Winners and losers from the Texas House speaker’s race

  

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After he was elected speaker of the Texas House on Tuesday, Rep. Dustin Burrows promised that his door would be open to everyone in the chamber — even those who supported his rival, Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield.

“I commit to you today, every member will have a voice,” said Burrows, R-Lubbock. “Every district will have a seat at the table.”

Still, one of the most contentious speaker’s races in Texas history likely will leave scars on the chamber. Upon winning the gavel, speakers have historically directed the spoils — from prized chairmanships to high-profile legislation — to members who were in their corner early and remained loyal under pressure to defect. And while some speakers have had a bigger punitive streak than others, it is an equally well-worn tradition for House leaders to mete out some form of discipline to those who challenged them or bet on the wrong horse.

With the dust still settling from Tuesday’s floor vote, here are some winners who stand to gain from Burrows’ ascent to the speaker’s dias — and some potential losers who might see their clout diminish.

WINNERS

Current House leadership team

Burrows is taking over the gavel from one of his closest allies, former speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont. His elevation suggests that many of Phelan’s lieutenants — close allies who chaired key committees under his watch — will hold onto their influence and continue dictating the flow of legislation.

That faction, all of whom stuck with Phelan and then Burrows amid attacks from the right, includes Rep. Greg Bonnen of Friendswood, who chaired the budget-writing Appropriations Committee; Rep. Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi, who headed the influential State Affairs Committee; and Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano, Burrows’ deskmate who oversaw the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee.

Also part of the House leadership team is Rep. Morgan Meyer of University Park, who chaired the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Will Metcalf of Conroe, who oversaw the House Administration Committee. And Phelan, who appointed Burrows to run the powerful House Calendars Committee, could be in line for a committee post of his own now that he no longer wields the speaker’s gavel.

The prospect of the Burrows-Phelan cadre holding onto power was a sore spot for some Cook supporters. Rep. Richard Raymond of Laredo, one of three Democrats to support Cook, said Cook’s speakership would move the chamber away from a process “where only a few are allowed into the room of influence and decision.”

GOP political consultants and election lawyers

Burrows’ election laid the groundwork for a scorched-earth fight in the 2026 House Republican primaries.

Hardline conservative activists swiftly vowed to target Burrows and his 35 House GOP supporters at the ballot box. The sentiment drew support from some of Burrows’ critics inside the chamber, too.

“I look forward to seeing if they’re still laughing after the next round of primaries,” Rep. Shelley Luther, a freshman Republican from Tom Bean, wrote on social media. “The fight starts today.”

But first, party activists may try to keep those members off the ballot altogether. Shortly after Burrows’ election, Republican Party of Texas Chair Abraham George told reporters that pro-Burrows Republicans could soon be censured by the party — a move that, under new party rules, would bar them from appearing on a primary ballot for two years.

Any such effort would almost certainly face a legal challenge.

Democrats who backed Burrows early and loudly

Democrats may see their influence wane if the House adopts a proposed rule next week barring the speaker from appointing members of the minority party to chair any committees. Still, more than 30 Democrats got behind Burrows’ speaker bid from the jump, and some of them could be rewarded for their loyalty.

Those Democrats could benefit by being assigned to carry nonpartisan priority bills or find it easier to pass legislation and budget items related to their districts.

Jim Riddlesperger, a political science professor at Texas Christian University, said Burrows’ influence over the state budget — which most recently totaled more than $300 billion — is his best tool to give Democrats something they want without alienating Republicans.

“Many of our state and local issues are not terribly partisan,” Riddlesperger said. “Concrete on roads is not terribly partisan. Law enforcement is not terribly partisan, even education is not, by nature, partisan. … The truth is that there are all kinds of opportunities for the speaker to play ball with some of the Democrats.”

All five returning Democrats who chaired committees last session were included on Burrows’ initial list of supporters in December: Reps. Terry Canales of Edinburg, Harold Dutton of Houston, Bobby Guerra and Oscar Longoria of Mission, and Joe Moody of El Paso.

Burrows also got a boost on the House floor from Democratic Reps. Toni Rose and Mihaela Plesa of Dallas, who delivered speeches nominating and seconding Burrows’ speaker bid. Plesa urged her Democratic colleagues to coalesce behind Burrows rather than throwing a protest vote to the Democratic speaker candidate, Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos of Richardson.

“I know some of y’all are thinking about waiting for a second ballot, but friends, today is not the time to play risky games,” Plesa said. “That’s exactly what the people who want to silence our voice want this chamber to do today.”

Republicans who picked the right horse at the last minute

Shortly before the House convened Tuesday, Burrows picked up support from Rep. Cecil Bell Jr. of Magnolia and incoming Rep. Caroline Fairly of Amarillo. Both had initially supported Cook before making late defections.

Both Republicans have already drawn backlash from the right, but in the meantime, they could be in line for more influence than if they had stuck with Cook through the end.

The Panhandle and West Texas

In announcing her switch to Burrows, Fairly urged the remaining holdout from the Panhandle, fellow Amarillo Rep. John Smithee, to join her and Reps. Ken King of Canadian and Carl Tepper of Lubbock in supporting Burrows. Having a speaker from Lubbock backed by the rest of the area “will give the Panhandle a level of influence we have never experienced before,” she said.

Though Smithee remained in Cook’s camp, Burrows is nonetheless in position to benefit Lubbock and the rest of West Texas by directing funds to local projects and ensuring passage of bills wanted by local stakeholders.

He has already moved to boost Texas Tech University — the Lubbock-based school where he received two degrees — in his earlier terms in the House, helping lead efforts to create a new veterinary medicine school and establish a new multibillion-dollar endowment to fund research projects at Texas Tech and other university systems.

Among the possible beneficiaries of a Burrows speakership is Amarillo businessman and GOP megadonor Alex Fairly, who announced in December he would spend $20 million to establish a new political group aimed at pushing the Legislature further to the right.

Fairly initially signaled he would use the group to target Republicans who teamed with Democrats to pick the next speaker, but he softened his tone last week, releasing a statement in which he vowed that his group “will not use its funds to ‘primary’ any Member based on their vote in the Speaker election.” Days later, his daughter, Rep. Caroline Fairly, switched to Burrows’ camp.

LOSERS

Members who switched to Cook late in the game

Several members switched from Burrows to Cook or came off the sidelines late in the game in favor of Cook, leaving them in an unenviable spot after Tuesday’s vote.

Among the late defectors who backed the losing candidate were Raymond, the Laredo Democrat, and Rep. Ryan Guillen, R-Rio Grande City. Guillen played an especially prominent role under Phelan’s speakership, chairing the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee last session and carrying priority border legislation in the chamber.

After the chaotic GOP caucus meeting in December, Cook also scooped up support from three Houston-area Republicans — Reps. Charles Cunningham, Mano DeAyala and Sam Harless — who had been named on Burrows’ initial list of supporters. Cunningham and DeAyala stuck with Cook through both rounds of voting on Tuesday; Harless voted for Cook in the first round, then switched to Burrows in the final vote.

Right flank of the House GOP Caucus

Burrows’ win was a blow for the rightmost faction of the House Republican Caucus, most of which lined up behind Cook and saw their best chance in years to fulfill a years-long bid to win control of the lower chamber from establishment Republicans.

Some of the most outspoken anti-Burrows members could have been in line for key chairmanships if Cook had prevailed, or otherwise been tasked with carrying major GOP priority bills that have typically gone to Phelan’s allies under the current power structure.

At the core of Cook’s support was a group of incoming freshmen who ran on explicit pledges to oppose Phelan’s speakership. Some of them adopted a combative posture immediately after Burrows’ election in a sign that they had no interest in making amends.

But Burrows probably will not look to punish every Republican who was aligned against him, Riddlesperger said. Now that the leadership clash is over, he said, Burrows will likely be looking to build goodwill on the right — meaning that Cook supporters looking to extend an olive branch could find a receptive audience.

“He’s acutely aware that most of his supporters were Democrats, but he’s a conservative Republican who wants to work with a Republican majority,” Riddlesperger said. “He’s going to have to, I would say, very carefully walk that fenceline between rewarding the Democrats and Republicans who supported him, while not vilifying in any way the conservative Republicans who opposed him, because he’s going to be reliant upon those Republican votes to pass his agenda.”

Influential House Republicans who turned against Phelan

A handful of GOP House members could lose clout in the chamber after joining early calls for Phelan’s ouster and then sticking with Cook even after Phelan exited the race.

That group includes two members, Reps. James Frank of Wichita Falls and Tom Oliverson of Cypress, who challenged Phelan for the gavel after he had appointed them to chair House committees. Also challenging Phelan for speaker were Reps. Shelby Slawson of Stephenville — who served on the influential Calendars and State Affairs committees and carried a priority social media bill — and Smithee, the Amarillo Republican, who also served on State Affairs.

All four got behind Cook after he emerged as the standard-bearer for the anti-Phelan GOP faction, and continued to support him through the House floor vote. Cook had also been steadily climbing the ranks under Phelan: as a sophomore, he served on the Calendars Committee and passed a GOP priority bill aimed at reining in “rogue” progressive district attorneys.

Also siding with Cook was Rep. Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin, who was also a committee chair under Phelan but broke from most of the old leadership team when he endorsed Cook in early December. In an apparent jab at Burrows, Ashby said in a floor speech Tuesday that Cook “believes true leadership is not about concentrating power in a single individual but about empowering others.”

Tim Dunn and other outside forces trying to reshape the House

If there was a theme of the pro-Burrows floor speeches, it was that members should side with Burrows in a show of force against the wealthy GOP megadonors who, Burrows’ supporters alleged, were supporting Cook in their latest bid to shift the chamber further right.

Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, suggested that some of the anti-Burrows chatter flooding social media was underwritten by those outside donors — akin to efforts aimed at swaying public opinion ahead of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s 2023 impeachment trial by enlisting paid social media influencers.

“We need to elect a speaker who will uphold our traditions,” Geren said. “And despite what you hear from paid influence, paid by billionaires that want to control this room, they’re not going to.”

It remains unclear how much of the anti-Burrows online campaign was waged by GOP donors. But some of Cook’s most vocal supporters were hardline conservative activists who have spent years trying to elect more insurgent House members and install more conservative and uncompromising leadership. Among the biggest boosters of that effort is Midland oil magnate Tim Dunn.

Dunn and another West Texas billionaire, Farris Wilks, have poured tens of millions of dollars into far-right candidates and movements who have incrementally pulled the Texas GOP and Legislature toward their hardline, anti-LGBTQ+ and immigration stances.

Last month, the Dunn- and Wilks-funded Texas Conservative Project PAC donated $250,000 to the Republican Party of Texas, according to a party campaign finance disclosure filed Wednesday. The party reported spending more than $160,000 to promote Cook’s speaker bid in December.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, said earlier this week that Dunn and Wilks already controlled the other levers of state government, “and now to complete their takeover, they’re trying to buy the Texas House.”

Also aligned against Burrows was George, the Texas Republican Party chair, who threatened to send negative mailers into the districts of GOP members supporting Burrows. George also rallied with Paxton in some of those members’ districts in a bid to apply further pressure.