Lawmakers need towork together, despite Texas GOP chairman
Hindsight is 20/20, but it might have been a mistake to put a firebrand former Florida congressman in charge of the Texas GOP at a time like this.
Allen West, who combined outrageous comments with fundraising prowess during his single term in office, has endeared himself to some party activists since being elected chairman of the Republican Party of Texas in July. But his recent escapades are causing a fair amount of heartburn among Texas conservatives.
He is seemingly determined to pick fights with Republican elected officials — just as state lawmakers are preparing for the 87th Legislature, which begins in January.
Republicans, as we all know, exceeded expectations in the 2020 election even as Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton’s showing in Texas. The blue wave that swept over Georgia and Arizona missed Texas, even with off-the-charts voter turnout.
Perhaps most consequentially, Texas Republicans will begin the 87th Legislature with the same majority they enjoyed during the last regular session in 2019, having successfully defended all but one seat — that of moderate state Rep. Sarah Davis in a deep-blue bit of Harris County — while unseating Katy Democrat Gina Calanni.
They’ve also been spared the potential drama over a contested race to succeed Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, who is retiring at the end of this term.
The day after the election, state Rep. Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican who will begin his fourth term next year, announced that he had the pledged support of 83 colleagues — a number that quickly grew to 103.
“I have secured a supermajority of the Republican caucus,” Phelan said at a press conference at the Capitol.
“However, in Texas, we set politics aside and work for the benefit of all Texans,” he continued. “The leadership must be diverse. It must look like Texas and give a meaningful voice to different people from across the
state. Therefore, I’m also proud to announce a broad coalition of support from the Democratic caucus as well.”
That’s a fine statement of principle from a presumptive speaker. Of note is that Phelan secured the support of 11women in the House Democratic Caucus who had decided to vote as a bloc in support of a candidate who would put women in key leadership positions.
“After meeting with Dade Phelan and hearing his support for an equitable distribution of women in leadership, we have decided to support him in his bid for speaker,” state Rep. Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat, explained.
And most Republicans were pleased with the news that Phelan, who serves as chairman of the powerful State Affairs Committee, will join Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as the newest member of the state’s Big Three.
“A strong conservative, Dade has a proven record of fighting for the lives and livelihoods of all Texans, having played a key role in authoring and passing critical legislation to bolster disaster relief and preparedness following the devastation of Hurricane Harvey,” Abbott said in a written statement.
Some far-right observers, however, were displeased by Phelan’s ascent.
“Rep. Phelan used his power last session to advance the LGBT agenda and we have not forgotten,” said Jonathan Saenz, the president of Texas Values Action, noting that Phelan was one of only three House Republicans to receive a positive rating from Equality Texas, which advocates for LGBTQ Texans.
But the strangest broadside came from West, who blasted Phelan’s support for some degree of bipartisanship in a “Monday Message” post on the state GOP’s website.
“The Republican Party of Texas is perplexed, and will not support, a potential Texas Speaker of the House who would seek affirmation from progressive socialist Democrats to attain that position,” wrote West, who ousted state GOP Chairman James Dickey this past summer.
“It is utterly absurd and demonstrably idiotic that any Republican would join with Democrats to lead our Republican majority (83-67) Texas State House,” he continued.
None of the Democratic legislators who have announced their support for Phelan are socialists, to be clear. But, setting that aside, West is ignoring the fact that the speaker of the Texas House would do himself, and the state, no favors by trying to marginalize nearly half of his colleagues without reason.
“We need to have a fund for Allen West to be bought a oneway bus ticket back to Florida,” said Rep. Dennis Bonnen, the outgoing speaker, in an interview on KFYO’s The Chad Hasty Show. “The problem is that I don't think Florida will take him.”
“Allen West is so off base, and so out of line, and so irresponsible, it is infuriating,” Bonnen added.
This is not the first time that West, a 59-year-old retired Army colonel who became a leading voice in the tea party movement in 2010, has made outrageous statements. While representing a Palm Beach County-based district, he made headlines when he said Nazis would be impressed with the media tactics used by Democrats. One of two black Republicans in Congress, he called then-President Barack Obama “a low-level Socialist agitator,” according to Reuters. At another point, he claimed to know up to 81members of the Democratic Party were members of the Communist Party. After his district was redrawn, he ran in a swing district in 2012 and was narrowly defeated despite raising $19 million.
More recently, West, who relocated to North Texas six years ago, appeared to take issue with Abbott’s restrictions during a surge in coronavirus hospitalizations, decrying “the tyranny that we see in the great state of Texas.”
With COVID-19 cases on the rise again and the Legislature facing a $4.6 billion budget shortfall as a result of the economic contraction, there will be little time for this kind of partisan warfare in the coming session.
“The whole year has been so stressful and abnormal,” said Eva DeLuna Castro, a budget policy analyst for Every Texan who has followed the state’s appropriations process closely since the 1991 session. “How do you come up with the money?”
If West wants to have an effective tenure as chair of the Republican Party of Texas, he would do well to remember that after election season, Texans want Republicans and Democrats to come together and get things done. West, however, seems more interested in stirring things up and telling elected Republicans what to do.