A split in Texas Republicans has Austin in a mess. But Democrats are split, too | Opinion
The Texas Legislature hasn’t even met yet, and it’s already a mess.
Four weeks from opening day for a session beset with healthcare, education and money problems, the House speakership is vacant, and Gov. Greg Abbott is making that election more confusing.
State Rep. Dustin Burrows, 46, a hard-nosed committee chairman and Texas Tech champion from Lubbock, claimed that he was on the verge of lining up 76 votes to be elected speaker Jan. 14.
Having a coalition speaker elected by both Republicans and Democrats is often the only way the Texas House actually gets something done.
It beats the heck out of five months of constant intraparty fighting.
On the other hand, state Rep. David Cook, 53, the former 12-year Mansfield mayor and a prominent local lawyer, has more MAGA and Republican support, including from presidential son Donald Trump Jr. and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
They argue that all 88 House Republicans should choose the same candidate for speaker — Cook.
In a Texas that is at least 54%-46% Republicans, the House has managed to achieve four-way political gridlock.
Both parties are split almost 50-50 into intramural factions that refuse to yield control.
Republicans are divided between business conservative leadership and MAGA insurgents seizing power. Democrats are equally divided between battle-weary incumbents and increasingly loud and defiant progressives under the party’s new House leader, Houston Democrat Rep. Gene Wu.
In the weeks after a volatile election, when both Texas Republicans and Democrats are still itching for another partisan smackdown, it is darn tough to argue that the House needs to stop the campaign talk and get to business.
Abbott didn’t help last week.
He spoke up on the House speaker election and failed to close the door to Burrows.
First, a PAC set up by his campaign consultant’s son sent out an ad for Burrows. It showed him with Abbott and the headline, “Support Burrows.”
It seemed logical that Abbott would support a candidate who has supported his agenda, particularly a school-voucher plan.
But within hours, under a social-media bombardment from state and national MAGA forces backing Cook, Abbott issued not one but two X.com posts disclaiming the ad.
“To be clear,” he wrote late on Dec. 10, the ad was published “without my authorization or even knowing about it.”
When the hubbub failed to subside, Abbott returned to X.com.
“Let me be clear,” he wrote at midafternoon Dec. 11, and then went on to be opaque.
He referred to his campaign spending last year that helped primary challengers beat anti-voucher Republican incumbents, including new Reps. Helen Kerwin of Glen Rose and Mike Olcott of Parker County.
Abbott worked to “pass conservative laws, including school choice,” he wrote. “To achieve that goal we need a Texas House Speaker chosen by a majority of Republicans in accordance with the Republican Caucus Rules.”
That would seem to refer to Cook. Yet Abbott left that vague.
Then Patrick chimed in.
Cook “won fair and square by caucus rules,” Patrick wrote on X.com later Dec. 11.
“Any Republican Speaker candidate who attempts a coup d’état to steal the Speaker’s gavel with a majority of Democrats and only a handful of Republicans will never be accepted by Republican voters ... It’s time for 76 House Republicans to come together today,” Patrick wrote.
He ended his comment, “The nation is watching.”
True, Cook was technically the choice of a majority of Republicans at their caucus meeting Dec. 7.
He can say he won. But he didn’t clear the required 60% until after a lot of Burrows voters had left the meeting, lowering the threshold.
Cook, once a law partner to the late Arlington state Sen. Chris Harris, could make this election easier.
He could negotiate with Fort Worth- and Dallas-area representatives to win more Republican and coalition support.
North Texas hasn’t had a House speaker in 30 years. Right now, Houston leaders completely dominate state government, except for Attorney General Ken Paxton of McKinney.
Texas leaders used to make that kind of deal. Years ago, former House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland, known as a hardline Republican conservative, added college campuses in South Texas to gain Democrats’ support
So these questions remain:
▪ Whether a MAGA candidate can make a deal with anyone else at all, ever.
▪ Whether either Burrows or Cook can win without making a deal.
▪ And whether the governor will ever be clear.
This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 12:23 PM.
