Tomorrow’s vote in the Texas State House, on January 14th 2025, for Speaker of the House in the Texas legislature will shape the entire impending 89th Legislative Session. The Speaker holds the power to control the fate of every piece of legislation in the session, and everyone involved knows it.
What some Texas voters may not know is that over numerous recent election cycles, voters gave the Republican Party a majority of the 150 members in the Texas House, and yet the Democrats run the place, because some Republicans consistently and blatantly surrender control to the Democrats.
Dems pull off this theft of the control of the Texas House, session after session, by banding together, choosing a moderate Speaker with an “R” by his name, and then picking off enough elected Republicans to vote for the Speaker chosen by the Democrats. It’s an ongoing surrender by elected Texas Republicans to Democrats, and a blatant slap in the face of Texas voters.
In tomorrow’s 2025 House Speaker vote, we appear to be right back in this spot.
The majority of the Texas GOP Caucus voted for State Rep. David Cook (R, HD 96) to be Speaker, because he committed to letting GOP priorities get to the floor for a vote. The Dems united around Dustin Burrows (R, HD 83) who has made no such commitments, and then lured some Republicans to back Burrows. It appears at this moment that the Democrats may again pull off this Democrats-choose-the-Texas-Speaker stunt.
I urge all Republican representatives in the Texas House to unanimously support the Republican Caucus choice for Texas House Speaker, Representative David Cook. Here’s why:
- Texas State GOP party rules provide that elected Republicans should support the House Speaker chosen by the Republican majority, in this case, David Cook. That rule was passed by the party exactly because GOP voters are tired of their elected officials cutting deals with the Dems (apparently for money or power) and letting Democrats continue to run the State House when voters put Republicans in charge.
- The 2024 election outcome reflected a ‘1776 movement’, a nationwide rising up of the American people, driven by the central message that We the People are taking power back from the ruling elites, and demanding that our voices be heard and our priorities respected. This patriotic fervor explains the overwhelming victory of President Donald J. Trump at the national level, and the 88 to 62 Republican majority victory in the Texas State House.
- Having the Texas House Republican majority choose to perpetuate the anointing of a Democrat-chosen House Speaker in this context signals either profound ignorance of the message of the 2024 elections, or a disdain for the will of the GOP voters. It’s a tone-deaf response to what time it is in America.
- There is no compelling moral issue driving this “surrender to the Democrats again” plan. There is no pressing issue like tax policy, life issues, boys in girls’ sports, or ANY stated issue driving the support for Burrows.
- Not one of Burrows’ Republican supporters ran for the Texas House promising to surrender control to Democrats, so this is not an integrity “I have to do what I said I would do” thing. My guess is that most GOP voters wouldn’t like it if they knew about it.
- This time around one elected GOP supporter of Burrows filed a Texas Ethics Commission complaint against the Texas GOP Chair, arguing that the Chair’s efforts to inform this Representative’s voters what their elected representative was up to, was impermissible. This complaint is a major ratcheting up of the dispute, a step way too far, and reflects badly on all of the Burrows-supporters.
- This vote matters especially in 2025, because the differences between the Democrat and Republican parties are vast and consequential, and the GOP voting base sees this. Today’s Democrat Party supports open borders and mass amnesty, ongoing sexualization and gender transitioning of children, foreign enemies pursuing land ownership in America, a globalist agenda that weakens American sovereignty, and much more that is quite simply repulsive, Marxist, and anti-American. The American public rose up against this leftist agenda, and the Texas GOP should lead the nation in signaling rejection of that agenda.
- As tweeted by AG Paxton and Lt Gov Dan Patrick, Speaker Dennis Bonnen, Speaker Dade Phelan, and now the Democrats’ preferred Speaker candidate Dustin Burrows ALL have had financial ties to Third Coast Bank—whose largest shareholders happen to be BlackRock and Vanguard. NOT a good look for Texas.
Republicans going along yet again with the Democrats-choose-the-Texas-Speaker stunt are grossly underestimating the extent to which the GOP, the State Party, the grassroots, the People, are massively tuned in and watching. This majority of Texas voters are absolutely livid at what they perceive to be ruling class elitist attitudes that persistently and arrogantly ignore or defy the will of the people.
Even if the Democrats get their Speaker Burrows “win,” their victory will be the equivalent of triumphantly slamming a lid on a pot of boiling water…while oblivious to the fact that the gas burner under the pot is still locked on high. It’s not going to work to stop the boiling, even for a short time; it’s just going to aggravate it.
The Democrats-choose-the-Texas-Speaker act has no place in 2025. It will fail the voters of Texas at a time our country and our state can’t afford it.
Debbie Georgatos
RNC Committeewoman for Texas