The Texas International Trade Initiative: a DEC legislative program to promote exports - district export councils

Business America, July, 1998 by Raymond J. Brimble, Robert T. Green, Karen Parker

When I was Chair of the Camino Real chapter of the Lone Star DEC from 1994-1997, Senator Carlos Truan requested input from the business community on ways the Texas Legislature could support international trade activities in the state of Texas. This article describes how the Texas International Trade Initiative (TxITI) began. The Texas DECs accepted the Senator's invitation to provide that input, and formulated a process that would ensure the widest possible participation among the state's business community. The plan called for holding a series of town meetings across the entire state, to which local business people would be invited to provide input on ways in which the legislature could assist Texas exporters. The following is a step-by-step examination of the process.

There are many time-consuming, small steps that must be taken to get a piece of legislation under consideration, whether at the state or federal level. With much determination, a solid focus, and pure hard work, the Texas DECs, the Export Assistance Centers of the Commercial Service in Texas, four International Small Business Development Centers (ISBDCs), and the Center of International Business Education Research (CIBER) at the University of Texas became partners in TxITI, and began the legislative project. The ISBDCs organized 14 town hall meetings throughout all parts of the state over a two-month period, March-April 1996. Five broad issue areas were identified, each of the town hall meetings was assigned a moderator, and equal time was given to solicit input on each issue in relationship to export promotion:

* Taxes;

* Business infrastructure;

* Education;

* Technology; and

* Direct export assistance.

Each town hall meeting was attended by one of four student interns recruited by CIBER from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The interns recorded all suggestions made at the meetings and prepared a large matrix which provided a sense of how often individual issues were raised and the parts of the state from which they came.

The Texas DECs had a statewide meeting in May 1996, at which the matrix of issues was presented. Through a sequential voting process, 17 issues were identified for inclusion in the preliminary DEC legislative agenda. The primary criteria employed in identifying these issues were (1) the importance to the state's export community, and (2) the feasibility of passage. Further processing of the 17 proposals occurred at a special hearing of the Senate IRTT that was held later that month. The result was the selection of eight specific issues for legislative action that would go forward under the banner of TxITI. It was determined that effort should be devoted to the issues with the highest chance of success.

The eight issues that became the TxITI agenda were:

* Initiative #1 -- Develop an international business strategic plan for Texas' future development;

* Initiative #2 -- Remove requirements that businesses pay state sales tax on goods exported;

* Initiative #3 -- Permit private business to use video conference facilities at public educational institutions;

* Initiative #4 -- Enable state institutions of higher education to enter into reciprocal tuition exchange programs with foreign universities;

* Initiative #5 -- Conduct a feasibility study of required language in grades K-12;

* Initiative #6 -- Reestablish an export loan guarantee program;

* Initiative #7 -- Provide enhancement of vocational training; and

* Initiative #8 --- Issue a proclamation of importance of international education.

Issue managers who were selected from DEC members or associates who had the strongest knowledge of or interest in the individual initiative were assigned to each initiative. The managers quickly learned that writing a piece of legislation was a difficult task, in addition to getting it sponsored by both a senator and a representative. In the end, seven of the eight initiatives were able to be transformed into bills and proposed as legislation, with sponsors from both houses of the Texas Legislature.

The one casualty was Initiative #7. With the successful introduction of seven pieces of legislative action in both the Senate and House of Representatives, there was the new challenge of trying to ensure that they eventually made it to the floors of both houses for a vote. Each of the bills had to be heard by the relevant committees in each chamber. Issue managers had to be sure they were informed of the hearings, attend them to testify, and line up other supporters to do the same. Six of the seven pieces of legislative action went successfully through the hearings, and received positive votes in both houses. The seventh piece, the bill to change the tax rebate system on exports, was deemed unnecessary when the state comptroller rendered a new interpretation of the existing law.

Three of the bills were enacted by the 1997 Texas Legislature: video-conferencing, reciprocal tuition, and the proclamation of the importance of international business-related topics to education. Legislation associated with three of the initiatives had been included in omnibus bills which were vetoed by the governor -- K- 12 language education, export financing, and the state strategic plan for international business.