No, we didn’t. … I was proud that we did not.”
Some three minutes earlier, Hegar was asked whether as comptroller he would be to recover money that an interviewer says was wasted on CSCOPE, a controversial curriculum. He launches into a discussion of using online technology to improve instruction, especially in rural schools. He says the state can “do education smarter and cheaper.” Hegar then recounts what apparently are constituent comments about last year’s restoration of nearly $4 billion of the earlier cuts.
That’s when he says he was proud not to have “put more money in education. … There’s no way you could spend that.”
Hegar says some school superintendents thanked him for the 2011 cuts, saying the reductions provided cover for them to make necessary – but presumably unpopular – trims of inefficient local spending.
“I was happy to be the scapegoat,” Hegar tells the interviewer.
Collier casts the cuts, though, as a Combs-instigated disaster for schools. As part of an ActBlue fundraising appeal, he noted there were widespread layoffs before classes resumed in the fall of 2011.
“In the end, over 11,000 teachers lost their jobs,” Collier wrote potential donors. “Here’s the part you don’t know: Glenn Hegar was proud that he voted for those cuts.”
Below, you can see Collier’s video and read a transcript of it; and see the raw, uncut tea party video.
The election is in November.
Transcript of “Proud,” Democrat Mike Collier’s web video:
[Opens with menacing music. Visuals of classroom and blackboard, then a still photo of Hegar on the floor of the Texas Senate, appearing to dance with glee.]
Narrator: Glenn Hegar voted to cut more than $5 billion dollars from Texas schools — money for teachers, computers, even books. All cut — and Hegar’s proud of it.
[Cuts to Hegar behind a desk, with the lens painted so viewer has a sort of peephole.]
Hegar: Some people were saying, oh, we’ve put more money in education. No, we didn’t. There’s no way you could spend that. No, we didn’t. But I was not ashamed to say we didn’t. I was proud that we did not.
Canned audio: [Crowd moans in horror.]
Narrator: Glenn Hegar’s proud to cut our public schools?
[Upbeat music.]
Narrator: Not Mike Collier. Mike supports our schools. And as comptroller, he’ll help assure the money’s always there — without raising taxes. Mike Collier, the watchdog. He’ll protect Texas schools.
Raw, unedited video of Hegar’s tea party interview. CSCOPE question is at 35:40:
Democratic comptroller nominee Mike Collier (Courtesy photo)
Democratic comptroller candidate Mike Collier has aired his campaign’s first TV ad.
Collier’s spot, which is running in Houston, attempts to capitalize on more than a week of news coverage of Republican opponent Glenn Hegar’s comments suggesting he’d like to rapidly abolish property taxes and replace them with higher sales taxes.
At issue is 26 seconds of video that Collier’s tried to make famous — Hegar’s property-tax remarks to a Longview tea party group in January.
Backed up by reputable studies, Collier has argued that sales tax rates would have to more than double to keep local schools and governments functioning in the world without property taxes that Hegar envisions.
We first reported on the Democrat’s broadsides here on Trail Blazers and in a Quick Take column.
Nearly two weeks ago, Hegar campaign manager David White said that however much Hegar’s Longview remarks might sound like a clarion call for fast repeal of property taxes, Hegar “has been clear that we are many years away from being able to implement such” a shift to sales tax. Last week, Hegar acknowledged he might phase out the property tax instead of dismantling it all at once.
“I have not backtracked in any way from any statement,” he told the Texas Tribune.
Collier, who calls himself “The Watchdog,” has gone up on TV early for several reasons. Hegar, as the heavily favored Republican nominee, might be tempted to coast. But Collier must fight to become known, stimulate interest and sow doubts about both Hegar and the entire GOP leadership in Austin. Collier, 53, an accountant who worked for Exxon and another energy company, would like to interrupt your springtime reveries and force you to remember it’s an election year.
He’d also like to remind you of his narrative, which is that three years ago, state GOP leaders unnecessarily cut more than $5 billion from public schools as a result of a botched revenue estimate by retiring Comptroller Susan Combs. Collier, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner in Houston, claims he can do better. As a no-nonsense Democrat, he can “shake up Austin [and] fix the way our state does business,” he says in the ad.
Being a Democrat, he pays requisite homage to public schools. But he also vows to “hold the line on taxes” — both a gig at Hegar’s tax-swap idea and an attempt to reassure people he’s not a crazy big spender.
On Tuesday, Collier sought to promote his ad in both a tweet and a fundraising email blast.
“Glenn Hegar’s plan to raise sales taxes 142% is no April Fool’s joke & neither is my new TV ad,” said Collier’s tweet. It linked to the ad, which Collier spokesman Jason Stanford said is running on broadcast and cable TV in Houston and also on the internet.
In the email, Collier belittled the experience of Hegar, 43, a rice farmer and licensed attorney. Since 2002, Hegar has represented the Katy area near Houston in both the House and Senate in Austin.
“Who do you want collecting taxes and making economic forecasts for Texas?” Collier’s email said. “A politician who’s been in the Legislature for 12 years or a certified public accountant who was the chief financial officer of an oil & gas company?”
Collier’s TV spot includes a picture of Hegar on the Senate floor. He appears to dance a jig, which may be the visual Collier wants to drive another message: On taxes, Glenn’s a little over-exuberant.
