Austin. Rep. Ded Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, is scheduled to give a long-awaited test Saturday, urged by more conservative members of his party:
Republicans seeking to become speaker of the Texas House of Representatives must win a secret ballot to determine the choice of GOP caucus members in the House of Representatives.
The vote, held weeks before the speaker is elected by the 150-member House of Representatives on the first day of the session, will be the first contested vote for the speaker since the assembly moved there. Request a pre-session within the group. Vote for the next Speaker of the House.
Phelan, 47, a real estate developer who was just elected to a fifth term in the House of Representatives, is the top favorite to lead the House again in the next session that starts on January 10.
Arlington will face GOP Rep. Tony Tinderholt at the GOP caucus Saturday morning at the Capitol Extension.
Tinderholt, 52, a retired Air Force major who won a fifth term earlier this month, posted one of the most conservative voting results of any member of the House of Representatives. .
He accused Phelan of undermining conservatives, as his two Republican predecessors had done, by not ending the House's longstanding practice of drawing committee chairs from both the majority and minority parties. Democrats have been in the minority in the House of Representatives since 2003.
Republican Councilor Luke Macias, who has been close to Tinderholt, said that even if the Tarrant County Legislature fails to get approval at Saturday's meeting, it would spark an "unprecedented" inter-party race.
Macias said pressure to end bipartisanship in speaker races, which has reduced conservative influence on legislative outcomes, forced the 2017 rule change and helped persuade San Antonio Republican Party Chairman Joe Straus not to seek re-election.
But during the political preparations for the 2018 and 2020 presidential sessions, former Angleton & Phelan chairman Dennis Bonnen "came to caucus twice and made a deal with the Democrats," Macias said. According to Machias, this allowed each to declare that they had enough votes in the House of Representatives to effectively rule out calling Republicans to a caucus.
"Tony Tinderholt understands better than anyone how to work effectively in the House of Representatives," he said. “He knows that without pressure, Ded Phelan will continue with a more liberal agenda and the caucus will join him. Now is the time to stand up and announce the Phelan Games.
Reverse strategy
However, some prominent Republican strategists in Texas, such as Karl Rove, believe the party's long-term interests are best not to move too far to the right and cheat the legislature in a bipartisan fashion, a process that could lead to compromise. During a public appearance earlier this week at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Rove, a former governor and strategist for former President George W. Bush, defended the tradition of hammering between the two major parties in the Texas legislature. That helps Austin avoid the legislative gridlock seen in Washington, D.C., Rove said.
However, far-right GOP activists in the state have long expressed frustration that Democratic committee chairs have helped delay some of their priority issues, such as school vouchers and tuition cuts.
Phelan followed the example of his predecessors and rejected suggestions that the House committee chairman split with a minority party, preventing the right wing of his own party from passing priority legislation.
In last year's regular session and the three special sessions that followed, lawmakers effectively banned abortion, allowed the illegal possession of firearms and introduced new rules on mail-in voting and other voting processes that civil rights groups and Democrats say dissuade minorities from voting. keeps . .
Phelan said his Democratic nomination to chair 13 of the 34 House standing committees last year didn't prevent a strong conservative job.
“I look at what we passed in the last session and what the Republican priorities are for the next cycle, and I'm asking what Democratic president is blocking the Republican priorities of the 87th [Legislative Assembly]? t.” Phelan said at the Texas Tribune Festival in September.
On November 4, Tinderholt stated in a statement that it would challenge Phelan for president, stating that the Texas Republican Party's platform called for the party caucus of the House of Representatives to elect a caucus chairman and then hold that election so members could come together. The 2017 Bylaw Amendments are not currently applicable.
Tinderholt also noted that 1.5 million Republican voters voted for Proposition 6 in the GOP primary in March. The non-binding referendum asks that "the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature cease the practice of appointing Democratic committee chairs." Only 350,000 Republicans voted against.
On November 18, Tinderholt said Phelan received 31 pledges from Democrats two years ago when he released a list of 83 supporters a day after the 2020 presidential race ended.
"He's trampled the base," Tinderholt said, vowing to take up the challenge before the House on Inauguration Day. "Until Ded Phelan is prepared to break his alliance with the most liberal Democrats in the House of Representatives, we cannot have a meaningful caucus vote that will do what it was intended to do: reduce the influence of Democrats."
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