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Burrows Set for Starring Role at LaHood
Event in Move that TLR Will See as Shot
Texas House & Senate Races Rankings - Crystal Ball for 2026 Texas Elections
Capitol Inside
January 7, 2026
Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows is pouring fuel into the flames of a novel feud with plans to pass the hat for rookie Republican State Rep. Marc Lahood this month in San Antonio where powerful business interests who bankrolled the GOP's rise to power here are spending vast sums trying to beat him.
Burrows will be the featured guest at the fundraising reception for LaHood's re-election campaign that's slated for January 29 in the Alamo City. The first-term House leader's intervention gives LaHood an opportunity to counter a massive infusion of cash that the powerhouse Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC has given David McArthur as the lone challenger in the GOP primary in House District 121.
The speaker's emergence in the San Antonio race on the targeted incumbent's behalf appears to be a sign that Burrows has been emboldened by TLR's failure to field a first-round foe against him in 2026 after threatening to do so as revenge for the fate of its dismantled agenda at the Capitol in Austin last year.
Burrows put LaHood and other Republicans who are trial lawyers in position to derail high-priority legislation during his debut in the dais in the regular session in 2025. LaHood had a hand in the killing of major TLR bill in a standing committee and another as a House negotiator who blocked it from a final vote on the floor in the regular session's closing weekend.
Burrows is the first Texas speaker who's dared to defy the business and insurance group that's been the leading organizational donor to state politics and Republicans in particular for most of the past 25 years. But the Lubbock lawmaker has some cover with a pair of highly-efficient freshmen allies in State Rep. Mitch Little of Lewisville and LaHood and other relatively conservative Republicans taking trial lawyer money for re-election races that they've supplemented with contributions from TLR as well.
Some TLR leaders threatened to recruit challengers to run against Burrows and both rookie facilitators. But the group failed to back up the rhetoric in the cases of Little and the speaker - who both are running unopposed in the March 3 primary election. Burrows' starring role in the LaHood fundraiser later this month will be perceived by TLR as a move tantamount to an obscene gesture.
LaHood expects to compete toe to toe in the donor dollar derby with the plaintiffs bar spending record sums on the re-election of a Republican representative in Texas. Based on the value that LaHood proved to have in his first session making law, the incumbent in HD 121 could have more for the fight that a challenger who's going to depend almost exclusively on cash from TLR. LaHood reported four six-digit contributions in the last report he filed with the state in July. The trial lawyer-funded Texans for Truth and Liberty PAC donated $200,000 to the first term state representative at the end of June.
LaHood raised $1.3 million in a week or 10 days after the moratorium on donations during a regular session ended in June. That should pale in comparison to the amount he will report to the Texas Ethics Commission on or before January 15 for the second-half of 2025. But the lion's share of LaHood's money during the abbreviated period came from plaintiff lawyers giving individually or through their firms. .
The proxy fight in HD 121 has crowned the list of the hottest fights on the Capitol Inside primary card this year since its inception during the fall. LaHood appears to be the favorite until proven otherwise.
more to come
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