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Transportation commissioner billed taxpayers for trips while advocating for auto industry
by Jay Root, Texas TribuneBefore billionaire Warren Buffett learned that his new Texas car dealerships had a big problem with the state’s protectionist auto laws, his company had a small problem with them.
To fix that small problem, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Automotive turned to a man juggling perhaps too many roles for his own good: a state highway commissioner and former chairman of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles who is also an auto industry consultant and namesake of five of the Berkshire dealerships.
“Chairman, members, my name is Victor Vandergriff,” he said at an April 16, 2015, Senate committee hearing. “I’m here representing Berkshire Hathaway Automotive Group.”
Vandergriff, the former legislative chairman for the Texas Automobile Dealers Association, wanted the Texas Legislature to change the law that that prevents insurance companies from owning body shops. The law was designed to keep insurers from steering auto repair claims to body shops they own.
Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/09/transportation-commissioner-mixes-state-business-auto-industry-advocac/
