After weeks of infighting among Texas House Republicans over who would lead their chamber this legislative session, Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) has won the powerful role of House speaker with 85 votes from the 150-member chamber.
Burrows now immediately takes over as speaker of the Texas House.
There were two rounds of voting in the House on Tuesday. Burrows bested challenger David Cook in the runoff, where Cook received 55 votes.
“The duty bestowed upon me today as Speaker of the Texas House is one of immense responsibility and honor, and I thank each of my colleagues for their trust and vote of confidence,” Burrows posted on X.
“As Speaker, I stand ready to support every member as we collectively navigate the most pressing issues facing Texans today—issues ranging from improving education to providing additional property tax relief, bolstering water resources, fighting for safer communities, and everything in between,” he said.
The role of Texas House speaker comes with significant power. The speaker sets the tone in the chamber for the session, deciding key things like who will chair important legislative committees and what bills make it to the House floor for votes. The speaker is also responsible for keeping up decorum in the chamber.
Burrows won the role despite not having the backing of the majority of his party. In all, he received 36 votes from Republicans, including himself, and 49 from Democrats, while the chamber’s other 52 GOP lawmakers chose Cook.
Last month, the Texas House Republican Caucus selected David Cook (R-Masnfield) as their chosen pick. But Burrows quickly announced that he had a large enough coalition of Democratic and Republican House members to vote him into the role.
In an impromptu press conference on the sidelines of the House floor, Cook said he would "serve at the pleasure of the speaker."
He said he would "of course" work with Burrows and his supporters and that he would "be working with anyone who's willing to work with me."
Cook did not preview what his priorities would be. As for how this split would affect the GOP in the long term, he said, "votes matter, and so I think when people make decisions next March (in Texas’ primary elections), I mean, yeah, obviously they're going to look not just at this vote but how a member votes all through the session."
While Cook lost, he had many supporters. A total of 14 buses of Cook supporters showed up at the Capitol early Tuesday wearing red shirts with bold wording that read, “BAN Democrat Chairs.”
Two of them, Ron and Mary Carr, traveled to Austin from Harris County to oppose Burrows. They complained that many Cook supporters, who showed up to the Capitol in the hundreds, were blocked from coming into the House for the vote. The Carrs did not have a ticket, which were handed out to members of the public Tuesday.
Mary Carr said Burrows would let the opposition party control too much of the lawmaking.
"It's not going to be good. It's not going to be a good outcome," she said.
Democrats were the majority of Burrows’ voting block, which will likely make for an interesting session.
Texas House Democratic Caucus chair Rep. Gene Wu (D-Houston) says his party believes that “Burrows is going to commit to his word.”
“We’re tired and done with the partisan hackery, the red meat for primary voters,” Wu said. “Let's focus on fixing the things that 80% of Texans want us to fix.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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