Could The Texas House Start With No Speaker

The next Texas legislative session starts in less than a month, but no presumptive Speaker of the House has emerged yet? Will there be a bloody battle on the floor of the lower chamber?

Odds are, no, but it’s not impossible.

The position is up for grabs after former Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) dropped out when he realized he wasn’t going to have the votes. Despite delivering on some of conservative’s biggest wish list items in the previous session, he earned the anger of Governor Greg Abbott for failing to pass school vouchers and Attorney General Ken Paxton for not stopping his impeachment. Though Phelan retained his seat in a narrow victory, it was clear he had no shot of leading the chamber again.

This leaves two virtually identical conservatives fighting to replace him: David Cook (R-Mansfield) and Duston Burrows (R-Lubbock). Both have deep conservative bonafides, and both have signaled an end to allowing Democrats to chair some committees, the latter of which became a political purity test for far-right Republicans angry at Phelan.

Cook has the support of most Texas Republicans, though not the bulletproof majority he would need for unconditional support under GOP Caucus rules. Burrows has the rest as well as making inroads with the chamber Democrats. It’s not a right vs center fight so much as a right vs very right fight, which is generally how Texas politics goes at the highest levels these days.

The intraparty fighting over the last several election cycles has been very bitter. The far-right wing of the party, backed by Christian nationalist oil and gas moguls Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, has been steadily ousting any Republican not perceived as appropriately conservative enough. This battle for the speakership is already a nasty symptom that this state of affairs will continue.

That said, there is little political future in bucking the GOP establishment too hard. Phelan’s fall from power is proof of that. Abbott and Paxton were both re-elected handily despite a myriad of scandals, political failures and, in Paxton’s case, legal troubles. They have the backing of the major donors in the state, and Texas is currently in the midst of a rightward swing.

Neither Cook nor Burrows can really afford to have the governor angry at them. Odds are one will blink and cede the role to their opponent, with plenty of promises to keep things moving in a conservative direction no matter what.

This next legislative session is likely to be nasty either way. School funding is reaching a crisis point in the state, but Abbott will not let any increase happen until he gets his vouchers. Rural Republicans are still balking, but their numbers dwindled after a dedicated primary challenge campaign spearheaded by the governor. The fight on the issue is going to pit many party members against each other.

Everyone involved knows that, and they probably aren’t going to derail everything else on the agenda with a protracted fight over the Speaker role, especially when Abbott’s Secretary of State Jane Nelson is there to step in while the representatives squabble. It’s possible that Cook and Burrows will dig in and fight for control, but they don’t have the support to withstand the weight of the governor.