AUSTIN, Texas — House Speaker Dade Phelan on Friday announced he is dropping his bid for another term leading the lower chamber, ending a bruising, months-long intraparty push to remove him from power.
Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, had previously insisted he had enough votes to thwart a challenge from the right led by state Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, a former ally.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This article first appeared at TexasTribune.com)
“Out of deep respect for this institution and its members, and after careful consideration and private consultation with colleagues, I have made the difficult decision to withdraw from the race for Speaker of the Texas House," he said in a statement. "By stepping aside, I believe we create the best opportunity for our members to rally around a new candidate who will uphold the principles that make our House one of the most exceptional, deliberative legislative bodies in the country—a place where honor, integrity, and the right of every member to vote their district takes utmost precedent."
Phelan abandoned the race days ahead of a scheduled meeting where Republicans are set to pick their nominee for the gavel.
Phelan’s withdrawal sets up a renewed scramble for control of the House. State Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican and top ally of Phelan, has filed paperwork to run for speaker, according to two sources familiar with the matter. His path to the gavel rests on courting the chamber’s 62 Democrats and roughly 40 unpledged Republicans — and reports of his candidacy were already drawing swift pushback from Cook’s camp and grassroots GOP activists, who are set on selecting a speaker without relying on votes from Democrats.
Phelan was relying on the bloc of Democrats and uncommitted Republicans to secure a third term as speaker. But he never produced a list of supporters, while Cook gained fresh momentum this week by picking up two new backers, bringing him within striking distance of the votes needed to lock up the GOP caucus’ endorsement this weekend.
Under the caucus rules, whoever gets 60% or more of the votes at Saturday’s meeting will secure the group’s endorsement and receive support from all 88 Republican members when the vote goes to the full House in January — enough to win the gavel. Heading into this week, Cook had touted 47 supporters, including two unnamed backers. He picked up support from state Reps. David Spiller of Jacksboro and Trent Ashby of Lufkin this week, putting him four votes shy of the 60% threshold.
The Texas House speaker is one of the most powerful legislative positions in the state, along with the Senate president, wielding tremendous power over which bills pass and fail.
Phelan’s withdrawal comes just two years after he was at the height of his power, easily winning reelection as House leader after overseeing one of the most conservative sessions in recent memory. In his two terms as speaker, he oversaw passage of a litany of conservative priorities, including allowing permitless carry of handguns, restricting transgender rights, testing the boundaries of Texas’ role in immigration enforcement and banning nearly all abortions statewide. At the closed-door GOP caucus meeting before the 2023 session, Phelan’s critics mustered up just six votes for his conservative challenger.
Phelan started to lose his grip on the House last year when Attorney General Ken Paxton — months after being impeached on corruption charges in the lower chamber — survived his trial in the Senate. The acquittal was a major rebuke of Phelan, who supported the impeachment effort. Paxton and his far-right allies vowed payback against the speaker and any Republican who voted for impeachment.
Soon after, Phelan’s standing took a hit among supporters of Gov. Greg Abbott’s push to enact a school voucher program, some of whom accused the speaker of not doing enough to get the bill through the House.Phelan narrowly survived a brutal primary challenge in May, but 15 other House Republicans lost their seats, many of them Phelan supporters who were ousted by challengers running on explicit pledges to oppose the Beaumont Republican’s speakership. Some of these insurgent candidates also received financial support from Abbott, who remained publicly neutral in Phelan’s race while spending millions to unseat anti-voucher Republicans who sank his priority issue.
Most incoming GOP freshmen are part of a coalition, led by the House’s rightmost faction, that wants to reshape the chamber by disempowering Democrats and weakening key levers of power used by the speaker to control the House. They have called for an end to the practice of appointing Democrats to chair any House committees — a longstanding tradition Phelan has continued by putting Democrats in charge of eight of the chamber’s 34 standing committees, while reserving most of the high-profile assignments for Republicans. They also want to ensure that GOP priority bills reach the floor before any Democratic measures and limit the speaker to two terms.
With Phelan out of the picture, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the rest of the GOP’s most conservative faction could have a willing ally in driving a hardline agenda through the Legislature. Patrick, the Senate leader, has sparred bitterly with Phelan over property tax relief and a host of other issues, frequently casting Phelan as a feckless capitulator to Democrats who slow-walked conservative priorities approved by the Senate. The feuding culminated in Patrick’s attempt to end Phelan’s political career by backing his top primary challenger earlier this year.
After eking out a 366-vote win in the May runoff, Phelan insisted he would hold onto the gavel, telling supporters that “I will be your state rep. for HD 21 and I will be your speaker for the Texas House in 2025.” He had remained defiant in the months since, even as he faced a mounting lineup of speaker challengers that included some of his former allies. Though a majority of House Republicans eventually coalesced behind Cook, nearly half the caucus remained silent about their votes, with some publicly vouching for Phelan’s conservative bona fides.
But while Phelan has shepherded the passage of key conservative priorities once seen as a bridge too far for some Republicans, his critics have also pointed to a number of hardline priorities that died in the House. Those measures, which could face better odds of passage under a new speaker, include school vouchers; expanding state control of elections in Democrat-run counties; barring the sale of Texas farmland to citizens and entities associated with China and other countries; and various laws aimed at infusing more Christianity into public life.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.