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The Texas GOP Has a Bold Agenda — If It Can Stick Together

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Elderberry:
Governing by Jared Brey 12/12/2024

School vouchers, border enforcement and energy infrastructure are on the GOP agenda in Texas. A fight for speaker of the House could determine its prospects.

In Brief:

•   The Texas Legislature is meeting for its biennial session next year.

•   New members in the House of Representatives, backed by Gov. Greg Abbott, have pulled the Legislature even further to the right.

•   The House must elect a new speaker, with two candidates backed by different factions vying for the position.

Conservative Republicans have an iron grip on Texas state government, but their own caucus is proving to be a bit more slippery.

The rapid growth of Texas’ population in recent years has also coincided with a political shift to the right. The last time Democrats held a branch of government in Texas was 2002, when they had a majority in the state House. Gov. Greg Abbott, one of the most conservative governors in the country, was elected for a third term in 2022. In the spring primary, Abbott successfully backed a slate of conservative candidates in challenges to House Republicans who’d been resistant to parts of his agenda. In the November election, when President-elect Donald Trump won more than 56 percent of the Texas vote, Republicans won an additional seat in the state Senate, bringing their majority there to 20-11.

All signs point to a clear runway for the Texas GOP to enact its agenda in the 2025 session — or most signs, anyway. Before the party can enact any of its priorities, state representatives will need to select a speaker of the House. Speakers control which bills get committee hearings and can slow or stop the progress of legislation in the House, giving them lots of leverage to extract concessions in negotiations with other lawmakers.

The current speaker, Republican Dade Phelan, narrowly survived an Abbott-backed primary challenge in the spring and recently announced he won’t be seeking another term as speaker. Most of the GOP caucus rallied around Rep. David Cook, a conservative ally of Abbott, in party meetings earlier this month. But another Republican, Dustin Burrows, is also claiming to have enough support from a mix of Republicans and Democrats to win the speakership. The House will vote for speaker in mid-January.

The fight for the speakership has surprised some observers, who saw Abbott’s success in the primaries as momentum for new conservative leadership in the House. While the factions aren’t neatly ideological — almost all of Texas’ Republicans are deeply conservative — the leadership contest clouds the prospects for certain aspects of the GOP agenda. It could also complicate the dynamics between the two legislative chambers; the Senate Republicans have been much more aligned under the leadership of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick than the House has been.

More: https://www.governing.com/politics/the-texas-gop-has-a-bold-agenda-if-it-can-stick-together

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