Among the responsibilities of serving as president of the Texas Association of Counties is the opportunity to sit up on the stage as the “presider” over general assembly sessions at TAC conferences. That’s what I was doing one Friday morning in August at the closing session of our Annual Conference, when I nearly fell off my chair.

Larry Naake, executive director of the National Association of Counties, was presenting an overview of significant issues pending before the U.S. Congress when he started talking about a new law he called “Waters of the United States.” The name of the bill sounded okay to me but then he explained that HR 2421, formally known as the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007, would eliminate a key word – “navigable” – from the federal definition of “waters of the U.S.” If passed, that would mean that counties across the country would have to seek a permit from the U.S. Corps of Engineers any time they needed to clean or do work on local roadside ditches or gutters! Instead of limiting the permit requirement to bodies of water big enough for boats, the kinds of “waters” that the Corps oversees would be radically expanded.

If that’s a matter that concerns your county, it would be a good idea to contact your federal Congressman as well as your two U.S. Senators and tell them there’s a need to fix HR 2421 by Rep. James Oberstar.

Let me talk a bit about the other bills that Naake discussed on behalf of NACo.

One issue of tremendous concern to all of us who decide to seek re-election is another proposed overhaul of election equipment and processes. “HAVA- 2” may sound like the name of a sequel horror movie, and in fact, this bill is both a sequel and a horror. The first HAVA was the Help America Vote Act. It passed in response to the long presidential election stand-off in 2002 and it required federal and local investment of more than $2 billion dollars to purchase new election equipment for counties across the country. This time around, H.R. 811 proposes to require that every voting system in the country be capable of providing a paper ballot by next year’s presidential election and then, by 2012, every county would again have to upgrade their equipment to another “yet-to-be-determined” technology. And people wonder why their taxes keep increasing. The good news, Naake said, is that the HAVA-2 bill was expected to be passed in the U.S. House by Easter and here we are past Labor Day and it’s still hasn’t passed in that body.

Why?

It’s because at NACo’s urging, county officials across the country have been vociferous in opposition to the bill. But let’s not stop now – make sure your federal lawmakers know about the impact of these ill-advised provisions.

These are only a couple of the legislative matters that Naake discussed, but they underscore a key service that NACo performs – keeping counties and federal officials informed about the impact of federal legislation and regulations. That service benefits all counties but unfortunately, not all counties are doing their part to support NACo.

In Texas, for example, we have 143 counties who are NACo members. That means almost half of our counties are just going along for the ride – they get a key benefit of NACo without paying their fare share in dues.

The situation has been getting better, with the help of a NACo membership task force under the leadership of Denton County Clerk Cynthia Mitchell. At the urging of Cynthia and her group, 13 additional counties have joined in the past year, but we can do better. If your county is a NACo member but you are aware of nearby counties that are not, please make a point of urging the nonmembers to join.

And don’t forget to contact your federal representatives about the ditch permitting bill and HAVA-2. In numbers, there is strength.