Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton
appeared to be coming up empty again on Tuesday in separate but related bids to knock State Rep. Dustin Burrows from the inside track in the Texas House speaker's race that culminates with the election less than one week from now.
While Paxton drew big crowds to anti-Burrows rallies in Leander and The Woodlands today, Patrick interjected himself back into the fray with an piercing social media post that portrayed Burrows supporters as power-hungry cowards who would have been abandoned the Alamo before it fell in 1836.
"For the record, I don’t care who the Republican Speaker is as long as they win with a large majority of Republicans," Patrick contended. "Any Republican who wins with a majority of Democrats will be a counterfeit Speaker who will be beholden to the Democrats."
Patrick said State Rep. David Cook leads Burrows 57-31 among the current and incoming Republican members in a chamber where the GOP will have 88 seats compared to 62 that the Democrats control when state lawmakers take the oath next Tuesday on opening day of the new regular session. That would give Cook almost 65 percent of the majority party members but still leave him 19 votes short of 76 that are a prerequisite for victory.
"Unfortunately, for most of the last 15 years, there have been a dozen or so House Republicans who undermine the Republican Party by getting all or most of the Democrats to join them to pick a Republican who the Democrats can then control," Patrick explained.
But the powerful Senate president appeared to have finally figured out why none of the Republicans who are backing Burrows have wilted in the face of monumental pressure and threats and switched allegiances to Cook in fear of Patrick, Paxton, the state GOP and the primary voters they hope to incite.
"That is what Dustin Burrows is doing," Patrick contended. "His Republican supporters make all kinds of excuses for why they are willing to cut this deal. The truth is it’s all just about them. They want power. They want important Chairmanships for themselves and are willing to cast aside the expectations of the Texas Republicans who voted for them."
Patrick incorrectly stated that Burrows left the GOP caucus meeting when he "lost the vote" for an endorsement in the competition for speaker. While Burrows trailed by six votes after two tallies, the caucus nomination was still up for grabs when he and his supporters walked out of the meeting in a move that made it possible for the remaining Republicans to break a stalemate and claim the endorsement.
Paxton wrapped a four-city Burrows derailing tour on Tuesday that he conducted during the past two days with Texas Republican Chairman Abraham George. Despite the large reception that Paxton attracted and George helped facilitate, none of eight GOP representatives who the duo targeted have given any hints of possible capitulations in the next six days.
But Paxton cut through the chase with a warning to Republicans who refuse to toe the party line. "The demand from Texans is no deals with democrats and no Democratic Chairmanships," the attorney general declared. "I’m educating Texans on what their Republican Leaders are trying to do."
The events that Patrick attributed to a 15-year span actually took place in a singular example with Republican Joe Straus' unseating of Tom Craddick in the 2009 speaker's contest when the Democrats had come just two seats short of the majority in the election two months earlier. Republican Dennis Bonnen and outgoing Speaker Dade Phelan both had substantially more GOP support than Straus had in the first of five winning bids for the post.
The only remaining intrigue in the current competition is the possibility of Democrats splitting their support in a way that elevates Cook from underdog to victor next week.
But Democrats have chaired 10 or more standing committees under all of four Republican speakers who've led the Legislature's lower chamber in the past 22 years. Democrats will have 41 percent of the seats in the House when the session convenes.
The lieutenant governor's analogy about Colonel William B. Travis at the Alamo is based on an old Texas legend that's actually a myth without proof or evidence to substantiate that he ever scratched a line in the sand with a sword to give potential deserters the opportunity to flee before his troops there all died.
