“Joe Straus. The Gift that Keeps On Giving...”
Does Straus still have an iron grip on the House, or have enough conservatives been elected to outvote him and his Dim buddies?
He's still got a good grip but it's not the stranglehold that he had. He lost a few allies to the Tea Party and he no longer has Dewhurst as a backstop in the Senate. We may be able to knock him off next time around.
There are enough to toss him from power, but like Boehner, the spoils of the Speakership are carefully meted out. One fellow had campaigned specifically on voting against Joe Straus, then turned around and voted him in anyway.
Any hopes of a good Legislative session were lost when Joe Straus remained Speaker.