Some GOP state lawmakers on both sides of the rotunda were predicting on Thursday that newly-elected House Speaker Dustin Burrows will break the most critical promise that he made as a candidate for the leadership post by appointing a lineup of committee chairs without a single Democrat.
The legislators who are promoting the Burrows back-stabbing conspiracy say they believe he will consider a committee chairmanship roster that has nothing but Republicans because that's what his ally Dennis Bonnen wants him to do as a former speaker who still appears to have substantial influence in the west wing in Austin.
State Rep. Richard Raymond of Laredo - one of three Democrats who backed State Rep. David Cook over Burrows in Tuesday's election on the floor - warned colleagues that Bonnen would be running the House and the speaker's office behind the scenes as a lobbyist. Raymond hasn't been a Bonnen fan since he busted him as a committee chairman during the Republican's only session as speaker in 2019. Raymond had led the Human Services Committee for eight years under Bonnen's predecessor Joe Straus.
Bonnen enjoyed a historically successful regular session in his lone term as speaker before blowing up a re-election bid with a colleague targeting scheme that had Burrows as a participant. Bonnen responded to the furor he'd sparked with careless maneuvering by pulling the plug on a campaign for a new term in a coastal district near Houston. But Bonnen played a pivotal role in Dade Phelan's initial victory in the speaker's election in 2021 after self-destructing in the wake of the regular session two years earlier.
The new speaker's detractors have attempted to portray Burrows as a robot who Bonnen controls. Bonnen reportedly was involved in the interviewing process for Burrows' inaugural staff in the leadership office that he captured on Tuesday.
But a decision to purge Democrats from committee chairs would be Burrows' alone regardless of whether perceptions of Bonnen calling all the major shots are on the mark or fantasy that the ex-speaker has allowed to perpetuate for the sake of a lobby business that he named Second Floor Strategies.
Burrows knows that he wouldn't be wielding the gavel now if he hadn't promised to continue the long-standing tradition of bipartisan rule in the Legislature's lower chamber with Democrats as standing panel chairs. Burrows would be destroying his credibility if the cornerstone vow as a candidate for speaker proved to be a lie.
The Republicans who have 88 of 150 House seats could find it impossible to pass any constitutional amendments that don't have unanimous support if Democrats are excluded from chairmanships for the first time in the history of the House in Texas. Burrows could expect the House Democrats to do everything in their power to undermine Governor Greg Abbott's agenda
if the new speaker's pledge to keep minority party chairs turns out to be a hoax.
Republicans who backed State Rep. David Cook of Mansfield as the party caucus nominee for speaker plan to keep trying to prohibit Democrats from chairing House committee with amendments to the chamber's rules that will be up for debate on Wednesday when lawmakers return from a long weekend break.
The Democrats emerged as the biggest winners on Tuesday when 49 of 62 minority party members voted for Burrows on a second ballot. Cook scored votes from three Democrats including Raymond while nine Democratic colleagues were recorded as present not voting.
But that label would no longer stick if the Democrats had been played by the new speaker who failed to generate enough support from fellow Republicans to win without a bipartisan vote. That would be Burrows' call exclusively regardless of whether Bonnen liked it or not.
