(C) Texas Tribune This story was originally published by Texas Tribune and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Blast: Dade is done. What next? [1] [] Date: 2024-12 It’s official. House Speaker Dade Phelan has bowed out of the race for House speaker. But the question folks are asking now is how is Dustin Burrows any better off than Phelan? Burrows filed his paperwork to run last night, lining up the ducks of the Phelan faithful before the speaker made his announcement. There’s still time till January, but Burrows’ path to 53, let alone 76, isn’t clear. Burrows’ support among Republicans is, at best, somewhere in the low 40s. Therefore, he would need to pull support from a number of Cook supporters to win the caucus vote. His most likely path for that is to win over about half of the Democratic caucus so he can come out and claim 76 supporters for the floor vote. It’s the same path Phelan likely would’ve had to follow, but maybe all the caucus needs is a fresh face. So far, that’s not what The Blast is hearing. Burrows hasn’t generated any groundswell, and the battlelines are still drawn in the same place. The Tribune politics team has heard Democrats’ biggest ask is not to appoint some Democrats as committee chairs, but to stop the voucher bill. “The soundtrack from ‘Hamilton’ is playing through my head,” one member of the lobby corps told The Blast. “‘You don’t have the votes.’ ” “I think it goes to a floor vote, regardless,” said another. “You can’t just go play the fourth quarter.” Cook’s most vocal supporters, like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and activist Michael Quinn Sullivan, have signaled that members backing Burrows will have the same targets on their backs as if they’d backed Phelan. As it stands, Cook’s numbers are still in the high 40s — 47 if you count named supporters and 49 if you trust Cook’s word that he has two more in his back pocket. That means Cook is still four votes shy of the threshold of 53 for 60% of the caucus. The first place Cook may be looking is among the incoming freshmen who participated in the County Line meeting back in September. As The Blast has previously reported, Rep.-elects Paul Dyson, Hillary Hickland and John McQueeney were all involved in that meeting but did not throw their support to Cook for one reason or another. Of those, Hickland signed the “no Democrat chairs” pledge and McQueeney in the primary said he wouldn’t support someone who appoints Democrats as committee chairs. Next, Cook will likely have to look for members who have gripes with House leadership — or Burrows in particular. Back when Burrows and Bonnen got burned in the recording with Sullivan, Burrows listed the names of 10 Republicans they wanted Empower Texans to target. Of those, only Trent Ashby, Drew Darby and Stan Lambert remain. Ashby’s already joined Cook’s side, but what are the odds Darby or Lambert could jump ship? If you can believe it (I’m sure you do), some Republicans are still fishing around for a potential third candidate. Ken King’s name has come up, but The Blast has heard of no definitive candidate. Before lunch today, The Blast noted several key players huddling. There’s nothing concrete out of any of these interactions, but for the gossip curious: Former speaker candidate and Cook supporter James Frank was in Phelan supporter Todd Hunter ’s office for roughly 15 minutes was in Phelan supporter ’s office for roughly 15 minutes Former House Speaker Tom Craddick tried to talk with former speaker candidate John Smithee , but Smithee was out of the office tried to talk with former speaker candidate , but Smithee was out of the office Phelan chief of staff Mike Toomey then grabbed Craddick, who chatted with him for about 25 minutes As of this morning, the House Democratic Caucus was set to meet again at 8 p.m. [END] --- [1] Url: https://mailchi.mp/texastribune/the-blast-dade-is-done-what-next Published and (C) by Texas Tribune Content appears here under this condition or license: Used with Permission: https://www.texastribune.org/republishing-guidelines/. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/texastribune/