State Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock sought to get a campaign for Texas House speaker back on track after several days of floundering with glowing reviews that he received from several influential committee chairs in a coordinated effort designed to give supporters cover in the face of brutal pressure from forces outside the chamber.
The Burrows backers seized on a so-called Texas Conservative Commitment agenda for the 2025 regular session as a hook for social media posts praising the West Texan and leadership roles he's had on a major issues like property tax reform.
Burrows scored enthusiastic plugs from State Reps. Greg Bonnen of Friendswood, Brad Buckley of Salado, Cody Harris of Palestine, Jeff Leach of Allen and Jared Patterson of Frisco in posts on X that included the statement that the candidate circulated on priorities for the upcoming session.
The Republican representatives rallied to Burrows' defense in a collective bid to stop the bleeding from a series of reckless power plays that backfired and cost his campaign some pledges in recent days. The first major Burrows faux pas came when his allies walked out of a caucus vote on a party endorsement they could have blocked but handed to State Rep. David Cook of Mansfield with their absence instead.
Burrows declared himself as the tentative winner after losing to Cook by six points on the final vote that was taken. But Burrows failed to have any cushion of support with only 76 supporters on a pledge list as the minimum amount for a win in the leadership election on the House floor next month. Several of the Republicans who Burrows had counted defected to Cook after the caucus meeting boycott.
In an attempt to create the appearance that he'd locked down the job, Burrows sent out invites to fundraisers in Houston and Austin this week under the heading of "speaker-elect" - a term he'd yet to earn. He revised the invitations after an uproar to identify him as Chairman Burrows - a function of his role as the leader of the Calendars Committee for the past four years. Burrows made his most costly blunder to date with advertisement on Wednesday that made it appear like Governor Greg Abbott was backing the Lubbock lawmaker in the speaker's race. The aggressive maneuver compelled Abbott to leave the sidelines and take sides for the first time with a lukewarm endorsement for Cook by virtue of his part as the party nominee.
The warring among Republicans has put Democrats in prime position to choose the next House speaker with a united front for the election on opening day in January. Burrows said he had 38 Democrats in his corner before one joined two dozen others in the uncommitted category for the speaker's race. But Burrows or another Republican who had the Democrats united behind them could win the gavel with a mere 14 GOP votes.
Burrows appear to have close to 30 Republican supporters including outgoing Speaker Dade Phelan and 16 who have committee chairmanships they could expect to be giving up if they bolted to Cook's camp in fear of primary challenges in 2026. Bonnen, whose younger brother Dennis served as speaker in the 2019 regular session, is the House's second highest-ranking current member as the Appropriations Committee chair. Buckley and Leach chair the Public Education Committee and the Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee respectively. Patterson, who leads the Select Committee on Protecting Texas LNG Exports, has emerged as a key enforcer for the leadership team.
The posts below were made about the same time on Thursday afternoon.
