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Phelan’s opponents have coalesced around Covey, an oil and gas consultant and former chairman of the Orange County Republican Party. Daniel Whitton, vice president of the Jasper County Republican Club, said the sheer volume of anti-Phelan messaging from his opponents, especially about the Paxton impeachment, threatens to drown out the facts. For months, Phelan opponents have bombarded voters in District 21 with attack ads via television, radio and mailers. If Phelan comes out ahead in the runoff, he'll likely face a separate challenge to his speakership from Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, who announced last monththat he would seek the House's top spot in 2025. "He simply cannot defend his liberal record to the people of Southeast Texas."
A son of Beaumont
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan fighting to save political career at the Texas Capitol - CBS News
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan fighting to save political career at the Texas Capitol.
Posted: Fri, 22 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The knowledge of that loomed over the race to replace Bonnen, which had been relatively quiet heading into the homestretch before Election Day. In some ways, the Texas House that convenes in January will look a lot like the one that gaveled out two years ago under Bonnen’s tutelage. It will still have 83 Republicans and 67 Democrats, with a Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick-led Senate across the building and Gov. Greg Abbott in the governor’s office.
Tom Oliverson to challenge Dade Phelan for Texas House speakership - Texas Standard
Tom Oliverson to challenge Dade Phelan for Texas House speakership.
Posted: Fri, 22 Mar 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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” Phelan said, alluding to the details of Paxton’s extramarital affair, which became public during the trial. Despite the calls on Phelan to vacate the speakership, Torres said it would be somewhat challenging for lawmakers to force him out. This friction culminated in May when Paxton called on Phelan to resign, accusing him of being drunk at work.
Texas GOP officially censures House Speaker Dade Phelan
Beyond campaigning against Phelan, Patrick has campaigned against numerous incumbent Republicans, with mixed success. It has been a longstanding tradition that the leaders of the Texas Senate and House do not interfere with the elections of the other chamber. Bill Miller, a veteran Austin lobbyist, said Patrick is seizing an opportunity against a speaker weakened by an unsuccessful attempt to remove Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from office. The bill, which allowed deputized everyday citizens to serve with licensed peace officers on the unit, was seen by some immigration hawks as a bold and needed approach to counter the surge of migrant crossings. Democrats and immigration advocates said it would spur racial profiling and endanger migrants and legal residents. HB 20 has since been overshadowed by Senate Bill 4, which lets any law enforcement officer arrest someone suspected of illegally crossing the border, a boundary-testing immigration law that has been put on hold amid legal challenges.
With that backdrop, the newly formed “Equity Caucus,” a group of Democratic lawmakers who formed the coalition to advocate for women’s equity in House leadership and pledged to vote for a speaker candidate as a bloc, met with both Phelan and Morrison. By Wednesday afternoon, and with Republicans confident their majority in the House would remain nearly the same, Phelan announced at a Capitol news conference that the speaker’s race was over. He claimed he had backing from a “supermajority of the Republican caucus” and a “broad coalition of support” from Democrats. After Ritter announced he would retire from the Legislature, Phelan ran for House District 21 in 2014. Phelan easily bested the other Republican candidate in the primary and then cruised in the general election.
David Covey forces runoff with Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, who led AG Ken Paxton’s impeachment
Phelan has slammed the attacks as “absurd” and “misleading” attempts to deflect from his oversight of other far-reaching border laws and a record $6.5 billion spending spree to pay for Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which includes building a state border wall. A few weeks ago, GOP activists flooded the House gallery to signal they didn’t want Phelan to move forward with his tradition of appointing members of the minority party to important leadership roles. According to the Texas Tribune, the party ran radio ads in Phelan's House district, claiming he was "teaming up with Democrats to kill our Republican priorities." Also this week, Democrats are making abortion rights a political issue this November nationally and here in Texas. The race becomes more intense after the November election and House members will vote on a new Speaker when they're sworn-in in January.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan heading to runoff against hardline conservative challenger
But the Senate passed a version to remove nondiscrimination protections, leading to worries among LGBTQ advocates that it would nullify city rules that banned discrimination against workers based on their sexual orientation. After being elected speaker for the first time at the start of the 2019 session, Bonnen tapped Phelan to chair the powerful State Affairs Committee, which often oversees some of the state’s most hot-button issues. Phelan was a part of Bonnen’s leadership team during that session and has told members he plans, like Bonnen, to run the House by letting members drive the chamber’s business. His reputation and seemingly different personality has some feeling optimistic he can help the House reach the finish line without jeopardizing trust to get there.
Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan bucks his own party by appointing Democratic committee chairs
Time and time again, we have seen the Legislature provide some form of property tax relief, but to make it lasting, we must do something about runaway appraisals. Paxton-endorsed challengers in more than 30 House races and his candidates had ousted at least five House members and forced at least five more into runoffs. Southlake Republican Giovanni Capriglione also got a nod of confidence from Phelan on his push to crack down on how companies collect, and in many cases, monetize people’s personal data. The issue has been a pet project of Capriglione’s for years but this session the bill — House Bill 4 — received a low bill number, indicating the strong support of House leadership. Phelan’s support for extending Medicaid eligibility to new mothers to a year is not a surprise.
Money flows into Texas House GOP primary battles this season
Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, at a press conference at the Capitol on Nov. 4, 2020. Phelan was the first sitting Texas House speaker forced into a runoff for his House seat in more than 50 years. The Beaumont Republican’s foes are trying to paint him as soft on the border, even after last year’s passage of far-reaching laws and record border funding.
And it embodied the reputation he’s built inside the chamber during his relatively short tenure in office. Another intraparty dispute widened in November when the House sank a school voucher bill, the governor’s top legislative priority and a longtime pet issue for Patrick. Months of talks proved useless when Abbott refused to accept a scaled-back bill House negotiators pitched. Phelan didn’t cast a vote on the amendment that ultimately killed the voucher program. But he was criticized by Patrick and other voucher advocates as not having done enough to help pass them. In his nominating speech for Tinderholt, Slaton said the tradition in the House of selecting some minority party members — in Texas, Democrats — for committee chair positions is an overly generous “consolation prize” for losing an election.
The Texas House on Tuesday re-elected State Rep. Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) to a second term as House Speaker. “The barrage aimed at our campaign over the past year was meant to be my undoing, and yet here I am, emerging from the most contentious and expensive primary in state history still fighting and more determined than ever,” Phelan said. Covey, Phelan believes, is an opportunist willing to do the bidding of Paxton and out-of-district donors who don’t like the speaker.
Senators lauded him as a “man of faith” and a workhorse legislator with expertise in various subjects, including veterans affairs, energy and business. Patrick embraced Hancock in a hug after he took the oath as president pro tem. In a speech, Hancock thanked his son-in-law, Greg Cox, for donating his kidney to him. Kelly Hancock, a North Richland Hills Republican who appeared to be on the outs with Patrick last session after refusing to go along with his push to claw back billions of dollars made by energy providers during the 2021 winter freeze, was elected president pro tem of the Senate.
His great-grandfather, John Henry Phelan, made a fortune at Spindletop and spent it on philanthropy and land; Dade Phelan works for the now fourth-generation real estate business. But a tumultuous 2023 exposed deep fissures within the Republican Party, exacerbated by the House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and refusal to pass a school voucher program favored by Gov. Greg Abbott. Regardless of the outcomes in the upcoming runoff election and potential speakership battle, Phelan has already made a reluctant piece of House history in being forced into a runoff. Nick Maddux, a general consultant for Covey, in a statement Thursday reiterated the campaign's frustration with Phelan over the debate and took issue with the arrangements for the April 1 offer from the news stations and over its potential moderator.
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