Above The Law
The debt collector that runs Texas
Over the course of a few months, a debt collector you’ve probably never heard of spends more money wooing politicians than most Americans earn in a year.
Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson has countless politicians — from school board members to state lawmakers — on its side. It takes them to fancy dinners and spends millions on their campaigns. It even puts current elected officials on its payroll.
These connections have paid off big time. For decades, the firm has beat out the competition, gotten some state and federal laws changed in its favor and landed lucrative contracts nationwide — making it one of the favorite debt collectors for state and local governments across the country.
And nowhere is its political pull greater than in its home state of Texas. It all started here, when 1980s legislation paved the way for local governments to hire private attorneys like Linebarger to collect unpaid taxes and hit debtors with big fees. This sparked such a boom in the industry that it even led a group of former partners to name a hunting ranch after that part of the state tax code — dubbing it 3348 Ranch.
Sign from ranch that former Linebarger partners named after Texas tax code provision 33.48
Fast forward to today, and Linebarger is working for hundreds of local government agencies across Texas. It has won contracts to collect hundreds of millions of dollars a year from consumers for everything from unpaid parking tickets to overdue property taxes.
But getting all that business hasn’t come cheap.
“They’re just a big dog and have been that way for a long time,” said Craig McDonald, director of the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice (TPJ). “They have the ability through political connections and campaign contributions to squeeze a lot of competitors out of the market.”
Buying power
In a state known for limitless campaign donations, highly-paid lobbyists and political favors, Linebarger is one of the most politically-active businesses in Texas — on both the state and local levels.
The firm doles out more on lobbying state lawmakers than some of Texas’s biggest corporate giants, including ExxonMobil, American Airlines and Halliburton, according to state records.
Linebarger doles out more on lobbying state lawmakers than ExxonMobil, American Airlines and Halliburton.”
In a written statement, Linebarger told CNNMoney that it spent more than $1 million on lobbying in Texas over the past two years. Meanwhile, state records show that Halliburton, a much larger company, spent no more than $855,000 during the same period.
Linebarger and the partners that run the firm also have their hands in political campaigns across Texas.
Since 2000, the firm and its employees have spent more than $4.5 million on campaign donations, according to a TPJ analysis of state filings. And that doesn’t even count all of the local campaigns Linebarger donates to, which don’t end up in state campaign finance records.
