January 2, 2007

Craddick Strategy Session Spurs Some
Hard Feelings But May Not Cost Votes

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Republican Tom Craddick's game plan in the fight to save his job as Texas House speaker has sparked some grumbling and second-guessing among his own supporters, but predictions of the Midland Republican's impending demise appear to be grossly premature based on the information available.

Some House members who've been standing by Craddick appear to have been offended when they were excluded from a weekend strategy session that top lieutenants called to discuss ways to fortify the speaker in the face of challenges from two other Republican representatives. The meeting reportedly left some Craddick supporters who weren't invited with the nagging impression that they'd been relegated to a B team whose members had minimal value to the re-election efforts beyond the votes they will cast when the election is held next week.

Craddick and about 30 House allies from both major parties emerged Saturday from the closed-door meeting where they agreed to contact legislators who've pledged to support the incumbent in an attempt to prevent defections before the race is settled on Tuesday after the regular session gets under way. The group had been assembled by several powerful committee chairs and other members of Craddick's inner circle - not by the speaker himself. There's speculation that a second meeting could take place before the end of the week.

While some Craddick team members have voiced resentment in the wake of the meeting, Republican State Rep. Brian McCall - one of the speaker's two remaining opponents in his campaign for a third term - contends that the number of lawmakers who did attend is a reflection of the speaker's declining support. The meeting took place two days after Craddick released a list of 84 House members who he said had reaffirmed their support for him since McCall entered the competition a few days before Christmas.

But McCall and his supporters suggest that the entire list is suspect because it contained the name of State Rep. Jim Pitts, a Waxahachie Republican who announced a campaign for speaker a few hours after Craddick made his revised pledge list public. Suggesting that some House members had committed their support to more than one candidate for speaker, Pitts dismissed the significance of Craddick's pledges.

McCall and Pitts have both indicated that they have substantial support - and there's speculation that they might join forces before the election. But neither Pitts nor McCall have revealed the names of lawmakers supporting them or the number of votes they've been promised. There's a feeling among House members who'd already pledged to Craddick or McCall that Pitts entered the race too late to have a realistic chance to win it himself.

One of the challengers would have to win the support from at least nine of the House members on Craddick's latest list before they would have the 75 votes necessary to claim the speaker's post. With a special election runoff still pending in the district that Glenda Dawson represented before her death in September, the House will have only 149 members when the election for speaker is held.

Craddick claims to have solid support from 66 Republicans and 17 Democrats. That would leave only 52 Democrats for McCall and Pitts to share between them. But McCall's supporters have suggested that he expects to have at least 57 Democrats in his corner by the time the roll is called in the speaker's race. McCall would then have to successfully woo four or more Republicans from Craddick's current list for a winning coalition next week.

Craddick's decision to go public with the names of members who'd vowed to vote for him appeared to be a calculated gamble designed to defuse a speaker's race before the election. Unless McCall and Pitts are bluffing, it would appear that several dozen House members have promised to vote for more than one candidate.