Dade Phelan is no outlier in the modern history of speaker politics, having withdrawn from the Texas House leadership race despite wanting to remain in power.
Indeed, the 49-year-old Beaumont Republican, who as recently as Friday said he was seeking a third term in House leadership, is continuing a nearly unbroken tradition dating back nearly half a century as speaker of the House. Either his support base collapsed after the speaker limped away, or the court was hot on his butt.
Unlike the lieutenant governor, who is elected state-wide for a four-year term as president of the Texas Senate, the speaker of the House is elected every two years by a vote of members. The Lieutenant Governor can impose his will on the 31-member Senate and claim a statewide mandate supported by millions of voters, but the Speaker of the House, if he so desires, can impose his will on the 31-member Senate and claim a statewide mandate supported by millions of voters, while the Speaker of the House can impose his will on the 31-member Senate and claim a statewide mandate supported by at least 76 of the 150 competing egos. At times we must rally uneasy coalitions and have ambitious personal agendas. Remains in power from one session to the next.
Mr. Phelan, who was re-elected to the House district in November and plans to remain an at-large member, has fallen victim to the increasingly loud drumbeat of conservatives who say Democrats should not have powerful committee chairmanships in the chamber. That is now well documented. Republicans have a majority of 26 seats.
That drumbeat led conservatives led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to accuse House Speaker Joe Straus, also a Republican, of bowing to pressure from House Democrats to contain red meat issues, including: It goes back at least eight years, maybe even longer. Which public restrooms should transgender Texans be allowed to use?
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Meanwhile, Straus said House Republican leaders and enough Democrats were dissatisfied with the leadership style of Midland Rep. Tom Craddick, who in 2003 became the first Republican to run the House since Reconstruction. After recruiting, he came to power. During his three terms as a lecturer, he was nicknamed “The Autocratic” by his critics.
Strauss served five terms and was looking forward to a sixth term. However, in the run-up to the 2018 election, he announced he would quit the House of Commons altogether to return to his private life, as he faced growing criticism from more conservative members of his party. In what may be a bit of political irony, Mr. Strauss will likely easily win that sixth term, which will be a record. That year, the Democratic Party won 12 House seats, not enough to control itself, but more than enough to give Strauss a coalition government.
Before Mr. Craddick took over, there were hopes that another five-term speaker would win the gavel for a sixth time. Pete Rainey of Hale Center, a town in the Panhandle, was the last of the traditional conservative Democrats to hold power in Texas. His term began in 1993, when Ann Richards of the progressive wing of the party was governor, an era in which, in election years, both sides could be expected to move in the same direction, at least most of the time.
Bearing in mind that Rainey presides over a party made up of white rural conservatives and urban liberals (many of whom are people of color), Rainey is a “vote your district” speaker. It was regarded as
During his time, a new phrase was added to the Texas political lexicon: “Rainy Republican.” Some House Republicans remained loyal to the Democratic chair even though their party was on a steady trajectory toward taking over the state. That takeover would be complete by the 2002 election cycle, but some in Rainey’s camp believed that his bipartisan coalition could be maintained if the House Republican majority was kept to a minimum. there was.
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But that wasn’t the case. After all, that year Republicans won the exact majority they won in November 2024. This complete takeover of the party spawned yet another Texas political phrase. It’s Craddick D’s, an abbreviation for the Democratic Party. They were House Democrats who recognized the writing on the wall early in the cycle, and while their newfound loyalty to Republican leaders ensured continued coalition control in the House, the rest of the party largely I felt dissatisfied.
After the 2008 election, many Craddick D’s remained loyal to the chairman, even though a coalition of Democrats and Republicans supported Strauss to defeat him.
The Rainey era, and the one that lasted throughout Phelan’s four years with the gavel, would change a difficult trend for the Texas chairman. As a result of a plea deal reached after Mr. Rainey was convicted of misdemeanor financial disclosure violations in 1992, House Speaker Gib Lewis dropped his plans to seek a fifth term and decided not to campaign for re-election. After making the decision, he assumed power.
Coincidentally, Mr. Lewis himself rose to the top of the House after a four-term term in which his immediate predecessor was indicted for accepting a $5,000 bribe in a 1980 sting. That was when I retired. Bill Clayton, whose first term as chairman began in 1975, was acquitted and reelected to the leadership position the following year. However, the issue appears to have ended his ambitions to run for statewide office in 1982, and he instead retired from electoral politics.
