Democrat launches unlikely bid for Texas House speaker

State Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas, launched a long shot bid for Texas House speaker Wednesday.

“What Texas needs is a strong, pro-growth, progressive leader presiding over the Texas House to act as a counterbalance to a far-right governor and lieutenant governor,” Johnson said in a statement Wednesday.

Johnson, first elected in 2010, is running unopposed in the November election. He faces an uphill battle to win the top post in the chamber, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 95-55. Three Republicans already are running for the speaker post: Phil King, R-Weatherford; John Zerwas, R-Richmond; and Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound.

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, announced in October he wouldn’t seek re-election.

Johnson would have to earn the support of all Democrats in the House and at least a dozen moderate Republicans, depending on the results of the November election, to win speaker, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

“Realistically, no Democrat has a chance of winning the speaker’s race. And were a Democrat to have a glimmer of hope, it wouldn’t be someone on the far liberal end of the spectrum like Eric Johnson,” Jones said.

The last Democratic speaker was Pete Laney, who left the post in 2003 after Republicans took control of the House.

Johnson raised his profile last year when he called for removal of a 1959 plaque in the Capitol that states slavery did not cause the Civil War and that the South didn’t rebel against the United States.

An attorney for an international law firm, Johnson has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree from Princeton University and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

If elected, Johnson would be the first minority to serve as House speaker.