Amy Bresnen began working at the Texas Capitol in the 2000s as a grunt in the army of college-age students that runs on Red Bull and ambition to complete the behind-the-scenes work critical to each session.
She stayed around — with detours to grad school and law school — to build a lobby practice with her husband, Steve Bresnen, a former civil rights lawyer and top aide to Bob Bullock in the comptroller and lieutenant governor’s offices. BresnenAssociates is ranked in the top tier of lobby shops with clients including AT&T, the Texas Family Law Foundation and Texas Trial Lawyers Association.
The Bresnens, along with Lisa Kaufman, a lobbyist at Davis Kaufman, authored a widely read article in the St. Mary’s Law Journal about 2019 revisions to the Texas Citizen’s Participation Act that brought together a wide array of media, legal and business groups to “fix the TCPA in order to save the statute from itself.”
Amy Bresnen’s advocacy covers diverse issues, including reproductive rights, health care, regulatory reform and gaming. She holds a J.D. from St. Mary’s University, a master’s in public administration from Texas State University, and a bachelor’s in speech communication from Texas Christian University.
The Texas Lawbook sat down with Bresnen in a quiet corner of the Capitol cafeteria on May 9 to discuss her work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Texas Lawbook: What has your journey to becoming a lobbyist been like?
Amy Bresnen: I’ve always known that I wanted to work in and around government. My family is a very politically involved family. My grandfather was a state representative in the ’60s and ’70s. Several members of my family have been mayors of small towns such as Mount Vernon. My Aunt Vatra [Solomon], who is no longer with us, was chief of staff for the lieutenant governor, Bill Ratliff. And so, in some ways, I was born without a chance. But I’ve always been interested in public policy and rather than working one-on-one helping somebody, I’m helping a large population of people. I care about Texas. I think I’m seventh generation. You can see how Texas can somehow go off track and it’s important to me that we make Texas a rights-friendly state, a people-friendly state. We are a friendly state. I’ve always wanted to work to keep it that way.
The Lawbook: What kinds of clients have you represented throughout your career?
Bresnen: I would say a fourth or a third of our clients have a lot of duties and obligations within the judiciary branch. So, the family lawyers, the Texas Family Law Foundation, which is made up of mostly board-certified family law attorneys, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Court Reporters Association. But then we also have some health care-oriented clients. And I love health care. We have a dentistry client; we have an emergency medicine client. And we recently started representing a group called Texas Campaign for Mothers. And their mission is to clarify the medical exceptions in the abortion exception for the life of the mother. So that’s been extremely rewarding. We also represent corporations such as AT&T, and we have a new regulatory reform client, whose mission is to ensure that statutes are written with clarity rather than just kicking it to the administrative branch, that the legislature does its job first before it goes to the executive branch. We’re interested in reciprocity agreements, whether it’s with other states, whether it’s health care or any sort of occupational reciprocity agreement. We represent bingo. Whenever we talk to students about lobbying, they always want to know, “Who do you represent?” Whenever we tell them that bingo halls need lobbyists, they always look perplexed, humored. It’s all over the block, which is fun. You’re not bogged down in one subject matter. You get to move around, and you’ll see similar themes, whether it’s AT&T or health care. You start to see similar themes in what makes the government work and what makes the government not work.
The Lawbook: It’s interesting what you were mentioning about the regulatory aspects, are those similar issues to the Loper Bright case? [The 2024 SCOTUS ruling that courts must exercise their independent judgment when determining the meaning of statutes rather than deferring to agency interpretations.]
Bresnen: The Loper decision only applied to federal agencies. And yes, we are trying to mimic, to an extent, what the Loper decision did for the federal government. We would like that to be done at the state level. And I think that there’s a really good argument from a liberal standpoint to do this. I mean, for one, let’s just look at the abortion ban. You know, had that been written with a lot more clarity, maybe fewer women would have suffered. When President Obama set out to pass the Affordable Care Act, I firmly believe that he meant what he said: You can keep your doctor. But then when that got kicked to the agency rulemaking part of the implementation, that kind of dropped off. I think you can make a conservative as well as a liberal case for wanting to ensure the statutes are written with clarity.
The Lawbook: What are you working on this session?
Bresnen: For the most part, we keep the same crop of clients from session to session, but we usually pick up some new ones here and there and some old clients may drop off. You can lobby yourself out of a job if the client gets everything that they want in one scoop, they sometimes erroneously ditch their lobby team. And sure enough, two years later, there’s another issue that comes up, and then they call again, which we usually warn them that’s probably going to happen.
The Lawbook: So, there are only 23 days left in the session [as of May 9]. Next week is the deadline for House bills to be passed by the House. I think hundreds of bills are dying as we speak.
Bresnen: Hopefully.
The Lawbook: Can you start to let your guard down?
Bresnen: No, no. We were discussing this on a Zoom lobby team call with our emergency medicine client this morning — this is the part of the session where you really can’t take your eye off the [House] floor. And the reason is that they’ll make random announcements about formal meetings that will take place somewhere in the Capitol building. At formal meetings they vote out bills. So, all of a sudden, the bill that you thought was dead is now a zombie. I feel like most of lobbying is zombie killing in a way, because nothing’s ever really dead until June 2. And then, in addition to bills being voted out unexpectedly, you have to deal with unexpected amendments, where a bill that you thought you had for the most part successfully defeated becomes an amendment. They’re like fire drills that tend to increase up to about the last week of the session. But then you have to deal with technical corrections to bills that aren’t necessarily technical. They’re substantive corrections. If you can pull that off, and I think Steve actually has pulled that off before, that’s the Olympics of lobbying in a way.
The Lawbook: How do you and Steve divide duties? Do you divide it by issue?
Out of the two of us, he’s definitely the lead lobbyist on bingo, TTLA, probably AT&T as well because they have a copper theft issue that he knows a lot about from our metal recycling client from last session. As far as abortion, family law and overall health care issues and this regulatory reform client, it’s mostly me. Steve can draft [legislation] very well and that’s a skill that is useful. But I’m 44 years old and so if I don’t know how to draft by now, you know I probably never will. And I’ve been spoiled by being married to someone who does. But we have very different ways of lobbying. Our style tends to be different. And I don’t know if that is because of gender differences. I think a lot of women lobbyists probably work more behind the scenes, whereas Steve will usually just testify in front of God and everybody.
The Lawbook: Have there been a lot of family law bills this time?
Bresnen: If you read Project 2025, it’s definitely expected. It seems like the new boogeyman has become the divorce lawyer rather than the plaintiff’s lawyer. So, the work for the family lawyers is all-consuming. And we’re the only lobbyists that represent actual family lawyers. I mean, there are other family law-oriented groups. So, you’re not only fixing your own bills, but then people expect you to fix other bills, which is fun. That’s actually one of the most enjoyable things about this job is looking at a bill and seeing where you think it’s headed, but it falls short, it needs a little help. I think there have been more family law bills filed this time than ever before. But I do think that less family law will pass this session, which is a wonderful thing. And frankly, it’s really more conservative for fewer bills to pass.
The Lawbook: What misconceptions do you think lawyers have about the type of work you do?
Bresnen: The lawyers that we represent get it. But for those lawyers who don’t have constant contact with their lobbyists, they probably perceive us as more of the entertainment wing of a law firm. I think most of them probably rightfully find politics to be neurotic, maybe, and a distraction. I think they see us as more entertainers and more big-picture type lawyers. And the latter is probably true. We probably know a little bit about everything compared to someone who just goes to court. I’m not saying that is not important. It’s extremely important. But one of the things that I love about lobbying versus just going into private litigation is that there really is no resolution in lobbying or legislative advocacy. Whereas if you take on an individual in just one case, you’re seeking some sort of resolution, right? But in government, it’s like water. It just flows. One session, a bill that bans certain women’s health care won’t even get a hearing. The next session, it becomes law. It changes because public opinion changes. For example, there’s a bill on the House floor tomorrow that would form some sort of marriage commission, and that’s straight out of Project 2025 to me. I see that as a future attack on no-fault divorce. And so, if that bill passes, then we’ll spend all the interim chasing that commission around to ensure that women still have the freedom to divorce. And there was a bill filed that would end no-fault divorce this session. It has not gotten a hearing, but no one knows what 2027 will bring.
The Lawbook: I saw that you were involved in the petition to the Texas Medical Board to expand its guidance on emergency exceptions to the abortion ban. And there has been legislation this session to try to clarify when there’s an exception for an emergency.
Bresnen: We knew when we petitioned the medical board that there was only so much that the executive branch could do. They can’t change the law. They can’t narrow the law. They can’t expand the law. But we did get some clarity from that effort. And that clarity has now shown up in SB 31. And that is that death does not have to be imminent. And luckily, the judiciary branch has also said that. If you can get all three branches to say the same thing, that’s optimal. That’s literally clarity when all three branches are singing the same hymn. And that bill is expected to pass.
The Lawbook: I listened to a podcast with you and Steve about your lobbying careers. You talked about law school and liking the litigation-related courses.
Bresnen: For some reason, because I don’t really think of myself as a rule follower, I love rules. So, I did well in the procedure classes. And that also is probably because I feel like I’ve grown up around trial lawyers, whether they’re family lawyers or plaintiffs lawyers. And actually learning their skill set was interesting. And that all translates to lobbying because I can explain it from a family law point of view, because obviously, they deal with procedure and evidence, too. So, yeah, law school was like going to church for me. It was a really great experience. And I do think it’s the best education that you can get, even if you have no intention of practicing law. I think it is the best public policy degree that you can get. I feel like foreshadowing and forethought, like in litigation, are extremely important in lobbying. Just being four steps ahead if you’re trying to kill a bill or if you’re trying to pass a bill.
The Lawbook: Which is easier, killing or passing?
Bresnen: Definitely killing. But I will say this, killing a bad bill is nothing compared to passing a good bill. And the first thing that comes to mind is the anti-SLAPP legislation that we passed in 2019. There would be Fridays when I would just go somewhere very quiet and cry because I didn’t think we were going to get there. You know, if you see a bill out there that is going to amend your First Amendment rights, you should be on guard. And there were so many stakeholders involved that it could have gone off track and it didn’t. And I remember when it passed the Senate, Steve and I just walked out of the Senate gallery hand in hand. It was very emotional, and it will probably be the same way when SB 31 passes. That’s been an arduous task, meeting with the pro-life groups, pro-choice groups, the medical community, for everybody to be on board. And I’m not necessarily saying that every pro-choice group is on board. I do think that there is a bit of a “burn it down” mentality. You know, let things get worse before they get better. Then we can take our rights back all at once. But that’s just not the way it works. And that is not a mature way to govern, in my opinion. I mean, everybody wants their rights, or a lot of people, want their rights restored. But the fact is, we live in a red state. I’m sorry. One step at a time.
The Lawbook: How will you decompress after this session?
Bresnen: Well, we’re going to see my niece in West Hollywood, and then we’re going to drop down to Los Cabos, and then we’re going to come back and go to San Antonio to the State Bar convention because I’m moderating an open government panel and anti-SLAPP legislation will come up.
The Lawbook: Last question. Do you have a short description of the 2025 session?
Bresnen: You know, honestly, we redid our committee structure in the House to appease the grassroots activists because they did not want Democrats to hold chairs. We’ve set up subcommittees instead. This system was built to kill, which, to me, is a good thing. I think it’s probably the most conservative committee structure in the House that we’ve ever had because most of these bills don’t need to pass. So, I found the session to be fun. Believe it or not, and this is this is a common observation from this session, I think everybody feels like they’ve had to work harder despite less bills passing. And maybe we’ll figure out why that is in Mexico. It’s not as fun as the 2019 session, but I might rank it number two. And there’s also something to just getting older and becoming more experienced and having more people rely on you. So, you have your fingers in more legislation than ever before. I think that’s fun too. There have been times when Steve and I think we can’t do this anymore because of the politics. And then you know, by the time the session is over, I mean this is one big family. I think that it’s surprising to a lot of people who come from out of state, who come to be journalists. They’re always very surprised at how much Democrats and Republicans actually get along. They know their family members. They know their spouses. They know their kids’ names. They may go at it on the floor, but when they’re off the floor, they’re friends. And so as long as that feeling sticks around, then we’ll stick around. But we will go to Mexico more often.