Phelan’s primary has emerged as a last stand for the Republican Party’s business-minded establishment against an insurgency primarily motivated by social and cultural issues.
Dade Phelan addresses the floor after being elected for his second term as House speaker on on Jan 10, 2023.to The Texas Tribune will help investigative journalism that impacts state policies and politics. It is the last week of our Spring Member Drive, and our newsroom relies on readers like you who support independent Texas news.In mid-April, some of Texas’ most prolific Republican donors convened at the palatial and secluded mansion of Dallas pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren.
Hassenflu, a board member of the powerful tort reform group Texans for Lawsuit Reform, added that the interests of the Dunn cohort frequently diverge from fiscal conservative orthodoxy. “This is not the party of George Herbert Walker Bush or John Tower or Kay Bailey Hutchison or George W. Bush,” said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “It is a party that is decidedly more conservative, much less interested in the kind of approach that Texas Republicans took for decades, which was working strongly and closely with the business community … but not pushing very hard on social stuff.
the Associated Republicans of Texas. The group, known as ART, spent around $3 million defending House incumbents in the first round and likely millions more in the runoffs. The wave of anti-establishment energy this cycle has not only threatened Phelan’s career, but also raised the prospect that his supporters in the Republican old guard — already considered pariahs among a large segment of the GOP — could become full-on outcasts in the party they helped create decades ago.
“The speaker’s role is not to be a dictator,” Perry said at a Phelan rally in February. He later added that he was worried about the magnitude of intra-party fighting among Republicans,Former Gov. Rick Perry attends a get out the vote rally in support of Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan on Feb. 29, 2024, in Vidor.Former state Sen.
At the same time, Phelan, a real estate developer, has overseen a number of key wins for the Texas business community, including theon city and county ordinances — a priority of business groups that complained of a growing patchwork of local regulations.
The opposing factions in Phelan’s primary have been on divergent paths since Straus, a San Antonio Republican, first became speaker a decade and a half ago. And Republicans, no matter what they may say in campaign speeches about stamping out the last vestiges of Democratic influence in the chamber, need the minority party for certain votes. Passing the budget, establishing a daily quorum and approving constitutional amendments each require 100 ayes — a threshold Republicans, currently with 86 members, lack on their own.
Beyond ending the tradition of bipartisan committee chairs, Phelan’s critics have also called for the next speaker to only solicit support from Republican members, a demand aimed at forestalling another Straus-type coalition.
Texas Politics Texas Policy Texas Government Politics State Government Republican Party Of Texas Republicans Dennis Bonnen Joe Straus Kay Bailey Hutchison Dade Phelan Tim Dunn
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