Wonder what Lupe Valdez was referring to when she said that Greg Abbott signed legislation which allows insurance companies to wait longer to pay claims to homeowners?
The top donors in Texas are TREPAC (Texas Assoc. of Realtors) which gave over $9Mil during this most recent session to Texas officials (including $75K each to Abbott and Patrick) and the National Assoc. of Realtors which shelled out over $4Mil recently to elected officials in the Lone Star State. These are special interest who are interested in large commercial property owners having the sweetest deals possible. They are not hesitant to push the elected officials they finance to pass (or sign) legislation which grants tax exemptions, subsidies, or sweetheart deals to large commercial property owners (large corporations such as Walmart, etc. who finance their lobbying efforts}.
When you hear Dan Patrick talk about keeping property taxes low, don't be fooled into assuming that means he is committed to keeping the taxes on your house low. No, that is his message to the money interest which fuel his campaign coffers that he (and Abbott, and Rodney Anderson, and Linda Koop, and others who get substantial donations from TREPAC and NAR) are committed to opposing legislation which will have to be financed by having corporations -- especially large commercial property owners, pay their fair share.
This is tied to some of the reasons why nothing gets solved for Teachers or Texas’ public school students. Let’s follow the money.
The Texas Teachers’ Retirement Fund continues languishing without the state appropriating sufficient funds to shore it up. Money taken from public education several sessions ago has still not been restored despite the increase in population and costly unfunded mandates pushed down upon straining school systems. Why do legislators talk about supporting education yet do nothing to address these crucial problems? That would require seriously assessing the inequities in our state's property tax and tax abatement practices. So classrooms remain overcrowded while the governor and legislature do nothing about the high premiums or unreasonably high deductibles teachers pay for health insurance. Anything the state contributes to schools or teachers takes away from the funds available for legislators and the governor to give tax breaks and subsidizes to corporations. The Governor and most of the Legislature have their hands in the TREPAC and NAR “cookie jar”. TREPAC and NAR contributes to “friendly legislators” and governors who help protect the bottom line of TREPACs and NARs members. Their members' profit and bottom line is higher on their agenda than educating kids.
When Abbott or Patrick or legislators such as Rodney Anderson speak of property tax reform, they are playing a shell game with the voters. They are blowing smoke and sending cues to the donors that they will see that nothing happens which harms those big commercial interests. Every two years State Representatives, and every four years, the Governor, have to stand before the voters and say enough to give the impression that they are looking out for most of the people of Texas. They aren't, but they have smart consultants who help them paint an illusion, help them spin things so that enough Texans will be duped into re-electing them. In Texas, the media yawns when discussion of policy, votes on Legislation, or the ramifications of the pay to play culture in political circles in Austin has on ordinary Texans. (Most media is owned by gigantic holding companies. They are not unbiased, philanthropic organizations). Coverage of the Governor or Legislature is spotty, to almost non-existent in most markets.
The bottom line is that these corporations don’t give money to these PACs to pass along to “friendly politicians” unless they get something substantial for it. The $17 Mil from just the top three PACs does not keep flowing unless the people who fund those PACs get a really good financial return on their investment in their pet governmental incumbents. Abbott and Patrick and others such as Rodney Anderson and Linda Koop get generous shares of the $13Mil that these two Realtor PACs doled out to Texas officials last session. This money does not come without strings. Combined with the almost $4Mil from the TLR (Texans for Lawsuit Reform --the insurance company investors), that is $17Mil from interests who are not keen on shoring up Medicaid, solving the maternal or infant mortality crisis in Texas.
They want improvements in infrastructure but they do not want to have to help pay for it!
An educated workforce sound great until they are approached with a budget which increases their share of financing it.
The third largest pool of money flowing into the coffers of Texas officials is from TLR (Texans for Lawsuit Reform which gave close to $4 Mil.to elected officials in Texas. Abbott got $115K from the TLR. Abbott has always been a darling of the Tort Reform crowd. (Remember, he got rich on personal injury insurance claims when a tree fell on him. Then he saw the financial advantage (to him) in supporting tort reform. As a legislator he helped push through legislation which prevents others injured in Texas to get settlements to cover their medical and loss of income from injury claims. Lupe mentions: "I got mine, too bad about yours!" This is specifically a case when that applies.
The TLR (Texans for Lawsuit Reform) pushes for limitations on insurance settlements. Lupe called the governor out during the debate for signing legislation which gives insurance companies more time to settle home insurance claims. Abbott was one of many Texas officials with their hands deep into the TLR's cookie jar who pushed through legislation which forces a property owner to give an insurer at least 60-day notice before they file a lawsuit when the insurance company has refused to pay or been too slow about paying after storm damage.
The TLR website states:
In 2017, the Legislature passed House Bill 1774, which gives insurance companies a chance to resolve a disputed claim before a lawsuit is filed. The law requires policyholders to give insurers notice explaining the nature of their dispute at least 60 days before filing a lawsuit. The law also limits the fees policyholders’ lawyers may collect from the insurance company through the lawsuit if the lawyer fails to give the 60-day pre-suit notice or makes an excessive demand on the client’s behalf.
Now, once you wait a reasonable time and have done everything you can to get the money you need to put the roof back on your house or to do other repairs after a storm so that you can reoccupy your house, you must wait an additional 60 days before you can even file a lawsuit to try to make the insurance company pay up! This recent legislation, which Abbott signed into law this past session, further limits the fees an attorney can charge (or recoup from the insurance company) on home property insurance settlement cases. You must wait longer to file the suit and because attorney's can earn less handling these cases, it will probably be more difficult for you to find an attorney who will take your case. The TLR speaks about this helping to keep premiums lower. It is really helping to shore up stock owners’ profit at the inconvenience (or expense) of the folks who paid their insurance premiums. (The Governor appoints the Insurance Commissioner, so it is unlikely that his appointee will do much that upsets the Governor’s big donors).
Ironic that the officials who spout off the most about family values, when you "peel back the onion" and follow the money, looking at the ramifications of how they vote (or the laws they sign), seem to do the least for children and families. They spin things to make it seem that they are looking out for homeowners, for you, for me, but in reality they are protecting their access to funds from groups such as TLR, NAR, or TREPAC which combined, enriched the coffers of Abbott, Patrick and others who hang out under the dome by spreading over $17Mil around among those who are skilled at killing legislation which may help residential property owners or teachers or students and seeing that the best language gets into legislation which allows the Insurance Companies and large commercial interest to pocket as much of our state's wealth as possible, while paying the least to support the infrastructure or other important necessities of governing.