Texas House

The role of Texas House speaker comes with lots of power. The speaker decides who will chair key legislative committees, plays an influential role in controlling what legislation gets voted on and is the person responsible for keeping up decorum in the Texas House.

The Criminal Jurisprudence Committee plans to issue a new subpoena to the death row inmate for a Dec. 20 hearing if Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office does not cooperate.

Burrows claims the support of a coalition of Republicans and Democrats, while Cook has the endorsement of the GOP caucus.

The Beaumont Republican was expected to go toe-to-toe with Rep. David Cook. The caucus holds a meeting Saturday to ultimately decide who they will be backing.

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.

The two-term Republican caught many Capitol observers off guard when he emerged as the standard-bearer for a coalition that wants to depose Phelan and reshape how the House operates.

The Senate's District 25 and several House seats are on the ballot this year.

Six of eight GOP incumbents lost their races. Gov. Greg Abbott declared he “now has enough votes to pass school choice.”

Phelan placed a close second behind Covey, a former Orange County Republican Party chairman, in the first round of the primary for East Texas’ House District 21 in March.

A lack of air support and ineffective coordination hurt efforts to contain this year's Panhandle fires, the committee said.