Texas progressives are often tempted to despair in their search for enlightened governance. Sometimes it seems that powerful interests in the state go out of their way to lower our quality of life, degrade public services, grease the skids for the rich, and generally pound on the little guy. The poor? Forget 'em. The environment? Never heard of it. Stand up for common taxpayers? Naah-they don't foot the bill for reelection campaigns.

Good for us, then, that this year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Texas office of Public Citizen, the nationwide organization with no purpose but to go to bat for the interests of folks crazy enough to ask for responsible, sensible, honest public policy. For nineteen of those twenty years, the office has been headed by the indefatigable Tom Smith, known to all the world as Smitty. Afflicted with what he smilingly calls "an overactive sense of justice," the affable but resolute Smith is a one-man antidote to despair.

Smith has sometimes quoted a catchphrase of progressive icon Jim Hightower: "You'll only get the dirt out if you agitate." For Smith, "agitate" would make a good one-word job description. As with all of Public Citizen, that agitation spreads into several major areas of activism on behalf of citizen-consumers: product safety, pollution control, cleaner energy and transportation, health and environmental safeguards, and government accountability. This is no small task anywhere, but can be especially hard given the power of Public Citizen's entrenched opponents in this state.

Texas is one of only two states with its own Public Citizen office (California is the other). This makes sense when you consider the importance of Texas in economic and political spheres. Given the size of Texas-it would be one of the major economies of the world if it were an independent nation-and the power wielded by Texas politicians both in Austin and in Washington, you come to realize that, when it comes to the impact of policy decisions, things really are bigger in Texas.

Travis Brown, who directs energy projects for Public Citizen's Texas office, calls the state "a trendsetter in a lot of ways." Unfortunately, in many cases it leads in negative trends. Brown noted that if Texas were an independent country, it would be the eleventh largest polluter in the world. Smith gives a litany of dire pollution figures for Texas: first among the fifty states in the production of global warming gases, first in mercury, number four in sulfur, number two in nitrous oxide.

Smith seems to have an endless supply of figures like these on the tip of his tongue. (Brown says of Smith, "He doesn't forget anything.") Smith peppers his speech with such numbers as he stumps for Public Citizen's initiatives. He offered the ones just cited in early October when he spoke at the twentieth anniversary celebration of Public Citizen's Texas office. The party, which was held in a beautiful reception hall at the Barr Mansion east of Austin, was also in honor of Smith's long and distinguished service to the organization and to Texans. Smith celebrated the successes of his office, but he hardly signaled that he would start resting on his laurels. In his typical plainspoken but impassioned way, he regaled the friendly audience with the office's plans for the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature. The short version: the Texas office of Public Citizen has only begun to fight.

The other speakers in that evening's lineup were full of praise for the work of Smith and the office he leads. Joan Claybrook, president of the national Public Citizen organization, said that Smith is "responsible for most of what Public Citizen has achieved in Texas." She praised his "wonderful combination of being warm and friendly on a personal level and tough as nails when he's fighting for our causes" and summed up his role in Texas politics by saying, "Smitty's the burr under the saddle of the power structure."

Claybrook was joined in her praise by Craig McDonald, the former national field director for Public Citizen who is now executive director of Texans for Public Justice; George Cofer, executive director of the Hill Country Conservancy; and Kirk Watson, former mayor of Austin and chair-elect of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

From the stage, Cofer praised Smith for his willingness to be "unreasonable" in negotiations with energy companies and the like when Smith knew their plans would be detrimental to Texans. His remarks echoed comments I had heard earlier from Charlotte Flynn, who is co-convenor of the Gray Panthers of Austin activist group and who has known Smith for decades. In the course of our conversation, she summed up her view of Smith with two sentences. "Smitty's always been on the right side," she said. "He never backs down."

The warm regards of progressive leaders outside of Public Citizen reflect another strength of the Texas office, which both Claybrook and Smith touched on in their speeches. Claybrook praised Smith as a master "collaborator," citing his work alongside the Gray Panthers, Texans for Public Justice, the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, and others. Smith cited the cooperation of Charlotte Flynn, drawing a laugh when he said, "She has gotten me into more trouble…." He added that all of the allies in progressive causes "sing different parts in the choir," and this is as it should be. "Unless we get together and sing together," he said, "we will never change the earth."

Smith compared the work of the people at the party to the little rocks at the top of the mountain that can set off an avalanche of change. Given the small budget of his office, the metaphor seems apt. The office, which occupies cozy quarters on the top floor of a converted mansion on the west side of Austin's downtown, has only a handful of permanent staff, and relies heavily on the work of volunteer interns. Smith and others praised these interns from the stage at the anniversary party, calling out many of them by name and noting how many of them have gone on from Public Citizen to permanent positions as activists in other organizations.

While the work of the Texas office is intense, its members seem to thrive in the atmosphere, and they effuse over the hard work and deep commitment of Smith. Jennifer Carraway, who first met Smith in 1997 when she worked for Clean Water Action, has served as the office manager for the Texas office since 2002. She summed up her view of Smith by saying "I feel like it's a privilege to get to work for Smitty and work with Smitty."

Travis Brown, a veteran anti-pollution activist who has known Smith for more than ten years, came to work for Public Citzen at the beginning of 2003. Brown praised Smith's media acumen, saying that whatever the issue at hand, it seems that Smith always knows who to call and what angle to take to ensure that Public Citizen's side of the story will play in the press. Brown noted that, given their office's limited resources, a good relationship with the media is one of the most important tools they have. Brown also called Smith "probably one of the busiest people in Texas," and mentioned that Smith's nonstop schedule often puts him in the office at 7am and keeps him there to 10pm. Brown summarized Smith's commitment: "He's put twenty years and more into fighting for citizens' rights in Texas. He works like a dog."

This recalled a comment made by Smith himself at the anniversary party, when he praised his partner, Karen Hadden, for "her sense of justice and her sense of outrage" underlying her work as executive director of the SEED Coalition, a nonprofit organization that focuses on clean air and clean energy. Smith drew another laugh from the crowd when he said that Hadden's own long days have sometimes left him in the unusual position of calling in the wee hours to ask, "It's two o'clock in the morning…when are you coming home?"

To say that the Public Citizen office started under modest circumstances would be an understatement. In his role as national field director for Public Citizen, Craig McDonald came to Austin from Washington, DC, in August 1984 for Public Citizen's campaign against Southwestern Bell's "local measured service" proposal. This consumer-unfriendly plan would have raised phone customers' bills by charging them for each local call rather than a flat monthly fee. Ralph Nader came down to speak against the proposal, and Public Citizen joined forces with the American Association of Retired Persons and others to protest Bell's plan. When McDonald and another activist sat down with a junior-level Bell official, McDonald said that Public Citizen intended to open an office in Austin to keep up the fight. This was, as McDonald explained to the audience at the anniversary party, "a bluff."

Much to the surprise of McDonald and the rest of Public Citizen, Southwestern Bell backed down on local measured service within two weeks. In her own speech, Joan Claybrook admitted that they had no idea that the phone company would back down like that. The crowd laughed when she added, "The problem is we haven't won another battle like that one since."

After Bell's quick cave-in, Public Citizen started a permanent office in Austin anyway. McDonald stayed in the city for three months to get the office up and running, then returned to Washington after handing over the reins to Michael Twombly. The next year, Twombly took a job working for one of the leaders of the California Legislature. Twombly recommended that Smith succeed him, and Smith became the director of the Texas office in September 1985.

McDonald, who moved back to Austin permanently in 1996 and founded Texans for Public Justice the next year, supervised Smith from afar for ten years. He told me that it was an easy task: "We just kind of let (Smith) go-he does such good work." He added that "the first time I met him, I saw he was a perfect fit." McDonald laughed as he recalled that there were no other applicants at the time, but was quick to say that Smith was the best candidate the job could have had. What made him such a good fit? "Smitty had the experience in Texas," McDonald said. "He seemed to have the right motivation." One key part of that motivation was Smith's commitment to building the public interest infrastructure across the state.

Smith was practically raised to work on behalf of the public interest: both of his parents were activists for health and human services issues. Smith went to school at Valparaiso University, outside the industrial center of Gary, Indiana. While there, he worked in air- and water-pollution laboratories and came to understand the impacts of pollution up close. Smith first came to Texas to work as a volunteer with the federal VISTA program. (His VISTA trainer was a young Elliott Naishtat, who was recently reelected to an eighth term in the Texas House of Representatives as a member of the Central Texas delegation.) Smith's VISTA assignment took him to the Kingsville legal aid office, where he worked to resolve consumer complaints related to deceptive marketing and electric utility cutoffs. While serving there, he discovered that sometimes it was faster to win justice through legislative advocacy than to wait for cases to crawl through the court system.

His first experience in lobbying came when he tried to help a woman on food stamps whose husband had lost his job. Without a paycheck, the couple lacked the money to purchase their remaining allocation of food stamps, but there was no provision in the law to allow for such a change in circumstances. The Kingsville legal aid office went to court and won, but the state appealed, and the case dragged on and on. Smith visited a local congressman, who was outraged to find out that the federal law did not allow for eventualities like the loss of a job. He called hearings on the matter and, according to Smith, "within months…we had changed the statute and the rules." Smith said that this experience "demonstrated to me that legislation could happen very quickly if you had a just cause." As he told the story, he laughed and added, "It's never happened that quickly since."

After his VISTA stint was over, Smith stayed on with the legal aid office for a total of three years. From there he moved back to his home state of Illinois for two years-long enough to remind him that it snowed there in the winter. He came back to Texas as an organizer for the Community Nutrition Institute, an anti-hunger advocacy organization that operated in five southern states. The Institute was federally funded until Ronald Reagan took office; after it was defunded, Smith stayed in Austin to work for the National Network of Food Banks, which provided technical assistance to food banks across the South. For two sessions of the Texas Legislature, Smith also worked as an aide to State Representative Al Price, D-Beaumont. According to Smith, Price "had a long history of carrying good consumer legislation." It was after his stint working for Price that Smith came to Public Citizen.

There was a time when Smith's office could call on influential progressive legislators in the mold of Al Price to sponsor bills; these days, they must look elsewhere. Smith and Travis Brown both said that the shift in Texas from Democrat to Republican dominance has made for big changes in the way that Public Citizen goes about its work. "Our coalitions are no longer between ourselves and progressive legislators," Smith said. His office now seeks key business partners as allies in many of its initiatives. In promoting a better statewide renewable energy standard, for example, Public Citizen worked with representatives of big wind-power companies such as General Electric and Florida Power and Light.

Brown said that the ascent of the G.O.P. statewide "has made our job a lot tougher." Smith admitted that in many ways the shift in control of the Texas government has put his office on the defensive. Rather than getting to focus on proactive policy measures, he said, "typically our work now is to try to keep bad stuff from happening." Fortunately, there are some Republican officials who share Public Citizen's views on key issues. Smith pointed out that four county judges from the Dallas area-all of them Republicans-helped to push for better air-pollution controls at the state level.

One of those judges is Ron Harris of Collin County. The longtime officeholder explained the basis of his good working relationship with Smith. "We listen to each other, and I think that's important," he said. "That comes from credibility on both sides of any discussion." Harris acknowledged that in the matter of air pollution, "We're probably not moving as fast as what (Smith) and Public Citizen would like," but that the four Metroplex county judges-along with their constituents-are aligned with Smith because all of them want to clean up the air. Harris also credited Smith for understanding that elected officials and the government itself often move forward in increments. As Harris put it, "He realizes we're not the enemy because we can't get every roof in Dallas painted white."

According to Smith, Harris and his fellow officials became convinced that some large companies chose to avoid putting offices in Dallas because of problems with its air quality. They also realized that prolonged failure to clean up air in the Metroplex could lead to a cutoff of federal highway funds, which could be ill afforded from a business standpoint. Public Citizen worked with these officials and with the chambers of commerce of Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio in 2001 to lobby on behalf of the Texas Emission Reduction Plan, which created a set of incentives to reduce pollution from emissions. Judge Harris summarized his support of pollution control by saying, "I don't think it's fair for us to leave this for our kids."

Smith seems happy to work on both sides of the aisle to get good policies passed. He is also swift to criticize bad public policy, no matter its origin. Travis Brown pointed out that the office has publicly criticized every speaker of the Texas House-Democrat or Republican-during its twenty years. "We've never shied away from blasting whoever is doing something wrong," he said. Smith also noted that in some cases, Public Citizen's principles align closely with some of those of the "hard right wing" of politics: both sides believe that citizens have a right to control the government and to know what it is doing, and that the government should not subsidize corporations.

From all reports, Smith uses the full spectrum of his personality, from the "warm and friendly" to the "tough as nails," when he's trying to move policy in the Capitol. "You never make change without creating tension," he said, but the balance is delicate. If you create too little tension, the powers-that-be can safely ignore you; if you create too much, you break the connection of mutual interest. The activist's challenge-Smith's daily challenge-is to create the right amount of tension that leads to beneficial change. Craig McDonald said that Smith's "great asset" is that he remains friendly not only with folks on the public-interest side of issues, but also with their opponents. "That's a fine line to walk," McDonald said, "and Smitty has a talent to walk that line."

I asked Jon Fisher, senior vice president of the Texas Chemical Council, the trade association of chemical manufacturing facilities in Texas, what he thought of Smith as an opponent. Fisher, who has lobbied for years both with and against Smith in the Texas Capitol, said, "I find him tenacious." Fisher added, "(He) works hard. I take exception sometimes to some of the things he does but, in general, he's someone can work with." To what does he take exception? Fisher said he thought it was "discourteous professionally" for a lobbyist like Smith to join in the call for criminal investigations of fellow lobbyists, as Smith did against the Texas Association of Business. "I thought he went a little too far on that one." (Smith's press comments on the issue make it clear that he sees his stance on the issue as part of Public Citizen's work for cleaner government.)

Fisher noted that Smith has been very effective on issues of energy conservation. "If fact," he added, "we have to keep an eye on him to make sure he's not going too far, and when that happens, it means you're being effective." Fisher believes that Smith has been less effective on complex industrial regulatory issues. "If you haven't run a chemical plant," he said, "it's probably hard to tell someone how to run a chemical plant." On issues like that one, the chemical industry lobbyist said, "You may be more effective, not in advocacy, but in forcing the other side to explain their position." He granted that Smith has had some success in that.

Smith and Public Citizen use hardball tactics when called for. When we talked, Smith noted that his office had recently filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency, citing its failure either to force the State of Texas to file an adequate clean air plan or to approve the plans already filed. Smith pointed out that Public Citizen is not at odds with the agency. "I talk to EPA three or four times a week, trying to resolve these and other problems," he said. The good working relationship he describes is the carrot, the lawsuit is the stick.

Over the past two decades, Public Citizen's varied tactics have led to some notable reforms statewide, ranging from requirements for quicker processing of insurance claims to an improved "lemon law" for car buyers. Smith said that two achievements stand out: The first is the Texas Emission Reduction Plan already mentioned. The second is the development of the state's renewable energy resources.

I first spoke with Smith while researching the annual Renewable Energy Roundup and Green Living Fair, and it was obvious to me then that the issue is near to his heart. (See "Renewable Energy Roundup Facilitates a Better Future" in the September 2004 issue of The Good Life.) He is proud of Public Citizen's success in bringing together wind companies and other businesses involved in the renewables sector with a range of pro-renewables activists. Smith has been eloquent in promoting a vision of Texas as a world leader in renewable energy-a vision that foresees both a cleaner environment for Texans and many new jobs in a sustainable industry. As he mentioned in his anniversary speech, the greatest tangible marker of this vision may be the enormous King Mountain Wind Ranch in McCamey, out in West Texas. When built in 2001, the facility's 278.2 megawatt capacity made it the largest wind-power project in the United States.

So what dragons might Public Citizen slay next? Smith said that the biggest challenge of the upcoming session of the Texas Legislature is sure to be the two-headed monster of campaign finance and ethics reform. "Fewer and fewer people with more and more money really control Texas politics," he said, "and the policies passed by the Texas Legislature reflect that." He's sure that the old saw that you "dance with them that fund you" is truer than ever, and that the funders of our elected officials are the ones calling the tune for our public policy.

During his speech at the Public Citizen anniversary party, Smith railed against the pervasiveness of so-called "issue ads" that skirt campaign funding limits as they attack opposing candidates; he vowed to do everything he can to stop such ads. Proclaiming that "we're in a real struggle for the heart of democracy," Smith also pledged to fight for meaningful limits on the amount any individual can give in a single political race, a restriction that exists for federal elections but not for Texas elections. Talking with me later, he projected just as much assurance but more gravity. His prediction for ethics and campaign finance reform? "It's gonna be a huge fight."

Huge fights are nothing new for Smith or his organization. Indeed, the story of the first twenty years of Public Citizen's Texas office seems like one long tale of chutzpah in the face of overwhelming odds. The office has stood up for the decent thing again and again, and has attacked apathy, corruption, greed, and ignorance at every turn. Progressive Texans can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that Smith and Public Citizen have been on the case for so long. Craig McDonald told me that "without Smitty's hard work over the last nineteen years, progressives would be several giant steps behind…where (they are) today." At the anniversary party, Kirk Watson likewise noted that it was important to "take stock of how much good can be and has been done for twenty years."

So do take stock, do breathe that sigh of relief-but then follow Smitty Smith's lead and agitate.

Given the state of Texas and national electoral politics, Tim Walker has committed himself to following Smitty's example as much as he can during the next four years. You may contact him at twalker@goodlifemag.com.