Dan Patrick Notes the Historical Import
of Burrows Win With No Ratliff Mention Capitol Inside
February 3, 2025
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick offered a history lesson in a television interview on Sunday when he said that Texas Republican Dustin Burrows was only the second state House speaker to ever be elected in the U.S. by the members of a minority party.
The Republican Texas Senate president told CBS News Texas in Dallas that he'd done the research and discovered the historical significance of the Lubbock representative's victory in the House leadership election on opening day of the 89th regular session three weeks ago.
"Only once in Alaska - in the history of the nation - has the minority party who lost the elections picked the speaker of the majority party," Patrick revealed. "And this has been going on since Joe Straus. So you've got 88 Republicans. You have 62 Democrats. So in my world, 88 Republicans should pick the speaker. It takes 76 votes to be the speaker.
"And what's happened since Joe Straus and all the way up to now - and Dustin Burrows did it also - he had 52 Republicans vote against him out of 88," the lieutenant governor added. "So he got elected by Democrats."
Patrick wouldn't have to look very far - however - to find a case with a state Senate leader like himself winning the post with votes from more minority party members than senators from the same party. But Republican Bill Ratliff's election as the acting lieutenant governor here in Texas two dozen years ago is a more dramatic example of the partisan crossover phenomenon than Burrows' election proved to be last month.
Ratliff claimed the Texas Senate leadership position in a special election on the floor of the Legislature's upper chamber two weeks before the regular session convened in 2001. The election was necessary after Rick Perry's elevation to governor in the wake of George W. Bush's election as president after a recount in Florida.
The GOP had a 16-15 majority in the Texas Capitol's east wing that year. Ratliff emerged victorious in a 16-15 vote with support from all of the chamber's Democrats and one Republican - himself - on a ballot that was kept secret until the end. So Ratliff won the fight with 6.25 percent of the majority party vote and unanimous support from the Democratic minority.
The debt of gratitude that Ratliff felt that he owed was evident when he appointed Democrat Rodney Ellis to chair the Senate Finance Committee in his first major decision as the lieutenant governor at the start of the 2001 regular session. Ratliff led the Senate for two full years before returning to his role as a senator from East Texas after David Dewhurst's election as the lieutenant governor in the general election in 2002.
Almost 58 percent of Burrows' support in contrast came from Democrats while Republicans accounted for slightly more than 42 percent. Thirty-six Republicans - or 41 percent of the majority party's members - voted for the new speaker. Burrows had 79 percent of the Democrats on board en route to an 85-55 win over Republican State Rep. David Cook - a blowout compared to the Ratliff victory in the current century's infant stages.
The GOP has controlled the Texas Senate since 1996 when Democrat Bob Bullock was the lieutenant governor. Bullock was elected as the Senate president initially in 1990. He was re-elected in 1994 when Bush unseated incumbent Democrat Ann Richards in the governor's race here.
Patrick's attempt to liken the Texas speaker's race to a leadership contest in the Alaska House of Representatives could be apples and oranges in light of the unique system there for selecting speakers. But it's an intriguing example nonetheless.
Republican Louise Stutes was elected as the speaker in Alaska in 2021 as a member of a majority coalition that included all of 14 House Democrats there along with five independents and two Republicans. But the Republicans regained control of the majority coalition and elected Cathy Tilton as speaker of the Alaska House in 2023 after two Democrats and two independents sided with the GOP majority.
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