It’s been an eventful couple of weeks. The Collin County Republican Party chartered a bus that took 54 of us to the State Capitol in Austin for the first day of the 89th Legislative Session last Tuesday, January 14th. We visited many legislators in their offices, witnessed the new legislature being sworn in, and importantly witnessed the vote for Texas House Speaker. As your County Chair, I will always strive to keep you informed about the facts and details.
Speaker Drama
The Speaker candidates were David Cook (R), Dustin Burrows (R), and Ana-Maria Ramos (D). We’ll come back to that in a moment.
Flashback to early December: the Texas House Republican Caucus met to vote for the Republican choice for Speaker. Central to the Speaker decision was the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Legislative Priority to prohibit appointment of Democrats as Committee Chairs, which had dominated Speaker conversations for months. Dade Phelan, Speaker at the time, was a candidate up until the 11th hour before the Caucus meeting, then withdrew, and Dustin Burrows stepped forward.
Caucus bylaws state that Republican House Members are supposed to vote for the Speaker candidate who wins that early December Caucus vote. Whether you agree with the bylaw or not, it’s the rule nonetheless, and one which Dustin Burrows himself helped usher in years ago. How times have changed. Moreover, most of those insisting that Cook be elected Speaker cited the importance of following those rules, because it’s very important to follow the rules as Republicans (despite crickets by many of the same folks two years ago when a small handful of Reps violated that same rule in opposition to Dade Phelan).
After two rounds of voting with no winner, a group of Republican House Members left the Caucus meeting and didn’t return. After a couple of hours, those remaining (who still had a quorum) voted for David Cook as the Republican candidate for Speaker. Shortly thereafter, Dustin Burrows announced he had the votes for Speaker citing those Republicans who left the Caucus meeting and numerous Democrats. Then certain House Reps on the list indicated they hadn’t pledged support, and uncertainty lingered.
I spoke publicly in support of David Cook who, as the consensus candidate, I felt would have allowed the acrimony surrounding the Speakership for many years to subside, at least somewhat. Alas, that was not to be.
Fast-forward to last Tuesday. Numerous people were in the House Gallery to witness the vote. Numerous more were in the halls outside. Access to the Gallery was ticketed, as it always is for the first day of a legislative session. Attention was drawn to several empty seats in the Gallery, as not every ticket was distributed, and not everyone who had a ticket stayed in the Gallery the entire time.
To be elected Speaker, a candidate needs a majority of votes (not merely a plurality), so a full 76 votes of the 150 House Members. On the first round of voting, no one had a majority. The top two vote-getters, Dustin Burrows and David Cook, went to a runoff vote. Burrows won with 85 votes and became Speaker of the Texas House.
No Republican House Speaker has been elected in Texas without some Democrat votes, just based on the math. As I’ve written before, Texas Democrats are smarter than Congressional Democrats, and court the Republican Speaker candidate who will throw them the biggest bone. Historically, that bone has predominantly come in the form of appointment of Democrat House Members as Chairs of some Committees.
Burrows would not have won without at least some Democrat support. However, Burrows won with more Democrat votes than Republican votes. That ain’t good and is a problem that’s going to cast a shadow over his Speakership.
It was presumed that Burrows would appoint some Democrats as Committee Chairs, as has been the historic practice, but that would be decided by the vote on the House Rules, which were tabled as the House recessed until after the inauguration of President Trump.
Then President Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States. Hooray!
The Rules Vote
The House reconvened yesterday to finally take up the matter of the House Rules. A proposed rules package was submitted to House Reps in the wee hours, along with a synopsis of the notable changes, which you can access here (courtesy of Brad Johnson). Notably not changed was the Mask Mandate inserted into the rules in the 2021 legislative session (I’m not kidding; see here). So yeah, House rules now have a mask mandate.
Here are the big changes to the rules:
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Members of the minority party shall not be appointed as chairs to Standing Committees. In other words, the rules banned Democrat Chairs as the Republican Party of Texas Legislative Priorities called for. However…
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Members of the majority party shall not be appointed as vice-chairs. In other words, all of the vice-chair positions will be held by House Democrats.
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AND, those vice-chairs will have more power than vice-chairs have previously had. Notably, they can usher bills up to be considered (but they can’t block or kill bills), and they can invite witnesses to provide testimony in House Committees. But wait… there’s more
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Subcommittees are created which CAN be chaired by Democrats. The Speaker or Committee Chair can directly refer bills to the subcommittees. However, anything passed out of subcommittees must still be heard by the committee of the whole. I’m uncertain, however, whether Subcommittee Chairs can block legislation from being heard or referred to the Standing Committee. I presume the Standing Committee Chair could unilaterally pull up anything from the subcommittee, but I’m not certain.
The rules (HR 4) were laid out by Rep. Todd Hunter (R), then Rep. Jared Patterson (R) made a motion to hold the vote on the rules. Rep. Mike Schofield (R) spoke against this with a group of support behind him, noting that it would prevent further debates or proposed amendments. The motion passed 107-35. The rules were then voted on, which passed 116-23, mask mandate and all. That ain’t good either, and will likewise cast a shadow over the entire 89th Legislative Session. But we have a Speaker, we have House rules, and it’s all over… for now.
What It All Means
To be crystal clear, the people championing the “Ban Democrat Chairs” movement feel rightly that the goalposts were shifted, because “Ban Democrat Chairs” never came with a concession. It presumed the dynamic of vice-chairs as unchanged. Some would be Democrats and others not.
However, despite the claims that Democrats were given more power, this simply isn’t the case unless the Republican Committee Chairs allow it. They may have been given more power than the RPT Priority assumed or those championing it wished for, but Democrats do now have less power than they did previously. Except for my uncertainty about subcommittees, Democrats cannot block bills, which I believe to be a good thing. I’ve had bills (filed on my behalf) blocked by Democrat chairs, so I’m particularly sympathetic to this.
The real test will be the flow of conservative and RPT legislative priorities. I keep pointing out to folks that session after session we hear “This was the most conservative session ever,” and it’s usually not true. However, in 2021 (mask mandate year), it was true. In that year, more RPT legislative priorities were passed or advanced than in any other session ever. By the way, that was under Speaker Dade Phelan. Yeah, bloody ironic.
Hand-in-hand with all of this are the calls to censure anyone who voted for Burrows for Speaker, and calls to censure anyone who voted for the rules yesterday. This is all with the intent to exercise the potential penalty for censure of prohibiting an elected official from running in the next Republican Primary Election. That means denying ballot access and the ability to be the Republican candidate in the next General Election.
The fact is, RPT rules don’t allow censure for that. The RPT rule that deals with censure is Rule #44 (page 37 of RPT rules), which specifically requires three separate acts in the current term (which started last Tuesday) that violate RPT Core Values or Legislative Priorities. Neither voting for Burrows for Speaker nor voting for the rules violated either the Core Values of Legislative Priorities. But now rules don’t matter anymore. Try to keep up.
By the way, attempts to call out the Republican House Members who voted against the rules for violating the “No Dem Chairs” Legislative Priority are disingenuous because everyone knows that those Republican Reps weren’t voting in favor of Dem Chairs, they were voting against exclusive Dem vice-chairs with leveled-up vice-chair powers. Truth matters, y’all, so no, they can’t be censured either.
Additionally, while many are upset that Dustin Burrows was elected Speaker–especially how he was elected Speaker, claims that he is a Democrat are likewise disingenuous. Reality doesn’t just come in black and white. I’ve worked with Burrows on conservative legislation, notably Property Tax Reform and Banning Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying, both of which have been RPT Legislative Priorities.
It turns out that reality is really complicated–much more so when a bunch of humans are thrown into the mix. In this case, we have 150 humans in the Texas House of Representatives, and countless more within the RPT and the Texas Democratic Parties.
I highly encourage everyone to seek out and try to understand nuance, to reject black-and-white thinking, and to take the freaking win when you get it, even if you’ve only gained a single yard. I’d much rather fight for each yard than forfeit the game.
Stay tuned for what promises to be a drama-filled 89th lege, where we’ll be making frequent appearances to advocate as best we can for policy that improves the lives and Liberty of all Texans.
Shelby Williams
Chairman, Collin County GOP
Plano City Council – Place 5