Advocacy Without a Lobbyist: A Practical Guide for Texas Associations

By Andrea Chevalier

IN 2025, THE Texas Legislature made national waves by passing major initiatives, including off-cycle congressional maps and an education savings account program. Although lobbying and advocacy are often associated with the active “lawmaking” days of an odd-numbered legislative session, the interim can be just as – if not more – impactful. This makes 2026 a prime time for associations to elevate their advocacy efforts.

Getting into the advocacy game doesn’t have to mean hiring a lobbyist. However, when planning for advocacy activities, it’s important to understand when lobby registration is required to protect the association and its members.

In simple terms, a registered lobbyist is someone who either spends or is paid past a threshold to communicate with elected and agency officials and their staff in efforts to influence their actions, which triggers the government’s interest in monitoring the person’s activities. An entity like an association can be required to register under certain circumstances too, but typically a person will register on behalf of the entity.

There are some exceptions to lobby registration. A person who meets the compensation threshold but spends less than 40 hours per calendar quarter on lobbying doesn’t have to register, unless they exceed the expenditure threshold. Additionally, responses to requests for input by members or employees of the legislative or executive branches, or of state agencies, is not considered lobbying. This includes public testimony at a legislative hearing or providing rule comments to a state agency. The Texas Ethics Commission website has more information on lobbying laws in Texas (www.ethics.state.tx.gov).

With this legal framework in mind, associations can build an advocacy portfolio that meets their needs while addressing their comfort level with official lobby activities.

The advocacy portfolio of an association should facilitate empowerment of its members to advocate for their own, member-created legislative agenda. Member voices are far more captivating to elected officials, especially when the member is the elected official’s constituent, than that of association executives. The legislative agenda guides member advocacy in a solid direction so that the association can report back progress to its members to positively reinforce their efforts.

Most associations likely already have a legislative agenda or could easily adapt existing processes for creating a similar member-approved document, so the following focus is on advocacy activities that empower members.

Starting with the board of directors, a task force or committee, or a group of regional delegates can be an easy entrée to turn existing leaders into advocacy ambassadors. The expectation that existing member leaders meet with their elected officials demystifies the experience, empowers members for future communications, and spurs relationships that can serve an association well during a legislative session. Meetings can be issue-specific, such as advocating for a particular solution to a problem, or broader, like sharing the legislative agenda.

Thoroughly preparing members to engage in a meeting with their lawmaker is essential. An ideal scenario involves a pre-meeting to discuss logistics and dedicated training to educate members on meeting etiquette, talking points, adjusting terminology for lawmakers or staff unfamiliar with the issue, reframing based on politics, and background research on meeting participants. A model conversation or role-playing practice is especially helpful for members, even if it’s not their first time. Members must also understand the rules on speaking on behalf of the association.

It’s easier to interact with lawmakers during the interim, but keep in mind that most legislators are busy with elections until after the March primary, and that they may be in their district more so than at the Capitol. This makes the April-September timeframe ideal for getting across critical ideas and relationship-building but also impacts meeting logistics.

Committees will also begin to hold interim hearings post-primaries, which are another great opportunity to engage in advocacy without lobbying, but usually require travel to Austin. Like creating an expectation that existing association member leaders meet with lawmakers, it’s also reasonable to tap existing leaders for potential interim testimony. Luckily, preparing a member to testify is very similar to preparing them for a meeting with a lawmaker, with the addition of the testimony itself.

To strategically target testimony opportunities, association executives should consider the legislative committees that their issues may arise in and monitor the interim charges for those committees, which have not been released as of this writing. Interim charges are set in both the House and Senate by each chamber’s respective leadership and include future initiatives and monitoring recent bills passed by the legislature. For instance, House leadership may include an interim charge in the House Public Education Committee asking the committee to study and make recommendations for whether the recently enacted education savings account program should be expanded or modified.

When association members provide oral and written testimony during an interim hearing, they influence the outcome of the resulting committee recommendation, which could morph into a bill in the next session. Additionally, member testimony may be so compelling that the committee chair asks for a future meeting or additional information, responding to which is not considered lobbying because of the preceding request.

As baseline advocacy education for its members, an association could also deliver an advocacy conference session, a dedicated “Advocacy 101” webinar event, or regular advocacy webinars on current issues. Competencies for members might include how a bill becomes a law, the various policy actors, how to get involved, model conversations with policymakers, top issues and positive impacts of advocacy, and rules such as only speaking on behalf of the organization if permitted. Some associations include an “advocacy toolkit” on their website or internal member sites, and some also have specific professional learning opportunities for their members on advocacy.

Empowering members to engage in advocacy has a necessary education component that is embedded within association leaders’ knowledge of current issues. This can be difficult with limited resources. A simple but extremely meaningful way to increase knowledge capacity is to join or create a coalition of like-minded or industry-similar colleagues whose goal supports advocacy efforts and aligns with the legislative agenda. For monitoring hearings and opportunities for input, Texas Legislature Online (www.capitol.texas.gov) allows users to create a free account and to set up alerts for committee hearings and bill actions.

Each association has different needs and comfort with advocacy, especially in light of lobbying laws. In any case, starting small with a clear goal and direction in mind will likely result in feelings of efficacy for association members, providing energy for the next step and reinforcing that meaningful advocacy is both accessible and achievable.

Andrea Chevalier is the Director of Governmental Relations with the Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education (TCASE). Before joining TCASE, Andrea was a lobbyist with the Association of Texas Professional Educators, a staffer in the Texas Capitol, and an intern at the Office of Management and Budget. Andrea started her career in education as a middle school science teacher. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy from The University of Texas at Austin.