Successor likely to be more conservative Republican,
No sooner had Joe Straus announc e d Wednesday, seemingly out the blue, that he would not be seeking re-election as a member of the House in 2018 and an unprecedented sixth term as speaker in 2019, than Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, let it be known that he had filed the paperwork to succeed Straus as speaker.
But Zerwas, a Straus loyalist who serves as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, might be a long shot in a contest that will favor someone more in the conservative ideological center among House Repub- licans, and not someone in the mold of Straus, who, while in the middle among all members of the House — Democrats and Republi- cans — was at the moderate extreme for a Republican.
While the choice of the speaker will be made by Republican and Democratic House members when the next session convenes in January 2019, there has been a concerted push among House conservatives, the state Republican Party and grass-roots activists, to have the House Republican Caucus make its choice of speaker before it goes to the full House, and then apply pres- sure on all Republicans to stick with the caucus choice.
They want to avoid the circumstance in 2009 when Straus deposed then-Repub- lican Speaker Tom Craddick by gaining the support of 10 key Republican members and the Democratic minority.
“I think his successor will be chosen in caucus, so I think it will be someone who will give conservatives a seat at the table,” said Rep. Matt Rinaldi, R-Irving, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, made up of the dozen most assertively conserva- tive members of the House.
“But as far as names, I can only say that in these situations, it is always someone no one is thinking of at the outset of the process,” Rinaldi said.
Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, announced last month he planned to challenge Straus, and said Wednes- day he remains all in.
Lots of other names have been bandied about. There’s Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-An- gleton, who as Ways and Means chairman and speaker pro tempore of the Texas House of Representatives, has been a top Straus lieutenant but with a sharper edge and more conserva- tive ideology. There’s Rep. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, chairman of the House GOP Caucus, and Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, who chairs the House Republican Caucus Policy Committee, and Rep. James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, who heads the Texas Conservative Coalition, among others.
Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, issued a statement asserting that, “As past speakers have been, the next speaker will be elected only with bipartisan support.”
But Strau s’ d epar t ure may signal that that way of doing business is a relic of a bygone era.