State Rep. Erin Zwiener, a far-left Democrat from Hays County, has filed House Bill 5182—a dangerous proposal that would supercharge the Texas Ethics Commission’s abusive enforcement powers and further weaponize the agency against grassroots Texans.
Zwiener’s bill would allow the TEC to hire outside legal counsel—without any oversight from the attorney general—using state funds to collect civil penalties it imposes. That means if a citizen misses a filing deadline or makes a good-faith error on a form, the TEC can drag them into court, represented not by the state’s top legal officer, but by hired-gun attorneys paid to get blood from a stone.
The bill even sets up a new funding mechanism to funnel money from these penalties back into TEC coffers, creating a perverse incentive to fine first and ask questions later.
It gets worse.
HB 5182:
- Increases the minimum penalty for a late campaign finance report from $500 to $1,001, doubling the cost of minor paperwork mistakes.
- Bars Texans from running for office if they have unpaid TEC fines—no matter how unfair, excessive, or unresolved the underlying case may be.
- Allows the TEC to bypass traditional debt collection channels and directly hire private lawyers to pursue unpaid fines, with the ability to pocket up to 30 percent in contingency fees—turning enforcement into a payday for politically connected attorneys.
In effect, the bill says: If you criticize the government and the TEC comes after you, you’re on your own—and if you don’t pay up, you’ll be banned from running for public office.
This is the same TEC that fined an elderly Houston activist $17,500 for minor filing errors.
It’s the same agency that hounded Katy Christian Magazine and its publisher simply for running a handful of political ads.
And it’s the same agency that has spent over a million dollars in taxpayer funds on outside legal counsel to pursue conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan for more than a decade, seeking a $10,000 penalty.
Sullivan’s case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, where he is asking justices to step in and rein in the TEC’s assault on First Amendment rights. His petition is drawing support from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and a growing coalition of national free speech organizations.
Zwiener’s bill is especially alarming in light of the TEC’s ongoing efforts to avoid transparency and expand its own power. The agency has asked lawmakers for the authority to deny driver’s licenses and business licenses to Texans who don’t pay TEC fines. It wants to eliminate the right to a full judicial review of its rulings—so Texans can be punished based on TEC decisions without ever having their cases reviewed by a court.
And now, under HB 5182, the TEC would have a free hand to hire aggressive trial lawyers—on the taxpayers’ dime—to chase down everyday citizens.
Rather than curbing the TEC’s abuses, Zwiener’s bill doubles down on them. It gives this rogue agency new tools to punish political speech, all while insulating it from meaningful accountability.
That’s not ethics reform—it supercharges the TEC’s power to abuse private citizens.
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