The Texas House Could Use Some Deep Cleaning

Back in December we talked about the race for Texas Speaker—a vote by the House members. To review, on December 7, the Republican Caucus met and voted. The rules they consented to abide by said that House Republicans would vote for the Caucus choice; that choice was David Cook. But the other candidate, Dustin Burrows—the hand-picked replacement of Dade Phelan, who had to step down because of his unpopularity, hard-earned, by thwarting Republican priorities—announced that, regardless of the Caucus vote, he had enough votes to be speaker.

That announcement was premature, and offensive. His list included several Republicans who were not supporting him, as well as some undecideds. And even his claim of getting all the Democrat votes was premature at that point. So we had a little over a month to convert the minority of Republicans backing Burrows. Spoiler alert: we failed.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows,
screenshot from here

Usually this race is pretty invisible to us constituents. It’s just part of business on day one. And usually the outcome is well known ahead of time. But I was getting multiple text ads on my phone, trying to convince me that Burrows was the conservative choice—the one for border security and school choice, even though he had personally blocked those conservative bills last session, in his then role as Calendars Committee Chair (the committee where good bills go to die).

The Chair Vote

Fast forward to first day of session, January 14. Despite our grassroots efforts, Burrows’ minority of Republicans stood strong, and his Democrat coalition coalesced. There was no winner after the first round of voting. On the second round, a few Republicans switched over—to Burrows. One of these was Rep. Harless from here in Harris County. Sadly, my rep, Lacey Hull, despite our lobbying, stayed with Burrows from start to finish, and even gave a nominating speech. These betrayals to the conservatives gave the win to Burrows, for the Democrats and a minority of Republicans, just like we’ve had for the past 7 sessions or so.

Rep. Hull's X post attempting to convince us she's conservative.

Days later, they had to vote on House Rules. Among the rules was the vote to ban Democrat committee chairs—a grassroots priority. Yay!

Except, we wanted that in order to empower the majority Republicans, so we could get our bills passed. The Democrats gladly voted for this “loss of Democrat power.” Why would they do that?

It was a bait and switch. The new House rules indeed made it clear Republicans would chair all committees, but it also made it a rule that every committee vice chair would be a Democrat. In other words, it banned Republican vice chairs.

And then it changed the powers of the vice chairs so that they were the deciding factor in things like who would get to testify in committees, and when and whether issues would come up for discussion. The chair positions were turned into something like an administrative figurehead.

There’s more. Democrats could be appointed as chairs of any subcommittees—at the discretion of the House Speaker. And suddenly there was the invention of 12 new "permanent standing committees," a category that hadn't existed before. He could also decide who could be on these committees and subcommittees. We could have exerted Republican power by having more Republicans than Democrats on every committee and subcommittee—and by chairing any subcommittees. But our chairs don’t get to decide that; the Speaker does. And he’s intending to give something to the Democrats in exchange for their vote for him. And, did I mention, the 432-page Rules document got delivered at 4:00 AM of the day they would vote on them.

People are calling those rules the Democrat Empowerment Act.

House members usually get to debate the rules, and offer amendments. That was not allowed this time. Even the pre-filed amendments were disallowed. Take the rules as is or leave them—but leave them wasn’t an option. I mean, a House member could vote against them (many did), but all the Democrats plus the Burrows-voting Republicans made up a majority. So that was that.

Who Authored the Rules?

Rep. Steve Toth notes the initials at the bottom of the Rules pages; these included HLB. He asked Speaker Burrows whether these initials referred to Hugh Brady, the previous parliamentarian, and the answer was yes. He then asked whether Brady would be the parliamentarian again, even though Burrows had previously told Toth he would not. The answer was in was an inappropriate inquiry. But Toth persisted and got the non-answer that no permanent appointments had yet been made. (I looked it up to see if the appointment had been made and found this, from the Secretary of State’s Office, saying the House Parliamentarian is Sharon Carter, as has been the case since 2019, dated January 9, so that’s confusing.)

Rep. Steve Toth asks about the House Parliamentarian,
screenshot from here

Why is the name Hugh Brady coming up? Tom Glass gives credit to Bo French, Tarrant County GOP Chair, for figuring out the Rules authorship by Brady, because of the initials, and explains who Brady is in an X post on January 27:

Hugh L. Brady was appointed by Dennis Bonnen in 2019 as parliamentarian of the Texas House. Dade Phelan continued his tenure in 2021 and 2023.

Brady literally wrote the book on Texas House rules called Texas House Practice (now out of print and unavailable for purchase anywhere online) . He taught House procedure at UT Law. And he was an attorney in the Obama administration and parliamentarian for the Travis Co Democratic Party.

His law firm, Brady & Peavy earned fees while he was parliamentarian from multiple entities, including the City of Austin and Harris County to craft points of order for Democrats to use to kill conservative legislation that he then advised Bonnen and Phelan to sustain.

A lot of us had been wondering what he would be doing under Burrows. I had been told at the Capitol that he had not been appointed again….

One of the three initials on HR 4, the rules package rapidly rammed through without debate or amendment in DC Nancy Pelosi style was HLB, Mr. Brady's initials….

It is clear that the owners of Third Coast Bank (Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen & Dustin Burrows) have again won control for the swamp of the Texas House.

OK. We see now that the ostensibly Republican majority House Rules were written by an Obama administration Democrat. His priority was to empower the Democrat minority. 

Trying to Follow the Money

But what was that last part, about the Third Coast Bank?

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick brought this up, just days before the vote for Speaker. Brandon Waltens for Texas Scorecard explains:

In late 2019, Third Coast Bank acquired Heritage Bank, where former disgraced Speaker Dennis Bonnen had served as President, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer. Bonnen currently sits on Third Coast’s Board of Directors.

Outgoing Speaker Dade Phelan’s brother, Lan Phelan, was a director of Third Coast from 2013 until at least 2016, according to filings with the Secretary of State. Additionally, a 2021 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that the bank’s Beaumont location was leased from Phelan’s family investment firm. Phelan’s most recent financial reports also show he owns shares in the bank.

Last year, Texas Scorecard reported additional connections between Third Coast Bank and House members. State Rep. Cody Harris (R–Palestine) was hired as Vice President of Business Development in 2021, shortly after Phelan became Speaker. Other lawmakers, including State Rep. Dustin Burrows (R–Lubbock), were also found to own shares in the bank.

On Sunday evening, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick unleashed a fiery critique on social media, accusing five key figures—Dade Phelan, Dennis Bonnen, Greg Bonnen (Dennis’ brother and a current House member), Dustin Burrows, and Cody Harris—of running the Texas House like a “personal business” through a revolving door of leadership positions and shared financial interests.

While Patrick acknowledged that these arrangements are not illegal, he argued they have created a closed system that sidelines dissenting members and punishes those who refuse to comply. “They treat members like employees, not like equally elected House members,” Patrick wrote, likening the group to a “non-criminal version of the Goodfellas.” According to Patrick, dissenters risk being locked out of key committee assignments or seeing their bills blocked from consideration.

I can’t tell from all this whether the motivation for thwarting the conservative grassroots, who are loudly demanding better results—they succeeded in primary wins this year over some 15 previous squishes—is because of the desire for money or power. Probably both.

What Can We Do?

We need to drain the swamp in Texas. And it’s going to be hard to do.

One step is to let our representatives know we are watching. Push for conservative legislation—harder than we ever have. And keep track of their votes—in committees and their floor votes—on all our priorities. (The Legislative Priorities that came up from the grassroots and were voted on by delegates at last May’s convention can be found here.) 

They’re trying to disguise themselves as conservatives. That means they’ll have some motivation to vote for at least some of our important legislation. By applying enough of the right pressure, we might not have an entirely wasted session.

Note that voting against the Caucus choice for speaker is a censurable event. So is voting against a bill supporting the Preamble and 10 Principles at the front of the RPT platform (here). Three such censures can result in being ineligible to be on the ballot in two years. This was a Rule 44 change, to give some teeth to censures; we’ll see if it legally holds up, and whether County GOP groups follow through with the censures.

Texas Republican Platform Preamble and Principles

And, probably simultaneously (depending on how the session goes), we’ll be looking for primary challengers; that vote is just a year and a month away.

The House hasn’t gotten down to business yet. Committee assignments were to have been announced January 31, but Speaker Burrows has said the announcement has been postponed. Meanwhile, the Senate has been working for two and a half weeks. They have held hearings, and have already had a floor vote on SB2, the Senate’s school choice bill. More on that another day. (I haven’t fully studied it yet, but I’m hopeful. It uses other funding for the ESAs, while more money is being allotted per child in public education, so the fearful cries you’re hearing from public ed are likely misplaced.)

Anyway, constant vigilance it is again. The session only lasts 140 days. This year it runs from January 14 to June 2 (but plan on work to wrap up several days before that).

More Resources

Besides those linked above, here are a few more resources:

·        Rep. Nate Schatzline on X explains the situation.

·        Tom Glass on X mentions and links to Chris Salcedo interview explaining the situation.

·        Carol A. Spencer blog post “No Dem Chairs Vote Rings Hollow” talks about the permanent subcommittees and other new House Rules.

·        Katy Area Republicans post on Facebook January 26, 2025 shows a Rep. Andy Hopper video explaining the situation.