May 28, 2007-
SENATE BILL 1305 DEAD!!!
As of midnight tonight, SB 1305 will be officially dead. Thank you to all
who saw this bill for what it really was and voiced their opinions in
opposition.
TPSA leaders suffered another blow in their goal of full-blown regulation for private process
servers. For the last nine legislative sessions, pro-regulators have attempted to over-regulate the
Texas private process service industry; and the Legislature has routinely refused.
Their most recent attempt, Senate Bill 1305 filed in the 80th legislative session which ends today,
would have allocated nearly a half million dollars to fund the Texas Supreme Court's Process Server
Review Board on which TPSA leaders and pro-constable supporters sit. The money would have
come from the pockets of process servers. The bill's death might be blamed on the passage of a
deadline for bills to come out of the House Calendars Committee. However, opponents of the bill
were able to stall it in the Senate Jurisprudence Committee which caused a two-week delay in
arriving to the House Civil Practices Committee. This, in turn, caused a delay getting to Calendars.
In a pathetic attempt to bad-mouth their opposition, TPSA leaders claimed just two process servers
were responsible for voicing opposition to their bill. However, the witness list reflects only one
process server in opposition, Mr. Tod Pendergrass. Whether one or two, it's unimaginable that a
single process server could beat overwhelming odds and stop the efforts of a special interest
group including their high-paid lobbyist, the Justice of the Peace and Constables Association, the
influence of the Texas Supreme Court, a District Court judge, several senators, and tens of
thousands of dollars spent to achieve their goals. The truth is, many process servers and attorneys
who oppose the licensing and/or regulation of our industry made phone calls and sent emails in
opposition to this bill. TPSA leaders just can't come to terms with the fact that there are people who
disagree with them. They have failed to explain why there are so many constables in support of
their bill; a bill that lacks one single beneficial provision for constables.
There is still one small problem. Today, the Texas House passed the 153 billion dollar budget which
apparently included the Supreme Court's request for 76K for their Office of Court Administration.
Now Texas taxpayers will be responsible for funding "guardians and process servers." Despite
warnings that Texas taxpayers should not have to pay for regulation that was not legislatively
created, the Court will get some relief from the mess created by the PSRB. This is because the
PSRB was presented to legislators as a board that provides an "administrative" function and the
certification program was erroneously presented as a "requirement for ALL process servers." The
process servers of Texas narrowly avoided being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars
because of this deliberate misinformation and the unauthorized regulatory actions of the PSRB.
Thank you to all those who voiced their opinions and, once again, prevented the unnecessary
over-regulation of the industry. Unfortunately, the battle is not over. Each and every process
server who is forced to appear before the rogue PSRB in defense of his or her career will still need
to fight to protect their livelihoods.
Story by:
Tod Pendergrass
Director, Texas Process Watch