It happened again.
If madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, Republicans are certifiable.
Republicans expected Republican state reps to vote like Republicans, despite two decades of evidence to the contrary, and once again, Republican voters were disappointed.
State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) won the Texas House speakership after two rounds of voting on Tuesday, the first day of the 89th Legislative Session.
Burrows, of course, is the latest catspaw of the Democrat-backed Straus/Bonnen/Phelan cabal.
“I want to be very direct on one overriding concept: this is the people’s House,” Burrows said in an acceptance speech. “This is greater than any one person, and any one faction. This is a sacrifice, and I accept that sacrifice readily. If you voted against me, my door will be open for you.”
The final vote broke down with 85 in favor of Burrows, 55 in favor of state Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield), and nine registering as present-not-voting. Burrows was then sworn into office by Secretary of State Jane Nelson.
Burrows’ effective governing coalition is 36 Republicans and 49 Democrats — and is the first time a speaker was elected in the official vote with a minority of his own party behind him in recent memory.
In the first round of voting, Burrows was five votes shy of the 76 needed to win with Cook pulling in 56 votes and state Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos (D-Dallas) receiving 23.
Ramos was then eliminated and the top two moved onto a runoff.
The three candidates were nominated by their colleagues:
Burrows – State Reps. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth), Mihalea Plesa (D-Dallas), Toni Rose (D-Dallas), and Lacey Hull (R-Houston) Cook – State Reps. Trent Ashby (R-Lufkin), Ellen Troxclair (R-Lakeway), James Frank (R-Wichita Falls), and Richard Raymond (D-Laredo) Ramos – State Reps. Christina Morales (D-Houston), John Bryant (D-Dallas), and Jolanda Jones (D-Houston) The slate of speeches had distinct themes. Ramos’ supporters showed displeasure with the GOP-controlled state, calling for a change in leadership. Cook’s were much more positively-imbued, calling for reforms to the process that put members in the driver’s seat and reduce the power of the speaker — save for Raymond’s, which blasted Burrows and former Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton) over their past scandal that ended Bonnen’s speakership after one term as well as his current involvement behind the scenes of the legislature.
For over two decades, Republicans have fought hard against the cabal. More recently, Attorney General Ken Paxton, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Governor Greg Abbott, and once and future President of The United States of America Donald Trump have come out strong against the cabal. And while last year saw many of Phelan’s closest confederates knocked off, once again the cabal has thwarted the will of Texas Republican voters.
When it comes to speaker races, the cabal remains undefeated.
Update: People have asked for a roll call of votes, so here it is.
Tags: 89th Texas Legislature, Dade Phelan, Democrats, Dennis Bonnen, Dustin Burrows, Joe Straus, Republicans, Texas, Texas Speaker's Race
“Burrows’ effective governing coalition is 36 Republicans and 49 Democrats.”
This will end with tears.
Nuts
I’m not from Texas so I’m curious. Is the Republican Party that fractured? I’d have thought electing a speaker would be easy with a solid majority like that.
The problem is that the real parties in American politics are no longer the GOP and the Dems;; they are the Aristocrat and Freedom parties. At the moment, the Aristocrat party is dominant in the Texas Legislature. When the next primaries come, we’ll see whether that’s because GOP voters simply weren’t aware of the change in parties, or whether they really do like the Aristocrat party. Given how much of the state voted for Trump and how the last primaries went, I’m guessing the right-wing faction of the Aristocrats is in for a bloodbath, but I could be wrong.
We need a list of the RINOs who voted with the machine, and against the GOP platform and GOP House caucus rules.
Hopefully, PDT’s people can then issue some sort of X condemnation of them, calling them out by name.
And then perhaps the megadonors can start recruiting primary opponents for them.
I second LKB. Name and Shame the RINOS.
We need to know who to primary.
From Brandon Waltens:
The 36 Republicans who voted for Burrows are:
Jeff Barry (Pearland)
Cecil Bell (Magnolia)
Keith Bell (Forney)
Greg Bonnen (Friendswood)
Brad Buckley (Salado)
Dustin Burrows (Lubbock)
Angie Button (Garland)
Giovanni Capriglione (Southlake)
Tom Craddick (Midland)
Drew Darby (San Angelo)
Jay Dean (Longview)
Caroline Fairly (Amarillo)
Gary Gates (Richmond)
Stan Gerdes (Smithville)
Charlie Geren (Fort Worth)
Sam Harless (Spring)
Cody Harris (Palestine)
Cole Hefner (Mount Pleasant)
Lacey Hull (Houston)
Todd Hunter (Corpus Christi)
Ken King (Canadian)
Stan Kitzman (Brookshire)
Stan Lambert (Abilene)
Brooks Landgraf (Odessa)
Jeff Leach (Allen)
Janie Lopez (San Benito)
John McQueeney (Fort Worth)
Will Metcalf (Montgomery)
Morgan Meyer (Dallas)
Angelia Orr (Itasca)
Jared Patterson (Frisco)
Dade Phelan (Beaumont)
Carl Tepper (Lubbock)
Gary VanDeaver (New Boston)
Denise Villalobos (Corpus Christi)
Terry Wilson (Georgetown)
It’s not the Republican Party that’s fractured in Texas, it’s just that a shrinking number of squishy/business-oriented Republican representatives backed by a well-heeled cabal of monied interests, gambling concerns and Democrats has managed to thwart the will of Republican voters time and time again. I can’t explain the phenomena (other than “money talks”) because I don’t fully understand it myself.
Why does the old “pledge card” practice of selecting the Speaker endure, notwithstanding that “supporting the caucus’s choice for Speaker” has been an official plank of the official Texas GOP platform for many years?
It’s good old fashioned corruption / retail politics. (I used to work for the Texas Senate many decades ago . . . the names at the Capitol change but the game remains the same.)
The Speaker of the Texas House is probably the most powerful position in Texas state government under the Texas Constitution of 1877. And that power can be used in ways that are completely opaque and incredibly lucrative.
Plus most of these Quislings know that their squishy pet projects will never see the light of day under a conservative Speaker / chairs, so they ally with the Dems to make sure they can get what they want through.
I’d hoped that the RINOs would have learned from the last election that crossing the party’s base can be hazardous to your continued political health. But apparently the money was just too good for enough RINOs to continue the game.
We must teach them the lesson again.
The reason we know who the 36 backstabbing traitors are is because the vote was made public for the first time. Previously, the RINO faction didn’t want their voters to know they were betraying them, so they kept the voting private and then wailed later about how horrible things were…
Abraham George (Texas GOP Chair) has a choice to make. He can take candidates off the Republican Primary Ballot in 2026 for doing just what the backstabbing traitors did. We shall see if he has the stones to kick them out of office for their actions. I doubt it, but remain hopeful that he will stick to his guns. I hope that the backstabbing traitors just experienced a Phyrric Victory, and will be erased from power.
[…] Democrats and Republicans. And she has. But one of the first names to pop-up was Joe Straus (or the cabal), who she gave $1,000 to in 2016. Funny that, a Michigan CEO giving a grand to a Texas state rep […]
I saw my state representative, Cole Hefner, on the list. I sent him a short e-mail with a link to this post, and got a response that satisfied me pretty well last night. After I asked, he said it was OK to post here.
This is my explanation of my vote. Thank you for reaching out to me.
Some are saying that Cook is conservative. But the fact is his record reflects the opposite. While mayor he voted to ban fracking. He voted to legalize gambling and has a dismal pro-life score of 59. He’s also attempting to buy democrat votes for speaker by offering them additional budget for vice chairmanships. I didn’t run for this office to vote for a moderate speaker. My district expects me to vote for what will produce the most conservative results.
Dustin Burrows has a proven track record of delivering conservative results. He authored the bill to lower what cities and counties could increase property taxes without a vote of the people from 8% to 3.5%. He lead the charge on passing constitutional carry, banning abortion, and making Lubbock a sanctuary city for the unborn. And when Dallas/Fort Worth wants to come take our water, I want a rural conservative speaker who understands, and will fight for our property rights, vs a moderate DFW rep who will take the side of the big city he represents. Below is something I prepared that goes into a little more detail. Again I appreciate you reaching out. Not many people do that. And I won’t just tell you what you want to hear. I want to tell you the truth and why my vote will go to Burrows.
Who I’m Supporting On the House Speaker Race:
Rep. Dustin Burrows has my support for Speaker of the Texas House because he is the most conservative candidate. He has proven, time and again, that he can deliver on conservative priorities while serving in leadership positions.
As Ways & Means Chair, Burrows passed the key bill of the2019 session to cut down local governments’ threshold for increasing your property taxes, from 8% to as low as 2.5%.Burrows also delivered even more recently on historical wins for conservative priorities: as Calendars Chair, Burrows ensured the successes of bills including the Texas Heartbeat Act, the ban on child gender modification, constitutional carry, and preventing boys from joining girls’ sports. Earlier this year, Burrows was a key player in the Texas Conservative Commitment: a roadmap for getting conservative priorities passed this upcoming session. That commitment looks to achieve border security, school choice, election integrity, a pathway to zero school property taxes, an end to indoctrination in public schools, restoration of our public universities, establishment of state sovereignty, protection from hostile foreign nations, a ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying, and grid reliability.
There are so many more conservative stances and leadership wins from Rep. Burrows that have inspired my confidence in him:
• On Life at Conception: Burrows advocated for Lubbock to become a Sanctuary City for the Unborn in 2021.
• On Israel: Burrows has been a consistent and strong supporter of Israel. He condemned protests by college campus radicals and called for the total eradication of that terrorist group, Hamas.
• On Big Government: Burrows authored the “Texas Regulatory Consistency Act,” a bill so ruthless on its crackdowns of bureaucracy that it came to be known as, “Death Star Bill.” Burrows’ bill pulled regulatory authorityback to the state and away from thousands of local governments with their costly and complicated compliance burdens.
• On School Safety: Burrows authored the bill requiring armed security on every school campus in Texas after chairing the Investigative Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting in 2022.
• On the Border: Burrows co-sponsored border security legislation to stop illegal immigration at the southern border and keep Texans safe.
• On Drugs: Burrows voted against legislation reducing punishments for marijuana possession and against the decriminalization of cannabis possession.
As an East Texan, I’m as conservative as you can possibly get. I want to Texas to be the reddest state in the union and leader on conservative policy. That is my motivation for supporting Rep. Burrows and not Rep. David Cook. Rep. Burrows has proven to be the stronger conservative and leader.
Wait — David Cook Isn’t as Conservative as Dustin Burrows?
That’s right. Rep. David Cook has a troubling track record when it comes to supporting conservative policy, dating all the way back to the start of his career as a staffer for a Democratic legislator in Austin:
• Cook earned an ‘F’ rating on the Texas for Fiscal Responsibility index and Texas Right to Life, and a ‘C’ on Texans for Vaccine Choice. He didn’t score much better on other scorecards for conservative policy. Notably, Cookscored as more progressive in comparison to many incumbents who lost re-election this cycle for being insufficiently conservative.
• In 2023, Cook voted “Present, Not Voting” for fundingschool choice, which pretty much means he hid his non-support behind a non-vote. Cook gave the victory to anti-school choice members without having to vote “no.”
• In 2023, Cook voted against an amendment banning tax breaks for companies funding out-of-state abortions or gender modification surgeries.
• In 2021, as a Member of the Texas House, Cook voted to keep Democratic Chairs in the Texas House.
• In 2021, Cook voted against bills that would have exempted charter schools from paying property taxes on leased buildings and eased fees, zoning and permitting requirements, so they enjoy the same benefits as public schools.
• As Mayor of Mansfield, Cook fought the oil and gas industry with restrictive ordinances and banned fracking, supported a two-cent property tax hike, championed a $25 annual fee for each species of livestock someone owns, and opposed revenue caps for the city of Mansfield municipal budget, which keep rising property taxes in check and prevent cities from levying property tax increases.
Those are just a few examples of Cook’s troubling track record. To sum it all up: where Rep. Burrows has been consistently conservative, Rep. Cook has consistently fallen short of the Republican mandate.
Sorry, the formatting that showed in the comment box apparently didn’t survive hitting the “Post Comment” button. I don’t see a way to edit in the paragraph and line separations.