Although some members of the Texas House of Representatives thought they might know Saturday who’ll be the Speaker of the House, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way.
The Texas House Republican Caucus met Saturday afternoon and after a couple of votes and no winner in the Caucus race for House Speaker, some members walked out.
But the voting continued a short time later, and this time there was a winner: North Texas Rep. David Cook, who won 48-14 over Lubbock-area Rep. Dustin Burrows.
But there may be a complication to Rep. Cook’s win, if it’s true that Democrats, who are decidedly in the minority in the Texas Legislature, won’t vote for Rep. Cook, which could put his victory in jeopardy.
And shortly after Rep. Cook won, Rep. Burrows announced he has the vote of Democrats and already has the vote of more than two dozen Republican members of the House, so he could pull an upset win during formal voting in the full House this January.
The political maneuver by Rep. Burrows leaves an air of uncertainty over the Speaker race, with five weeks still to go before the 2025 Texas legislative session begins.
Unless one of these candidates drops out, Texans can’t be certain who’ll be House Speaker until an entire vote of the House is taken in mid-January.
Montgomery County Rep. Steve Toth told Newsradio 740 KTRH that Rep. Cook is the real winner in the race for Speaker and that he doesn’t see any real pathway for Rep. Burrows to win.
It’s important to remember that Rep. Burrows, who appears now to be the challenger to the results of the Republican Caucus’s vote, is an ally of current Speaker Dade Phelan, who’s considered by the more conservative Republicans in the House to be a “Republican In Name Only” (RINO) and is sometimes thought to be too deferential to House Democrats.
Speaker Phelan, however, has built a loose network that resembles a coalition between some Republicans and Democrats and has benefited from loyalties provided by some Democrats over the years, and Rep. Burrows could become a beneficiary of that coalition.