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GOP Frosh and Sophomores for Burrows
May Have Record Clout as Victory Spoils
Capitol Inside
February 10, 2025
The Texas House's freshman and sophomore classes could have a record number of GOP members in positions of authority when Speaker Dustin Burrows announces the leadership lineup for the regular session next week in a chamber with a committee system that's been overhauled.
Burrows won the speaker's post with 85 votes more than three weeks ago when four rookie Republicans and five second-term GOP members ignored threats of retribution from conservatives in and outside the House. Some of the chamber's most inexperienced members could wield more sway than ever - as a result - after the Lubbock Republican who claimed the gavel names 30 standing committee chairs and a dozen chairmanships on subcommittees that were created in the House rules a week after Burrows' victory.
The House overrode the objections of 23 Republicans when it approved the rules package with seven fewer standing panels and the subcommittees that will have most of the same powers that standing committee chairs will have as the regular session unfolds. The rules prevent the new speaker from appointing Democrats to lead the full committees. But Burrows won't be bound by an partisan restrictions in the appointment of colleagues as subcommittee chairs.
Conservatives who backed State Rep. David Cook in the speaker's contest as the GOP caucus nominee are holding out hope for scoring committee chairmanships that Burrows wouldn't have a sufficient number of his own supporters to fill if avoids the naming of freshmen and sophomores to chairs for the sake of tradition.
But traditions that Texas lawmakers always treated as sacred have become an endangered species at the statehouse in Austin in the past decade as casualties of partisan power grabs by majority party leaders and monumental warring among the ruling Republicans themselves. Speakers, however, have typically ignored the members who opposed their elections to the dais in the dishing of committee leadership positions as the ultimate spoils of victory for the winning team.
The Capitol Inside crystal ball sees State Rep. Caroline Fairly of Amarillo faring the best among the rookies who backed Burrows in the committee assignments that could be revealed as early as Tuesday when the House returns from another long weekend. The Panhandle lawmaker's father - Alex Fairly - is a wealthy businessman who'd promised to spend substantial sums of money trying to beat House Republicans who voted for Burrows in next year's primary elections.
But the elder Fairly reversed course a few days before the speaker's election and said he would use the money to defend the Republicans who supported Burrows instead. Fairly the new House member switched her allegiance to Burrows hours before the election and had the nerve to call out veteran State Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo for failing to do the same. Fairly could be a member of the Appropriations Committee as a product of her family and the audacious maneuvering that buried any hope that Cook might have had as the underdog in the competition despite the caucus mantle. Fairly could probably pick the committees she prefers with a chance of landing a subcommittee chair.
Fairly was one of four freshmen Republicans who voted for Burrows along with State Reps. Jeff Barry of Pearland, John McQueeney of Fort Worth and Denise Villalobos of Corpus Christi. Burrows also had a handful of second-term Republicans in his corner with State Reps. Stan Gerdes of Smithville, Stan Kitzman of Brookshire, Janie Lopez of San Benito, Angelia Orr of Itasca and Carl Tepper of Lubbock.
McQueeney could be in the same league with Fairly in terms of the clout they wield in their first sessions as legislators. McQueeney was the only freshman who was in Burrows' corner from the outset of a campaign that he launched in December after the incumbent Dade Phelan dropped out of the race and endorsed the eventual winner. Like Fairly, Barry and Villalobos pledged to Cook before switching to Burrows before the vote.
Tepper emerged as one of Burrows' two or three most vocal defenders in the face of relentless attacks from enemies on the far right. The crystal ball has viewed Tepper since the speaker election as a prime candidate for a leadership spot with the Higher Education Committee chairmanship as a potential landing spot. Tepper's appointment as the higher education chair would be a win-win-win-win for Lubbock and Texas Tech University along with the speaker and the city's junior representative.
Any one of the other sophomore Republican who backed Burrows could score subcommittee chairmanships if they're not leading standing committees instead. Like Tepper and Fairly, the first and second term GOP members who were on the winning team could find themselves serving on the most coveted committees in the House such as the budget-writing panel, the State Affairs Committee, the Calendars Committees or others they've requested.
All of the other House Republicans in their first or second term can expect the least appealing assignments for choosing to support the GOP caucus nominee in a speaker's that he never appeared to have any realistic chance to win.
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