Oliverson Goes Rogue on Leadership Team
with Race for Speaker Dade Phelan's Job
Capitol Inside
March 21, 2024
GOP State Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress bolted on Thursday from the Texas House leadership team when he launched a campaign for the post that Republican Speaker Dade Phelan wants to keep.
Oliverson's emergence as a speaker candidate could be the first sign of Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's fingerprints in the House leadership competition as a highly vocal Phelan detractor. Oliverson and Patrick share the same campaign consultant in veteran GOP strategist Allen Blakemore.
Oliverson announced his plans at a Texas Public Policy Foundation conference in Austin on the same day that Phelan is set to meet with deep-pocket establishment interests to present the strategy that he expects to be a winning ticket in a primary runoff election this spring. The current speaker believes he will have the support to claim a third term with the gavel in 2025 as long as he emerges triumphant on May 28 in an overtime bout with House District 21 challenger David Covey of Orange. Covey led Phelan by 3 points in the initial vote this month.
Oliverson is the second Phelan committee chair to turn against the speaker who appointed them to the their current leadership posts. Oliverson has served as the Insurance Committee chairman. The first standing panel chief to abandon Phelan after GOP State Rep. J.M. Lozano of Kingsville did so initially when he apologized for his vote to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton last spring. Lozano, who chairs the Urban Affairs Committee, predicted this month that Phelan's hopes for a return trip to the dais were doomed regardless of whether he staves off Covey in the runoff vote.
Oliverson - whether by calculation or coincidence - was the only House Republican who missed the impeachment vote on the final weekend of the 2023 regular session when he was shown to be absent with an official excuse. The vote on Paxton's fate would have been the most important action that Oliverson has taken as a fourth-term representative who's unopposed for re-election this year.
Sixty Republican colleagues voted to strip the attorney general of the position that he'd won three times in a row. Oliverson was the only committee chair who didn't vote for Paxton's impeachment. Twenty-three House Republicans voted against the move to impeach the AG.
Oliverson, who's a physician, should get ample chance as a candidate for speaker to explain why he was a no-show for the most critical vote of his legislative career. Oliverson's odds for a winning speaker's race could be considerably lower if he'd been there to face the music on impeachment regardless of how he might have voted.
Oliverson's most significant achievement as a legislative sponsor came in 2023 when he authored a bill that banned treatment for transgender youth.
"The dysfunction in the Texas House during 2023 highlights a need for change at the Capitol. Two weeks ago, Republican voters across Texas sent a strong and unmistakeable signal that Texas needs a new paradigm," Oliverson said in a statement post on X. "Ineffective leadership in the House brought about the first. The frustration of the voters underscores the second."
more to come ... |
