What You Need to Know About the Race for Texas House Speaker in the 89th Session
Get up to speed on what really happened and learn what Republican voters can do to fight back.
Texas Speaker’s race on January 14th at the Texas Capitol.
January 23, 2025 | Media Inquiries: press@mctxgop.org
by Jon Bouché, Vice Chairman, Montgomery County Republican Party
Republicans across Texas worked extremely hard during the last election cycle to give the Texas House Republicans 88 of the 150 seats, which is 59% control of the House.
To elect a Speaker of the House, a simple majority is all that is needed, which is only 51% or a total of 76 votes. As such, the Republicans in the Texas House did not need even one single Democrat vote to elect the Speaker of the House.
Republicans in the Texas House did not need even one single Democrat vote to elect the Speaker.
The Speaker of the House is a powerful position because the Speaker alone decides who will chair the committees that work to navigate bills to the floor for a vote. There are no constraints within the House Rules on who the Speaker can appoint to chair the committees. As a result, only members of the majority party could be appointed to all chair positions if that is what the Speaker chose to do.
Republicans vs. “republicans”
Over time, as the Conservative Grassroots Republicans gained more seats in the Texas House, the moderate faction of the Republican Party defected and began teaming up with the Democrats to elect the Speaker, thus squandering the Republican majority in the House. This has been going on for over a decade.
The way it worked was that prior to the vote, the moderate “republicans” would make backroom deals with the Democrats to secure their votes. Because the total number of Democrats combined with the handful of moderates was more than enough to win the Speaker’s race, a moderate “republican” Speaker was elected. That Speaker would then work with the Democrats and appoint Democrat committee chairs. As a result, Republican bills would be killed or significantly watered down.
Because Republicans in the House and all across the state were so angered by this betrayal by the moderate “republicans,” under immense pressure during the last legislative session, the Republican Caucus adopted rules which stated that, going forward, whoever was nominated by the Republican Caucus would be supported by the entire Republican Caucus during the floor vote for Speaker. Interestingly enough, that rule was introduced by Rep. Dustin Burrows himself.
Caucus Rules for Nominating a Candidate for Speaker
The Republican Caucus Bylaws, Article VI, Sec. 6.04, establish a quorum as 50% plus one of the caucus membership. After a quorum is established, the bylaws state that a candidate must receive two-thirds of the vote of those present and voting in the first or second round. If that is not achieved, in the third round only three-fifths of the vote is required. If no candidate receives that, all nominations are withdrawn from the floor and the process is repeated until a candidate is selected.
What Happened at the December 7th Caucus Meeting?
After two rounds, no one had two-thirds of the vote, but Rep. David Cook had secured more than a majority of the caucus votes and led the other candidate, Rep. Dustin Burrows.
Prior to round three of voting, the faction supporting Burrows asked for a recess, which the Chairman of the committee denied since the committee had only been in session for less than 30 minutes in total. When a motion was then made to recess, it went to a vote of the body but failed. Burrows and his supporters immediately stood up and walked out of the caucus and went to the Democrats to make a deal to secure their votes.
Meanwhile, with a quorum still present, Rep. David Cook won the nomination of the House Republican Caucus on the next round of voting with over 70% of those present and voting. But despite Cook securing the nomination, Burrows immediately held a press conference announcing that he was “Speaker Elect” and had secured enough votes from the Democrats to win the Speakership when it came to a floor vote on January 14th when the House opened session.
Republicans Across the State Repudiate Burrows’ Actions
Leading up to the vote for Speaker on January 14th, a tremendous amount of pressure was put on the Burrows faction to honor their word and comply with the caucus rules that they had agreed to and that Burrows himself had written. Attorney General Ken Paxton and Republican Party of Texas Chairman Abraham George traveled across Texas to the House Districts of those supporting Burrows and appealed to the voters to contact their representatives and express their displeasure with their actions. However, the Burrows faction would not be swayed even when an overwhelming number of their constituents contacted them to express anger about this betrayal.
The Vote for Speaker
On January 14, 2025, Dustin Burrows was elected Speaker of the House by a coalition of 46 Democrats and only 39 Republicans. The majority of the House Republicans honored their word and voted for the Republican Caucus nominee, David Cook, but they did not have the votes needed to elect Cook as Speaker since the Burrows faction had defected to the Democrats.
Dustin Burrows was elected Speaker of the Texas House by a coalition of 46 Democrats and only 39 Republicans.
The Aftermath
Immediately after Burrows and his group joined the Democrats, they began an intense propaganda and obfuscation campaign, making such false claims as:
The Republican Caucus Meeting was not valid.
Cook did not win the nomination because there was no quorum.
To be clear, the Republican House Caucus Meeting was properly held in accordance with the rules. And with a quorum present, Cook did receive the nomination of the caucus to be Speaker as reflected on the Texas House Republican Caucus website.
In addition, the Burrows faction went so far as to impugn the character of Cook and his supporters by claiming that “secret meetings” were held and that there were other nefarious activities which led to Cook receiving the nomination. The truth is, the entire process was very transparent, but since Burrows and his gang did not like the results and were not going to receive the nomination of the House Republican Caucus, they joined the Democrats.
Members of the Montgomery County contingent pray for Rep. Cook just before the Speaker vote on January 14th.
What Can Republican Voters Do Now?
Contact Burrows directly?
There are those who are advocating for the direct approach of calling Speaker Burrows to insist that he does not appoint Democrat committee chairs. But since Burrows has already demonstrated that he cannot be trusted, and when you consider that the majority of Burrows’ votes for Speaker came from Democrats, it is highly doubtful that any call to Speaker Burrows about this issue would yield positive results.
Contact your representative who betrayed you and continues to lie to you?
The representatives supporting Burrows have been sending out emails and posting on social media, stating that even though they voted for Burrows, they will vote against appointing Democrat chairs. This is incredibly dishonest.
In the 88th Legislative Session, when this very issue of banning Democrat Chairs was brought to the floor, it was immediately ruled as “out of order” since House Rules prohibit House resources being expended on political party matters. And make no mistake, the representatives who went along with Burrows know this, but they are really hoping that their constituents do not. That way when the motion to ban Democrat Chairs is introduced and immediately killed on the floor, the Burrows faction can feign ignorance as they try to save face with their constituents.
In fact, Grassroots Republicans should prepare for gaslighting and manipulation throughout this entire session from Speaker Burrows and gang. It is already being suggested that Burrows will support changing House Rules to prevent Democrats from chairing committees—but this will come with a caveat.
Grassroots Republicans should prepare for gaslighting and manipulation throughout this entire session from Speaker Burrows and gang.
The new “republican” Speaker is reportedly considering loading committees with Democrat majorities to prevent Conservative victories, while placing the blame for failed legislation on the shoulders of Republican committee chairs. It gets even worse. According to Burrows’ proposed rules, every committee vice chair will be a Democrat and the power of the vice chair will be increased to equal that of committee chairs!
The only way to navigate the fog will be to stay laser-focused on the Republican Legislative Priorities this session and judge success by the bills actually signed by Governor Abbott.
The only way to navigate the fog will be to stay laser-focused on the Republican Legislative Priorities this session and judge success by the bills actually signed by Governor Abbott.
Vote them out!
Ultimately, the way to fix the ineffectiveness of the House is to vote these turncoats out of office. It will be a very tough to get Republican legislation and the Legislative Priorities of the Republican Party passed this session because of what Burrows and his team have done. If we don’t vote them out in the next Primary Election, the “Turncoat Caucus” will be back to undermine the Republican voters again in 2026. Texas just can’t afford to let Burrows, Dade Phelan, Will Metcalf and the others in that gang squander another hard-fought majority in the Texas House.
BUT that does not mean we let up this session. The bright side of all of this is that people are wide awake and watching, and there has never been as much pressure on our representatives to do the work We the People have called on them to do. We encourage you to continue to engage with our social media and sign up for our legislative alert emails to stay informed about important legislation and what you can do to support Republican Legislative Priorities.
In the words of President Trump, “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!”
