The race for speaker of the Texas House has narrowed, pitting Beaumont Republican Dade Phelan, who has held the gavel since 2021, against Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, who has emerged as the challenger designated by a group disillusioned with House leadership.
Earlier this month, during a private meeting of Republican House members and nominees, four other speaker challengers dropped out and endorsed Cook — and 48 attendees committed to supporting him over Phelan.
Assuming all 48 of those Republicans win their respective November elections and cast a vote for House speaker in January, that would mean a majority of House Republicans don’t support Phelan.
Phelan says he has the votes to be reelected to a third term as speaker. Critics say he can’t win without the support of the Republican caucus. So what’s the deal?
There’s two key thresholds at play.
The first is the most important: With 150 members, it takes at least 76 votes to become House speaker.
The breakdown of the membership is 86 Republicans and 63 Democrats, plus one vacancy. But this balance could change slightly this November.
The other notable threshold that comes into play is a vote that happens before the full House selects its speaker. House Republicans, according to their bylaws, will vote to endorse a candidate in a caucus election before the session begins. Republicans are expected to support that nominee once the speaker vote comes to the House floor — though it hasn’t always played out that way.
Why are we talking about next year’s House speaker now?
Selecting the House speaker, who presides over the lower chamber and has tremendous control over what bills see the light of day, will be one of the first action items of its members when they convene in January.
The speaker race typically takes off in the fall, but the quest to replace Phelan by his critics got started before the last legislative session even ended.
Critics blamed Phelan for the House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton and for the deadlock between the House and Senate on property taxes, the border and education. That included the House’s ultimate failure to pass Gov. Greg Abbott’s school vouchers measure in November.
Paxton, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and former President Donald Trump endorsed Phelan’s primary opponent in an attempt to oust the speaker, buoyed by millions of dollars spent by organizations from outside his district and outside the state. Between the flanked attacks from Abbott’s and Paxton’s respective camps, nine Republicans lost their primaries, and Phelan and seven others were forced into primary runoffs.
Soon after, Phelan’s first speaker challenger launched his campaign, accusing Phelan of “dysfunctional” leadership. Although Phelan survived his primary runoff at the end of May, six of the seven others lost theirs, and Phelan picked up a second speaker challenger.
Despite Phelan’s victory, the incumbent members’ defeats and close calls sent the signal to many surviving Republicans that conservative grassroots activists were fed up with the direction of the Texas House.
The two Republicans openly challenging Phelan marked the official start to the race for speaker, but things accelerated this month when three more Republicans entered the race. However, that group has since coalesced around Cook.
Does David Cook have the votes to be speaker?
Cook’s claim to the gavel rests on his confidence that he can secure the Texas House Republican Caucus endorsement.
The caucus bylaws call for the group to meet in December to choose an “endorsed speaker candidate,” who must receive the support of at least three-fifths of the caucus — a number that will fluctuate based on the November election results but is likely to be in the 50s (If nothing changed, the number would be 52 members).
Cook on Friday named 46 of his 48 supporters. The 46 named supporters are mostly made up of the Republican House members and nominees who signed a pledge in May saying they would not support a speaker who would give committee chairmanships to Democrats, effectively aimed at Phelan. Two signers of the May letter aren’t named in Cook’s list of supporters: nominees Pat Curry of Waco and Hillary Hickland of Belton. Two of Cook’s supporters didn’t sign the May letter: Rep. James Frank of Wichita Falls, who dropped his speaker challenge to back Cook, and Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, who told The Dallas Morning News this summer that he was supporting Phelan.
“The process of selecting a speaker of the House should always be done with a high standard of due diligence and should never be taken lightly. That is why I firmly believe Mr. Cook is the leader that Texas needs at this point in history,” Shaheen said in a statement. “David has been a trustworthy friend who will lead the Texas House with honor and integrity.”
Cook’s list also includes two nominees, Don McLaughlin and Steve Kinard, who are running in battleground districts currently represented by Democrats. Even if they flip both districts and no other seats change parties, Cook would be at least five votes shy of securing the three-fifths support of the caucus, assuming his supporters are right about the current strength of his support.
However, that’s much closer than Phelan is to getting support from three-fifths of the caucus, and Cook’s supporters believe there is a segment who would leave Phelan and support Cook in the name of party unity.
Frank says Cook is respected on both sides of the aisle, calling him a thoughtful and engaged leader.
“We must put a fractured chamber back together so that we can efficiently and effectively lead our state, and most of the caucus believes that requires a change at the top,” Frank said to the Tribune. “[Cook] has the support of a majority of our Republican colleagues, making him the current frontrunner to win the Republican caucus nomination and take this unified block of members to the floor.”
After winning the caucus vote, Cook would have to convince the GOP Phelan loyalists to support him on the floor. Frank says that pitch will include reminding Republicans of their common ground, but it could also include reminding them of the blowback they could face during the 2026 primary for voting against the Republican majority.
Cook wouldn’t have to convince every Republican, but he’d have to convince enough to get to 76. It’s unlikely his strategy would involve courting Democrats to support him, as he committed to blocking them from committee chairmanships.
Dade Phelan’s path to reelection
Phelan’s camp says they’re confident he has the votes.
“The path to the speakership is a matter of simple math,” Phelan’s spokeswoman Cait Wittman, said to the Tribune. “As he stated last Friday, Speaker Phelan has the clear majority votes needed to be the speaker today and will have the clear majority support needed to become speaker again come January.”
Phelan did not provide The Tribune with the list of members that support him. Phelan’s list of Republican supporters is believed to include key committee chairs and those facing the toughest reelection contests. Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco reiterated his support for Phelan after Cook published his list of supporters.
“Results matter and the two most conservative sessions in the history of our great state didn’t happen until Dade Phelan became Speaker of the Texas House,” Patterson posted on social media. “As one of the top conservatives during the most conservative sessions we’ve ever seen, I’m proud to support his reelection as Speaker of the Texas House.”
Phelan has a couple paths to victory.
First, he could attempt to break Cook’s hold on the Republican majority by convincing them that he is the only candidate who could get to 76 votes on the House floor and win the endorsement of the caucus. Given the anti-Phelan sentiment within the party, that might be a difficult path for him.
Phelan could also simply choose to move forward with his bid for the speakership without the party endorsement.
The House rules do not restrict which members can be nominated for speaker, so once the vote comes to the floor, anyone can be put forward for consideration.
Phelan has the support of an inner circle of loyal GOP lieutenants, and he would likely have the support of most, but not all, of the 60-plus Democrats. Phelan has been the only Republican speaker candidate this cycle who would continue the longstanding practice of appointing Democrats to committee chairmanships as part of a bipartisan leadership team.
The combination of a minority of Republicans plus Democrats would likely get Phelan to 76 votes — but winning with a majority of Democrats would incite the wrath of the far-right and inflame accusations that he’s indebted to the minority party.
It would also require Republicans to violate the GOP caucus rules that call on them to vote for the endorsed candidate on the House floor. However, the caucus bylaws have no provision for punishing members should they vote for another speaker candidate. Republican Reps. Nate Schatzline, Bryan Slaton and Tony Tinderholt voted last year for Tinderholt on the House floor with no official repercussions.
Phelan’s camp did not respond to a question about whether he would still take his reelection bid to the House floor if he lost the endorsement of the GOP caucus.
What about the Democrats?
Phelan’s surest fire path to retaining leadership relies on Democratic support.
And that’s not necessarily a sure thing.
Democrat Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos officially filed to become a speaker candidate earlier this month.
Although she doesn’t have a path to victory, her candidacy shows that Democrats aren’t completely united behind Phelan.
And Democrats may be motivated to help Phelan over Cook because it gives them a better shot at retaining committee chairmanships, which give them some control over what bills will make it to the floor for a vote.
Even though the anti-Phelan bloc has coalesced behind Cook as their preferred candidate, there’s still time for others to enter the race. There could still be another candidate better positioned to cleanly get to 76 votes.
Texas law calls on the secretary of state to preside until the election of the House speaker. However, if the secretary of state is absent, the attorney general would preside, which could leave Paxton, Phelan’s No. 1 political rival, with the gavel as Phelan fights on the floor to retain his speakership.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/09/30/texas-house-speaker-race-dade-phelan-david-cook/.
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