What I do not understand is why Phelan appointed 9 Democrats to chair committees when the GOP has a huge majority in the House.
That’s why this should have been done long ago. #DrunkDade only needed a handful of pub squishes to join with all of the democrats to get elected speaker. The left plays the long game in the dirtiest way.
The weak kneed RINOs will probably fall in line since this comes from the State Republican Party that controls the campaign funds for the upcoming primaries.
EC
why Phelan appointed 9 Democrats
There is some tradition to this. Trend of democrat appointments is down?
I guess it is a decison of all out war, and enough of this “getting along”.
It is not an easy decision and has long term effects. What does history teach us?
“What I do not understand is why Phelan appointed 9 Democrats to chair committees when the GOP has a huge majority in the House.”
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Over the decades and unlike the U.S. Congress, the tradition in the Texas House has been to assign the committee chairs in rough proportion to the party makeup of the State House from the previous election. So if Democrats hold about 35% of the house seats, they would expect to receive 35% of the committee chair assignments.
At the 2022 Texas Republican State Convention, the delegates passed a resolution instructing the House Speaker to appoint no Democrat Committee chairs. Dade Phelan chose to ignore this resolution in favor of the long standing tradition. As an aside, Democrats were instrumental in getting Dade Phelan elected to the Speaker position, as the rule for electing the Speaker will inevitably lead to a moderate Speaker being elected.
In the Senate, Dan Patrick only appointed a single Democrat to chair a committee (John Whitmire), who had a fairly reasonable record on criminal justice through the years (his committee).