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.

Still Fighting the Swamp in Texas

While this is a blog related to political philosophy, I only occasionally write about actual politics. But this is one of those days, with some inside baseball-type details.

Luke Macias, of Texas Scorecard, gives the details better than anybody, so you may want to listen to him on this. We’re talking about what happened last Saturday, December 7, when the Republican Caucus of the Texas House met to choose their speaker—or, technically, to go over rules and try to come to agreement. I think an actual physical vote happens in January when the full House meets at the start of session.

The Texas House is at a hinge point: either
keep the swamp or listen to the voice of
the people and let conservatives lead.
Image from a visit to the Texas Capitol
with the grandkids in 2018.

Texas is a red state, with blue and purple pockets, mainly in the big urban areas. And we just moved even more red this election. Even Harris County elected several Republican judges and a couple of other countywide positions. So you’d think it would be a given that the House Republicans would get together and agree on their leadership. But that hasn’t been happening.

This has been a frustration in the state for quite a while. Some nominal Republican makes backroom deals with the full contingent of Democrats, and then adds a few Republicans, and gets themselves elected as the Republican-majority Speaker. We saw it with Straus, and most recently with Dade Phelan. Phelan, you may recall, was on video, apparently drunk while wielding the gavel at the end of the 2023 session. I don’t know whether that was the actual explanation for the slurring, but it sure looked like it.

Phelan wielded a lot of power. He kept Republicans supporting him by giving money to their campaign coffers (I think he apportions it from some fund; it doesn’t come out of his own pocket), and by promising them committee assignments that matter to them. He does the same with Democrats.

In our platform, we’ve been calling for no Democrat committee chairs; Phelan refused to listen. So Phelan was primaried this past February, and people from around the state went to his district to block walk and do the retail campaign work. His opponent very nearly took him out, but Phelan managed to win—we think by having Democrats cross over and vote in the Republican Primary.

Phelan was insisting he’d be Speaker nevertheless. There were challengers, and it had come down to David Cook. Early on Tom Oliverson had put his hat in the ring; he’s local and reliably conservative, and promised to end the Democrat chairs so we could get some legislation through this next session. I don’t know when he dropped out, but the conservatives I know are satisfied with Cook. I don’t personally know much about him, so I am going on trust.

Rep. David Cook is the Republican Caucus choice for Texas House Speaker.
Image and contact info from his House website.

We precinct chairs wrote resolutions, and sent letters, emails, etc., to pressure our legislators to vote for a conservative who would end Democrat chairs—and that could not be Phelan. I think maybe Phelan felt the lack of support might be insurmountable, because of the disdain he has drawn. Anyway, last week he dropped out of the race—but recommended a substitute who would keep the little fiefdom of RINOs alive: Dustin Burrows. Burrows was the Calendars Committee Chair last session. And Calendars is where good bills go to die. In that position, he could just keep bills from getting a floor vote. The story of the last session was, good bills came out of the Senate, which either never got assigned to committee, or weren’t heard in committee, or didn’t come out of committee, or died in Calendars when didn’t get scheduled for a floor vote. The Governor’s priorities couldn’t even get done in multiple special sessions, after the failure of the regular session.

On Saturday, at that Caucus meeting, they decided on rules, which included that the entire Republican Caucus would vote together on their choice, rather than letting the Democrat minority plus a few Republicans choose the Speaker.

During two votes, no one got the needed number of votes. Then, during a short break, the Burrows group asked for a longer break—which is not supposed to happen; votes come right after one another to avoid dealmaking and undue pressure. Three hours later they still hadn’t come back. They had tried to break quorum. The remaining members easily elected David Cook. But simultaneously Burrows announced that he had the votes and would be the new speaker. He claimed to have all the Democrat votes plus enough Republicans to put him over the top.

Rep. Burrows, Phelan's choice as the House Speaker,
combined with Democrats and a relatively small
contingent of Republicans to claim he had the votes
to be the next Speaker. He is not conservative, and
he is not the choice of the House Republican Caucus.
Image from his House website.

He had the hubris to put out a list, and almost immediately eight on that list declared that they were not voting for Burrows and had not given him their endorsement. Even some Democrats said that; they had other Democrat choices, so why would they vote for a Republican? And a few were on both the Burrows and Cook lists, so their allegiance was unclear.

What we were seeing was the backroom deal that they’d done clandestinely in the past, but now, maybe because of desperation, they were doing it brazenly and openly. A raw push for power. In this case, even without the actual votes, they seemed to think, if they said it, people would cave, because that had always worked in the past.

Over the next day or so, pressure came on those who were on the Burrows list, or both lists. Here in Harris County, we saw Mano De Ayala and Sam Harless declare for Cook (although Mano’s was rather tepid, sort of a “well, that’s the rule, so I’ll abide by it”). The only holdout in the county is my representative, Lacey Hull.

Lacey Hull, and contact info, from her House website

She fell in with the Phelan swamp almost the moment she got elected in 2020, which was a disappointment. She had talked the conservative talk in her campaign. She’s a pleasant personality, and I still find her open and willing to talk about our important issues (not that this is a common occurrence, but I met with her in her office before the 2023 session, and I see her at occasional political events that precinct chairs go to). On a few issues she even works on with enthusiasm. But there are other things she’s just been weak on, for reasons that are hard to explain, other than the swamp milieu. She voted for the AG Ken Paxton impeachment—because the allegations were serious, but not because the evidence had been brought in that two-day sham hearing sprung on everybody at the end of session in 2023. It’s hard to dismiss that.

She was primaried both in 2022 and 2024. But there’s power in incumbency. I supported an opponent in 2022, and Hull nevertheless treated me as though she was unaware of that, which was helpful. In 2024 I didn’t feel good about her opponent, so, with misgivings, I voted for Lacey Hull. I had ended up campaigning for precinct chair at the early voting location where Lacey’s mother was campaigning for Lacey, and her mother is as pleasant to be around as she is. It’s hard not to like Lacey Hull. But I continue to be disappointed that she didn’t turn out to be the solid conservative we thought we were electing. (There are personal scandals people talk about; I haven’t ever talked about them with her, but my assumption is they’re true, unfortunately. It means less support for family values.)

So, how do we persuade a person to do the right thing? It has to be by convincing them it’s in their best interest.

I don’t know what she was getting, exactly, from Phelan and his minions. But maybe if she realized what support she would get by standing up for conservative causes, she wouldn’t miss having to do shady deals with the devil. Maybe she could actually convert to being a conservative bright star. I think that would be a great outcome. We could have a successful conservative session—unblocked by RINO obstructionists—and we’d be happy to let her take credit for that in her next campaign.

The precinct chairs in the entire County have been putting pressure on our representatives. Last Monday, the Harris County Republican Party passed a resolution calling for all the Republicans in the County to follow the Caucus rules and vote with the Caucus for David Cook.

With Lacey Hull now as the last holdout in the County, all the pressure will now be aimed at her. The precinct chairs in her district (me included) are sending out a resolution—a statement letting her know that we expect her to abide by Caucus rules, and will be sending that to media as well. Statewide, the County Republican Chairs have all signed resolutions pressuring the 26 or so holdouts. President-elect Trump has tweeted about the Texas Speaker race—and he’s on the conservative side with us.

Meanwhile, I’ve been getting campaign texts galore from Burrows—describing Cook as a RINO and claiming to be the conservative who fights for Governor Abbott’s conservative agenda, which Burrows literally stonewalled last session. The lies are blatant. They’re asking people in the districts on Burrows’ list to contact their representative and tell them to support the “conservative,” Burrows, for Speaker.

This is a screenshot from a text sent
to my phone on December 10. This is 
a blatant lie. Cook didn't solicit support
from the Democrats; Burrows literally
and openly did that. This text was linked
to something called redgop.vote.

This pro-Burrows text also came to my phone
on December 10. And this is also a lie:
Burrows deliberately thwarted conservative bills
in the last session. And Burrows is certainly
not "the most conservative member
of the Texas House." The text was signed
"Paul, The American Opportunity PAC"

We thought the ubiquitous campaign texts were coming to an end, after the November election. This isn’t even a campaign the people can vote on; all they can do is let their representatives know their opinions. And, unless you’re paying attention to something like this—during the post-election, Christmas season—you might believe you’re doing the right thing to tell your representative to vote for the conservative, but just have the wrong name attached. These aren’t coming to the neighboring districts, by the way. Just to the ones Burrows doesn’t want to lose, or maybe some he thinks he can gain back.

It's not going to work. We’re determined to get a conservative Speaker this time. “Be not weary in well doing,” right? But I the need to fight for conservatism in Texas is relentless.