TEXAS LEGISLATURE RACES TO WATCH CASH

Phelan and Ashby Early Speaker Race Bets
with Females on Both Sides as Key Force

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
November 4, 2020

The Texas House speaker's race got under way in earnest late Tuesday night as an apparent showdown between the outgoing incumbent Republican's team and GOP colleagues who'd been targeted in a clandestine scheme gone awry a year ago.

State Reps. Trent Ashby of Lufkin and Dade Phelan of Beaumont appear to be the early frontrunners in a leadership fight that had been on hold pending the outcome of the battle for the House majority that the Republicans retained in a significant general election upset.

More than three dozen House Republicans had discussed the prospect of uniting as a bloc behind a consensus Democrat in an open competition for the gavel that Speaker Dennis Bonnen will be giving up in January when he steps down from the Legislature.

But the playing field that both sides had anticipated took a dramatic shift late last night when the Democrats' hopes for taking the House back drowned in a blue wave that never materialized in the Lone Star State.

The Democrats who needed nine more seats to reclaim control in the west wing appeared on track to break even with both sides flipping one seat each. While Democrat Ann Johnson of Houston knocked off GOP State Rep. Sarah Davis at the polls on Tuesday, the Republicans made that a wash when former lawmaker Mike Schofield of Katy got payback with a victory over Democratic State Rep. Gina Calanni.

The dividing lines in the belated speaker's race began to emerge in the immediate wake of a majority fight that Republicans hadn't expected to win so easily with polls by both sides showing Democrats poised to pick up a handful of House seats at least with double-digits gains as the consensus sentiment.

Ashby - one of 10 House Republicans who Bonnen had pitched as targets in a primary election ambush proposal - got a major break on Tuesday night when GOP State Rep. Geanie Morrison of Victoria was prepared to rally behind him after dropping her own brief bid for the leadership post.

Morrison will be one of the few female Republicans in the Legislature's lower chamber when the regular session convenes in January. But Ashby also appears to have a good shot at winning the support of a dozen Democratic women representatives in a race that probably will require a bipartisan coalition to win in the same vein as those that Bonnen and GOP predecessor Joe Straus had assembled.

State Reps. Donna Howard of Austin and Julie Johnson of Dallas have appeared to be the Democratic women bloc's top leaders.

Ashby has the other GOP lawmakers who Bonnen had secretly plotted against in his camp as well. But Phelan is the Bonnen candidate in the race and apparently has secured unofficial pledges from most if not all of the Democrats who've been chairing committees during the departing incumbent's two years at the House helm.

That if it's true would include State Reps. Senfronia Thompson of Houston and Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio - a pair of Democrats who are chairing standing panels in the Bonnen House during the departing leader's abbreviated tenure. The veteran Democratic duo had both announced campaigns for speaker in the past two weeks when they thought they'd be in the majority party again next year.

Democratic State Rep. Oscar Longoria of Mission jumped into the race last week amid expectations of bringing some Republicans into his camp. But Democrats face the challenge now of deciding whether to unite behind a consensus GOP contender or let each individual member fend for themselves.

GOP State Rep. Chris Paddie of Marshall filed to run for speaker last week when Morrison and Ashby entered the field on the same day. Republican State Rep. John Cyrier of Lockhart had thought he had Bonnen behind him when he joined the pack of speaker aspirants that day as well. But Bonnen decided to throw the muscle that he has left behind Phelan instead as the current chairman of the powerful State Affairs Committee during the incumbent speaker's first and only term in the dais.

Phelan and Ashby have both been perceived to be establishment Republicans who both represent districts that had been represented by rural Democrats before the tea party wave of 2010. But Phelan might have a better chance to court hardline conservatives who could in turn make it harder for him to secure sufficient support from Democrats if they're split among themselves.

more to come ...