State Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, says he had heard enough complaints about a new state agency that is supposed to help homeowners who have problems with builders. So, he wrote a letter in August to Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, asking her to look into the operations of the Texas Residential Construction Commission.

Strayhorn is running for governor as an independent this year against Gov. Rick Perry, who signed the bill creating the agency. She jumped at Smith’s offer.

Meanwhile, a state House leader questioned Strayhorn’s right to conduct a detailed study of the agency.

Last week, Strayhorn issued a blistering report. She disclosed that most of the initial 102 homeowners surveyed by her office say their builders did not make required repairs even after their complaints about defects were confirmed as part of a new required state inspection and resolution process.

In a news conference, Strayhorn blasted the TRCC as a “builder protection agency.”

Builder lobbyists, while protesting that her harsh language doesn’t match the tenor of her office’s more sedate report, say they will work with Smith and others to examine the validity of Strayhorn’s recommendations.

Under a Texas law that was enacted in 2003, anyone who buys a new home is covered by a state-mandated limited warranty created by the TRCC. Home buyers also have to follow the commission’s rules for resolving disputes with builders.

Smith says he plans to introduce a bill in the 2007 Legislature to fix problems with the TRCC.

“If we’re going to spend taxpayer money on this purpose, then we have got to create an agency that actually helps homeowners that have valid complaints to resolve their conflicts,” he said.

The rap by consumer groups against the TRCC is that it was created by the powerful homebuilding industry as a way to block home buyers from initially suing builders in court. Critics say that the new commission is top-heavy with builder interests, and some of those builders are major contributors to the campaigns of Perry and state lawmakers.

Builders say the commission is supposed to be fair to everyone, and any problems are mere growing pains as the agency works out kinks.

In Smith, however, consumer advocate groups have found an unexpected ally.

Janet Ahmad, president of the San Antonio-based HomeOwners for Better Building, says she is overjoyed that Smith got involved and that the comptroller’s report confirmed that the TRCC is a “bureaucratic mess.”

Smith, who began his legislative career in 1996 as a quiet back-bencher, has emerged in recent years as a maverick Republican. He initially supported then-House Speaker Pete Laney, a Democrat, when Laney was trying to hold onto his job in anticipation of a Republican takeover of the House.

Now Smith is taking on one of the most powerful state financial interests. But powerful interests are not limited to the homebuilding industry: “I am regularly concerned about the powers of a variety of special-interest groups to pass legislation that is not good public policy, and this is another situation where that may have occurred.”

In August, he asked Strayhorn to make “an independent assessment” of the TRCC.

He didn’t anticipate that his request would cause a ruckus, but in retrospect, he says, it’s easy to understand why it did.

“Sometimes simply asking a question can cost you the support of a major contributor group in state politics,” he said. “So it is understandable why some members are reluctant to simply ask the question.”

For Smith, this is not a problem. As he runs for a sixth term, he faces no opponent.

“I think the people in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford area have my backside,” he says. “The people I represent would want me to ask this question, and that’s why I’m not afraid to.”

Until the release of Strayhorn’s report, there was lots of grousing about the TRCC by consumer groups, but no official state study of the new agency.

A rare public criticism came in May, as first reported in The Watchdog column, when state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, who introduced the bill in 2003 that created the commission, expressed serious regrets.

Duncan called the TRCC an agency operated “by the builder, for the builder.” He questioned the agency’s independence from the building industry and had this to add: “The people that are being regulated by the act are the consumers, to a certain degree, as opposed to the builders.”

Initially, Strayhorn’s study attracted little attention. Then Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, chairman of the House Committee on State Affairs, wrote to Attorney General Greg Abbott asking if the comptroller had authority to probe the TRCC.

Asked about this attempt to scuttle Strayhorn, Smith said: “The idea that an individual member of the Legislature has to go through authorized channels to obtain information that he or she may need to get to the bottom of a situation is asinine, you know?”

Swinford says he wasn’t trying kill the report, but to establish whether the comptroller has the power to monitor an agency that he believes should be overseen by lawmakers. “I agree with Todd,” he said. “A legislator should be able to get information.”

Strayhorn’s cover letter to Smith, attached to her office’s report, cited TRCC’s lack of “authority to hold builders accountable for shoddy building practices.”

A majority of homeowners surveyed, the report stated, are “disappointed and angry” with the process. Her letter suggested that members of the commission board should not have “ties to the construction industry.”

TRCC Executive Director A. Duane Waddill released a statement that he accepted the report as a tool to help the TRCC do its job better.

Jay Dyer of the Texas Association of Builders says his lobbying group looked forward to working with Smith as the legislator crafts solutions to any perceived problems.

Bob Bennett, Executive Officer of the Greater Fort Worth Builders Association, said, “It’s going to take a little time to work the process out. ... It’s our industry. We sure don’t want to have a black eye. We want to work with the consumers, but we want to be fair to the builders, too.”