Lt Gov. Dan Patrick rules the Texas Senate. Now he seeks influence in the House

Table Of Content

• h Texas Legislature convened on Jan. 10, will run 140 days until May 29.
• David Covey forces runoff with Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who led AG Ken Paxton’s impeachment
• Exclusive: How a Right-wing Texas Think Tank Ducked Its Property Taxes
• WFAA would like to send you push notifications about the latest news and weather.
• Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan heads to runoff against Trump-backed GOP primary opponent
• Texas House speaker heads to a runoff against a Trump-endorsed challenger
• High School Sports
• Gov. Greg Abbott appears with embattled House Speaker Dade Phelan for first time in heated primary season

Both candidates and their surrogates will likely spend millions of dollars trying to sway voters in what are typically extremely low-turnout contests. The third candidate in the race, anti-tax crusader Alicia Davis, won only a fraction of a vote but prevented Phelan and Covey from securing the 50% necessary to win outright. – After the #Txlege Senate passed #SB17, Phelan’s team (led by @repjohnkuempel) GUTTED the bill in Committee, and sent that weak bill to the floor. Additionally, alongside Paxton, Trump joined in campaigning against Phelan, and included the speaker on a lengthy list of candidates he was seeking to be ousted, largely in line with Paxton's political hit list. "Today's election results have revealed that the battle for the soul of Texas is far from over," Paxton wrote.

h Texas Legislature convened on Jan. 10, will run 140 days until May 29.

At one point, Patrick said they had not spoken in two years — a far cry from the weekly leadership breakfasts attended by Patrick, the governor and then-Speaker Joe Straus during Patrick’s early tenure as lieutenant governor. Phelan is the first House speaker in 52 years to be forced into a primary runoff. The speaker is elected by the 150-member House when lawmakers convene in Austin every other year, meaning the outcome of Phelan’s race will not determine who wields the speaker’s gavel next January. Jill Glover, the legislative priorities committee chair of the party, told The Texas Newsroom in a text message she was displeased with the decision, but is now looking forward. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan on Wednesday announced the appointment of nine Democrats as committee chairs, defying the Republican Party of Texas and other GOP activists who called on him to end the tradition. “The reason they died in the House is, one, Democrats are largely opposed to any type of school choice program, but also several rural Republicans are … unsupportive of different education savings accounts,” Torres said.

David Covey forces runoff with Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who led AG Ken Paxton’s impeachment

A similar bill which Phelan also backed passed the House last session but was reduced back to six months by the Senate. Covey denies that he is simply a pawn of the attorney general and far-right interests, though he announced his candidacy in June, when local Republican parties began censuring Phelan in the wake of the House’s impeachment vote in May. Paxton, who vowed revenge on the lawmakers who tried to oust him, campaigned for Covey at a rally in Beaumont in January. Meanwhile, Phelan’s speakership is becoming a liability for his Republican allies on the campaign trail who are being quizzed during debates over whether they’d support him as the chamber leader, should he win.

Exclusive: How a Right-wing Texas Think Tank Ducked Its Property Taxes

Phelan spoke with reporters about the May 28 runoff after an official event at UT Dallas on Tuesday. Back in August, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan said rapport among the state’s top Republicans had greatly improved. But that was before the strain of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial in the Senate in early September. Some of the House’s more conservative Republicans, such as Krause, have said Phelan should have time during the session for members to judge his actions one way or the other. Faced with the choice between a woman candidate and the candidate who already claimed to have the votes, the group went public with its pick of Phelan. In the group’s meeting with Phelan, members asked how he would handle controversial social issues — and “he said he would do his best to make sure we are on track and able to get business done,” state Rep. Jessica González, a Dallas Democrat and member of the bloc, said.

Even if Phelan survives the runoff, he faces a fight to continue leading the House. State Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, recently announced his campaign for speaker, a position selected by a vote of all 150 House members. Oliverson shares a political consultant with Patrick and is the lieutenant governor’s next-door neighbor. The speaker has defended the practice of letting Democrats oversee some committees, arguing that it helps the Legislature avoid Congress-style gridlock without holding up conservative priorities.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan heads to runoff against Trump-backed GOP primary opponent

He was defeated by a progressive Democrat, Fred Head, who was a sitting House member who moved to Price's district to challenge the speaker, according to "The House Will Come to Order," a history of the Texas House speakership published in 2010. "Dade Phelan has dodged debates since the beginning of the race for Texas House District 21," Covey said on Thursday in announcing his newest campaign ad. "Why? Dade Phelan can’t defend his liberal record to the people of Southeast Texas."

How Ken Paxton’s impeachment may end Dade Phelan’s career - The Texas Tribune

How Ken Paxton’s impeachment may end Dade Phelan’s career.

Posted: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

“But because Dade Phelan is the Republican speaker and he is the  ‘overseer,’ leader of that chamber, several far-right members are pointing at him and making it seem like it’s his fault that school choice hasn’t been passed. Now, far-right members of the House and Texas GOP leadership have called for Phelan to step down, painting the speaker as disloyal, a Republican in name only, and more. The mutual recriminations are set to culminate in just a few days when the Texas House and Senate reconvene for another special session. Moments after the Senate voted to acquit Paxton on all counts, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the judge in the impeachment trial, unleashed a rhetorical blowtorch castigating the House leadership for wasting the time and resources of the state by pushing forward with impeachment charges. But on a number of occasions, Phelan has sided with Republicans on some of the more conservative proposals that have ended up at the Legislature. In 2017, Phelan voted for an anti-“sanctuary cities” bill that prompted mass protests among Democrats and Latino organizers.

“The expiration date on Dade Phelan’s speakership is plainly written on the bottle,” Patrick said after Covey received 46% of the vote in the March primary to Phelan’s 43%. Lawmakers also agreed to spend more than $6 billion over the next two years to pay for an array of border security functions, most of which goes toward apprehending and jailing migrants under Operation Lone Star and building a wall along parts of the Texas-Mexico border. The speaker hires parliamentarians to draft decisions on points of order “so that they comport with precedent” and follow the House rules approved by members at the start of every session, said Andrew Cates, an Austin attorney and expert in parliamentary procedure at the Legislature. “Phelan felt strongly enough to push a rushed impeachment process, but he couldn’t find the will to vote for SB 4, which serves to protect Texas families from the chaos taking place at our southern border,” Covey said.

"It’s been 19 days since Ducking David Covey started hiding from SETX voters by REFUSING a local televised debate and for 19 days, Ducking David has neglected to accept the invitation, negotiate, or answer to House District 21 voters," Phelan posted to X in early April. Criticizing and down playing Patrick's and Paxton's interest in the race, Phelan over the past month has gone on the offensive against Covey, painting his challenger as being solely responsible for keeping voters from hearing the candidates debate. In the March 5 primary, Covey bested Phelan by roughly 3% of the vote in House District 21, along the Texas Gulf Coast, forcing Phelan to become the first House speaker to face a runoff since the 1970s. Phelan's campaign has called Covey's claims about reaching out to the incumbent to schedule a debate false and highlighted that as of Thursday the challenger's campaign has yet to respond to the TV stations' official debate invitation, which was sent April 1. Phelan, however, contends that Covey is skirting an opportunity to address Southeast Texas voters in a televised debate, painting his intraparty challenger as a political pawn for outside interests. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan and his Republican primary runoff challenger, David Covey, are both accusing each other of avoiding a date on the debate stage ahead of the marquee state House election next month.

The seat Phelan won covers an area of the state that stretches along the Gulf Coast and snakes up against the Texas-Louisiana border, and it has been devastated by hurricanes and floods in recent years. In 2019, he was one of the main architects behind a number of disaster relief- and flood mitigation-related bills that stretched beyond partisan lines and directed $1.7 billion toward flood control projects and repairs across the state. While still a relatively new member of the Legislature, his experience in Texas government and politics is broad. While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Phelan cut his teeth at the Capitol by working as an aide to Democratic state Rep. Mark Stiles. After graduating with a degree in government and business in 1998, Phelan moved to Washington, D.C., to work for U.S. Rep. Dick Armey, then the Republican House majority leader who represented Texas’ 26th Congressional District.

Regardless, Phelan said he has no regrets about impeaching Paxton, and he said that tolerating corruption may harm the long-term prospects of Republicans in Texas. He views Republican Sen. Drew Springer’s revelation last week that he was reconsidering his vote to acquit Paxton as vindication that the House was right. Those local groups who censured him, Phelan said, are “insider baseball party people” who will conjure any excuse to defend Paxton.

Even with a vibrant economy, a single parent who can work, afford childcare, healthcare, transportation and housing, is indeed rare. Tax-free diapers, wipes and other childcare supplies would be a great start, and so would ensuring health coverage for new moms that lasts - not sixty days, not six months but a full year. As I look out upon this distinguished gathering, I see 149 people - ordinary Texans - who are eager to get to work on extraordinary things. I am grateful to the majority of you who have honored me with your vote, but I am proud to represent all of you as Speaker of the 88th Legislature. Three female judges targeted by Paxton on the Court of Criminal Appeals also lost. They were part of an 8-1 majority that stripped Paxton of the power to prosecute voter fraud without permission from local prosecutors.