Columnist Erica Grieder reacts to Straus.

Joe Straus, the speaker of the Texas House, is apparently less mild-mannered than he appears.

How else do we explain his decision to upend the state’s political landscape, as he did Wednesday morning, when he announced that he has decided not to seek re-election next year? Straus’ own effort to do so, in a statement posted on Facebook, was reasonable enough. The House has, in his view, accomplished what he hoped it would when his colleagues elected him to helm it in 2009. And after five terms as speaker — a record-tying tenure — he is “increasingly eager to contribute to our state in new and different ways.”

Still, the news was wholly unexpected and represents a DEFCON 1 situation, given its implications for state politics. It means that the Texas House will have new leadership when the 86th Legislature convenes in 2019.

Straus’ critics, on the far right, were thrilled to learn that. Removing the speaker has long been their top priority, even if they have never managed to do anything about it.

“It’s morning in Texas again!” said state Rep. Matt Schaefer, a Republican from Tyler and member of the House Freedom Caucus.

Most Texans, however, were distinctly less jubilant. The fact is that Straus has always been well-regarded, on both sides of the aisle. His critics are more ferocious than cogent and, in any case, they’re not numerous.

And since 2015, Straus’ steady leadership in the House has taken on outsized importance. In January, Texans inaugurated a new governor and lieutenant governor, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick, the latter of whom seemingly presides over the former in addition to the Texas Senate. That left the House as the only potentially moderating influence on the Texas Legislature.

Straus, it should be noted, has not been as ruthless about that as his enemies allege — and as Speaker of the House, he can’t control what happens on the

floor of the chamber. That was dramatically illustrated during this year’s fight over sanctuary cities. The bill that passed the House was more draconian than the one Abbott called for, thanks to an amendment offered, on the floor, by Schaefer.

Still, Straus has clearly been trying to keep the wheels on the wagon, and some of his efforts, to that end, have been more successful.

According to the governor, for example, he deserves the blame for thwarting the bathroom bill, during the regular and special sessions.

“The speaker made very clear that he opposed this bill and he would never allow a vote to be taken on it,” Abbott said, in an August interview with KTRH, the Houstonbased radio station. “He told me that in the regular session. And he told me during the regular session that if this came up during the special session, he would not allow a vote on it, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that he’s going to change his mind on it, and that’s why elections matter.”

That conclusion, I remember, struck me as hilarious at the time. In the wake of Straus’ announcement, it takes on an ominous new resonance.

A Trump critic

In recent months, a number of Republicans in Congress have also announced that they have decided not to seek reelection in 2018. Just Tuesday, Jeff Flake, the junior senator from Arizona, announced that he will step down. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, he called on his fellow Republicans to reflect on what their party has become — to stand up for our embattled democratic norms and institutions, and to stop dismissing bigotry and belligerence as the cost of doing business.

“We can no longer remain silent, merely observing this train wreck, passively, as if waiting for someone else to do something,” he wrote.

Many Republican leaders are reluctant to engage with such concerns, which have been raised before, and not just by Flake. Some have dismissed them outright, on the basis that these are problems with Donald Trump, rather than the party he leads — or that the people raising them are biased against either, or both, or trying to save face.

Unfortunately, I doubt that’s going to change any time soon. But I will note that neither line of argument applies in Straus’ case.

The speaker is a bornand-raised Republican who once worked for Ronald Reagan. He just didn’t endorse Trump and has no history of pandering to the party’s base, demonizing the other side, playing footsie with the far right.

In other words, Straus isn’t complicit in Trump’s election, or any of the pathologies that arguably enabled his ascent. He has, in fact, been an outspoken critic of the latter — tribalism, bigotry, and incivility — since he was first elected speaker.

Further, Straus is demonstrably leaving the Lege on his own terms, not quitting in an effort to save face. His right-wing critics may dispute that, but as noted, they have been vowing to unseat him for years, and their occasional efforts to actually do so have fallen embarrassingly short.

No more scapegoat

In 2016, Straus faced a well-funded primary challenger in his House district and won by a roughly 30-point landslide. At the beginning of the next legislative session, in 2017, he was re-elected speaker with unanimous support of Republicans and Democrats alike.

Trump may be right that critics like Flake and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker are retiring because they can’t win — because they don’t support him, or have his support. But Straus doesn’t have that problem.

It’s actually not clear that his decision to leave the Lege has anything to do with the fact that Trump is now president. Our national political climate is pretty grim, but it’s been that way in Texas for a long time.

It would be worse, frankly, if not for Straus. That’s one of the reasons so many Texans are freaking out about his decision to step down. And some of the people dismayed by Wednesday’s news are Democrats, but many are not.

Republican leaders can’t afford to ignore that. Straus may have frustrated hard-liners, at times, by thwarting their efforts to implement a right-wing agenda. But Texans, it would seem, don’t trust Abbott or Patrick to stand up to the grass roots. Straus’ departure leaves them without a scapegoat — and success might expose them to some political risk.

In the wake of Straus’ announcement, one Democratic legislator texted me a list of Republicans his colleagues might be able to support as his successor. Twelve names were on the list: the nine who voted against Schaefer’s amendment, and the three who were absent.