The Texan Podcast - It's Anyone's Game in the House Speaker Race: Smoke Filled Room Ep. 8

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

It's anyone's ball game here in the race for Texas House Speaker. McKenzie DiLullo and Brad Johnson cover the speaker race, who's in, who's out, and who could come out of left field. This is the wild west of Texas politics and we cover it all in the latest episode of "Smoke Filled Room."Note: This episode was recorded before a list of House members supporting Rep. David Cook for speaker was released late Friday afternoon.Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Hello everybody. Wow. Everybody. What is that? Okay. Am I getting stage fright on my own podcast? Okay. Here we go. Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Smoke-Filled Room Podcast. I am senior reporter Brad Johnson here, the Texan, along with my esteemed senior editor Mackenzie DeLillo. Mackenzie, how are you? I'm great, Brad. How are you doing today? How's your addiction doing?

My addiction? No. My addiction to what so far no your your diction your ability that's actually yeah i i am a bit tongue-tied today apparently so maybe the blooper that maslin puts in will give my flub but we did redo the start of this podcast, which happens to be about the house speaker race. And that is the sole topic today. We're going to talk all about the house speaker race. And it's significant so far, where things stand.

We might get into a bit of conjecture, but probably not a ton. We'll see. Um, so yeah, that's, that's what we're touching on today. I think usually we decide,

okay, here are two or three hot topics, either that we want to, uh, look back on text ledge and do something from the past and add in a few, uh, of, you know, a few topics of what's going on right now. We, there's so much with the past and add in a few, uh, of, you know,

a few topics of what's going on right now. We, there's so much with the speakers race. I remember you texted me like, I think it was two weeks ago and you said the next smoke filled room. We're just doing the speakers race. I think it was, it was as soon as I heard about the,

the meeting on Friday, uh, not last Friday, the previous Friday. Uh, as soon as that happened, I knew we need to touch on this. It's high time. There's more than enough. Yeah.

It's been pretty slow much of the summer, but that's not because things aren't happening. It's just now things are starting to happen out in the open. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to delve into this. And I think, folks, the goal for us is to go through things pretty chronologically, talk about what's happened up until this point, specifically surrounding the Friday meeting. We just recorded the weekly roundup podcast for this will come out on Monday for last week. And we talked a little bit about the speaker's race. But really, we're trying to save it all for this conversation right now because there is so much to talk about. And Brad, I think the best course of action would just be to go through everything from Friday on and kind of talk about the details of everything that happened. And then we'll get into the more analysis of where we're at after that. So I want you to talk about, one, how you came to know about the Friday meeting,

who was at the Friday meeting, and just start there. And then I want to ask you behind the scenes of like, how this all goes in, what kind of reporting you have to do before, during and after something like this, because it is an all encompassing situation. Like that's all you're doing on any given at any given moment on a day like this, when a meeting like this is happening. Yeah, it was a crazy Friday. And then, of course, you know, something else that day broke that that made it even crazier that we are not going to talk about here. But yes, this meeting at first, I think I first got a whiff of it a week and a half beforehand that something was being planned. And then more solidified details started coming out the week of earlier that week and turns out that there was smoke to the there was fire to the smoke and uh you know a bunch of

members were members and gop nominees i should say were to convene and try and hash out one candidate to get behind to challenge Speaker Phelan. And so they, you know, I heard that this was coming on Friday morning. They were being, they were trying to prevent, especially media, from from getting from going and snooping. You know I did get an address that I went to just drove by to see if there were cars and there were and sure enough that was the place it was a county line barbecue on just northwest of downtown and they convened at 10 a.m., and that's where things really started to get going, of course. It was a crazy day following this whole thing from start to finish, five hours of just nonstop glued to my phone, and, you know, that's kind of what reporting is in some instances, you instances, just getting information, verifying it, and making sure it's legit.

So did I answer your three-prong question there that you threw at me? I did the exact opposite of what we're told to do as reporters, is that you just ask one question at a time. I asked you three. So props for answering them. You did a great job. But who, I mean, you kind of already mentioned it, but maybe we can go, well, no, let's just go to the next question. What was the whole point of this meeting? And why does this even matter right now? Like at this point in time, when we are three months, yeah, three months out from the beginning of session three and a half I keep changing my number because I'm trying to be accurate um why does it matter now

why are they meeting now why did they do it earlier why did they do it later like walk me through the importance the point of this meeting and why it matters right now well the reason they had it on this day is so that they have the reformers, as they call themselves, House Reform Group. It's a combination of a bunch of different coalitions and factions within the party, but all of them are, to one degree or another, some very strongly, some kind of lukewarm, either against Phelan or looking to change directions of the House in some manner, open to reforming the chamber some degree. And so you had members all over the place. You also had the five challengers to Phelan, the five GOP-declared challengers to feel in there. And, you know, that's Tom

Oliverson, Shelby Slauson, James Frank, David Cook, and John Smithy. And so the point, I didn't quite get to this, but the point of the meeting was to have it before the, I think, October 3rd GOP caucus retreat to have a coalesced opponent to Phelan before that point where members will all be together and they can work the numbers, try and push their guy, whoever that is. And, of course, it ended up as David Cook. He emerged victorious after multiple rounds of voting. But that was the purpose of this and also to show a significant, to provide a significant show of strength in number

ahead of that meeting. Yeah, so let's talk about that then, just in terms of the numbers how many uh folks were there at the end of the day and describe how the voting procedure actually worked in choosing a candidate that these folks would all rally behind so the number the final number they put out was 48 in terms of the voting power that's the number that voted in the unanimous round for David Cook at the end. But it wasn't that simple. And they followed the Texas Republican House Caucus voting procedure for figuring out an endorsed speaker candidate.

And the way that goes is you have the first round. Before that, they do nominations, and each candidate gives their speech. Basically, their elevator pitch, why vote for me, right? Then they get to the voting. The first round, to win outright, you have to hit two-thirds. After that, you move on to a second ballot, and you again have to hit two-thirds, and if nobody gets two-thirds on that, then you drop the last place candidate. And you do that, you repeat that step until you hit two candidates.

Then you have two more ballots of two-thirds as the line. Then the line, the threshold drops to three-fifths or 60%. And if nobody can get it throughout that whole round of eight ballots, then the process restarts over again. So that was the procedure. They just took it straight up from the GOP caucus rules on that. And it played out not entirely that way but fairly close to that way, which we'll get into in a minute. If you're looking for a political podcast that goes beyond the headlines, check out the Beltway Briefing.

I'm Howard Schweitzer, CEO of Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies. Every week on the Beltway Briefing, our team of former Republican and Democratic presidential appointees, Capitol Hill veterans, and political advocates shares behind-the-scenes perspective that cuts through the noise. If you want the inside scoop, subscribe now to the Beltway Briefing here or wherever you get your podcasts. So I know you've talked to a lot of members after you've gotten, you've really received a lot of information from folks who were actually there about what was said, what the arguments were, what concerns for members were. Talk me through what some of those discussions were like post-meeting,

like considering what you've heard post-meeting, what did members have to say actually during these discussions? Well, so that when they opened up the meeting and just said, you know, here's why we're here, yada, yada, yada. You know, we're all in alignment that a change needs to be made. And they have said that the understanding going into this was they're all going to eventually sign on to something saying we agree with – we either specifically endorse Cook or we agree with the idea behind Cook as the endorsed candidate. That was the general – it wasn't a consensus, but that was the general gist of those running the meeting. And that was the three that were running it most were from like a procedural point of view was state reps Briscoe Cain, Cody Vosute, and Alan Troxclare. So they were instrumental in

organizing this and running it, seeing it through to the end. Now, one member who took a different route and very much disagreed with this even happening in the first place was State Rep. Terry Wilson, a Republican, I believe from Marble Falls. Much of his district is in Williamson County. I think it extends a bit past that. Something like that. So he got up and criticized the meeting for happening in the first place. He said, first of all, you know, not all members were invited. And specifically, Dade Phelan is not here. He is a candidate for Speaker, right? And so if we're going to adhere to caucus rules, then that needs to be the case. Additionally, you know, there are – we don't know who all of the members or the candidates for Speaker are going to be.

You know, you could have someone jump in next week or the week after or shortly after that. You know, this is very much an up-in-the-air situation. It is developing constantly. But we have not seen another member jump in. The last one we saw was John Smithy a few days, I think the Friday before, literally a week before this meeting happened. He filed for speaker late on a Friday night. So Wilson disagreed with that. And I don't know if he pointed this out specifically in that speech, but it has been pointed out since that, you know, not all these members are elected. Not all these individuals in this meeting are elected you know some are and most of them have shoe-in generals so they'll all most of them will be elected but not all of them you know

one that comes to mind is steve canard up in hg70 you know that is a battleground seat in fact the partisan leaning of it favors the democrats slightly mahala placer that's up in collin county and so it is no foregone conclusion that canard will even get to vote in this, in the caucus, let alone on the floor where it really matters, right? So that has been another criticism of this meeting. And, you know, if he didn't mention it, Colonel Wilson, I'm sure he has said that elsewhere. But, you know, other members, specifically, you know, those on Team Phelan have raised that criticism. You know, both sides have a point to make in this. You know, the saying, oh, we're going to follow caucus bylaws is slightly disingenuous in that not all of the caucus bylaws were followed with this. But then again, this is not a caucus event, right? This is a reform group event.

So it is informal. But, you know, both sides are going to talk past each other on that. There's no reconciling those two. This is a political fight, right? So, of course, there are going to be competing arguments and the two sides are gonna try and stake their claim on on who is who is correct on whatever line of procedure so you had you had the Wilson speech then during this during the the proceeding and the five hours that followed that you had you had members pushing for their favored

candidate against the candidates who they don't favor. A couple of themes on that end. I know members handed out booklets that listed out John Smithy's voting history on things like voting against taxpayer-funded lobbying bans. And previously, although he voted with the governor and with most of the House Republicans on the most recent school choice vote, he did not vote to strip education savings accounts from the omnibus back in November, but he had previously voted against school choice and spoken against it. So that was mentioned in this meeting

when they're, you know, lobbying one way or the other. You know, then another one is a big theme that we'll talk especially related to Cook more in depth later, but both Frank and Cook voted for impeachment. And especially the contract with Texas Crowd, that is, if not the main motivating factor, it is a primary motivating factor in choosing who they hope to replace Dade Phelan with. So those were some themes. I'm sure there was a lot more discussed. Then, of course, you get to the fact that,

do you think you have a path to 76? Does that exist for you? And frankly, if you don't think that exists for you, what are you doing in the race anyway, right? But all of that, and I'm sure more, was discussed in this meeting, especially as things got more and more tense and tight between. A fewer number of candidates. And of course, when we talk about impeachment, we're talking about last year's last summer's impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton, in which the House impeached him on and moved basically 60. It was originally 20, moved on to 16 articles over to the Senate where a trial was held. None of those articles of impeachment were supported by senators.

They were all voted down. Impeachment did not, like no counts of impeachment happened against the attorney general or were sustained. And so that's what we're talking about here. That was the lightning rod of last year. It continued through the primaries. It continues into this next session. And Phelan and a lot of House leadership and even some of these reform guys were part of that effort. And so that's a huge fault line that we'll certainly talk about in a lot of this. It's a really fascinating wrinkle to the story in selecting a new speaker potentially. And so, yeah, we'll definitely get into that in a little bit. But that's what we're referring to when we're talking about impeachment

was sitting Attorney General Ken Paxton temporarily being ousted from his responsibilities so that a trial in the Senate could take place. Brad, were there any, like, let's talk through outside influence. Let's talk about opinions from the public. What were members who are meeting here? I know you tweeted out a little bit of information about what members were getting sent to their phones that day, but talk about just the arguments surrounding this meeting from folks who have a stake in this political process. Well, of course, you know, the themes that I talked about a few seconds ago, those were playing out in group chats, in just on Twitter openly, in many different forums about this with people who have no actual vote in this process or who will never have a vote, just

like activists, you know, activists, people in the building, the more in tune voter base who pays attention to this stuff. So those were themes discussed. And then what you're referring to was a text that went to members as they convened from this group called Texans for a New Speaker. I looked it up. It doesn't have any formal existence other than this text message. There's no filing with the TEC, the FEC. I was told also there's nothing with the IRS, no corporate filing in Delaware, which is where you see a lot of these kinds of entities created or just corporations period. Um, it's a ghost organization and it sent out this message saying thank you to the roughly 50 members that are convened in Austin, um, to select a new speaker. And the, so it made that pitch.

It said, thank you, we have your back. And then it said, quote, the largest fund ever amassed in Texas politics is in place to support you and your colleagues in the critical work which begins now. See it through today. Stay and vote. We have your backs. You know, we saw last year a lot of either straight-up anonymous or vague text from groups that just, like, don't exist. And at least in any formal paper trail format.

You know, this message, the largest fund ever amassed, it is both a carrot and a stick. It is a carrot insofar as it's telling members, don't worry about blowback that you might get from, let's say, Phelan or anyone backing him. We have money to defend you in your primary if you get primaried. But it works the other way too. It is a threat saying, if you don't stick with this, we have all this money to go against you. And there's no, don't know who exactly is behind this. You know, there are some pretty obvious guesses.

But formally, it's a ghost organization. And I don't know if we'll ever figure out who actually is behind this text. And also, does this fund, this massive, largest fund ever amassed in Texas actually exist? You know, there's only a few individuals or entities that could provide that kind of money and have the interest in Texas politics. So this is a select few of potentials. And, you know, some of those, like, let's say, Texans for lawsuit reform, who has the largest war chest in the state, it's not going to be as brash going out sending this, especially while Phelan's still Speaker.

I don't know what TLR's official position is on the Speaker's race. They're probably trying to stay out of it, but they're not going to stay out of it, but they're not going to go out and do this. You know, another individual that has this kind of money to claim the largest ever fund amassed is Governor Abbott. He's been very quiet on this. Either way, he's not said a thing one way or the other since feeling one reelection. And I doubt he would be the one to send out a text like this. So that kind of leaves, you know, the Tim Dunn apparatus. I don't know if it's them.

They have not claimed it. I doubt they will claim it. If it is them, it also, let's say for the sake of argument, it isn't. It's possible. But there are only a handful of corners of this political scene that could claim such a large fund and have the interest in putting the money behind it. So regardless, that is a double-edged sword of a promise on this, issued in this text, and members noticed it. Members definitely noticed it at that meeting, and it's going to be a theme, whether it's said publicly or not, it's going to be a theme throughout this race as discussions are had on who to elect as the next speaker.

I think it's worth mentioning as well how quickly tweets, texts, rumors circulate, not only among those involved in Texas politics professionally, online, in whatever capacity, but among members themselves, right? They know just as quick as anybody else who's involved in this stuff when something like this happens, what the rumors are, what tweets been sent out that relates to what they're meeting about. Those things, members are very, very aware of this, and they're sending it to each other. They've got group chats. This is something that they, they're pros at this, right? And I think it's easy to think, oh, they're busy. They're electeds. They don't know what's going on necessarily. They absolutely do. They read everything. They know what's going on. They know what's being said about them. It's human nature to want to know what's said about you, you know, without even factoring in the egos involved in politics, right? They know. So

that's just something to keep in mind too. These folks are very in tune with what's happening both online and in their districts and whatever it may be. So it's very interesting when a text like this goes out. It's certainly not met with apathy. I'll say that. Let's talk through reactions. After Cook did secure the nomination, if that's what you want to call it, as informal as this meeting was, it still is a nomination of sorts. What was the reaction to that decision by these members? support of over half of my Republican colleagues who will be serving in the 89th legislative session. This vote highlights the growing momentum for change within the Texas House as members rally behind a shared vision of a decentralized leadership model that empowers all members. Afterwards, after the results, the four challengers to Cook, or the four other candidates at the meeting that did not win the endorsement, they put out a joint statement that said,

the 48 members and nominees who gathered in Austin, including us, unanimously supported Representative David Cook as our preferred candidate. We have suspended our campaigns for Speaker and urge all of our Republican colleagues to join us in voting for Representative Cook as the Republican nominee for Speaker when the caucus meets in December. That meeting is supposed to happen, I think it's December 1st, actually. But it's usually the first Saturday in December that the caucus meets and figures out its endorsed candidate for speaker. It's also notable, I should say, that they said they're suspending their campaigns. They're not withdrawing their filings, so they are still filed. And I'm looking at the Texas Ethics Commission website right now, the list of the filings,

and they're all still up. You know, that doesn't mean they're going to try and figure out a way to get back in the race and stab Cook in the back. I highly doubt that'll happen. But, you know, let's say for some reason Cook falls apart, you know, they're still in the race to pick up the mantle if that opportunity presents itself uh you know one other as i'm looking at this list of filings uh there is not just the seven that we have talked about in the race there is a new entrant and it is robert morrow who i have talked who i wrote a section in fourth reading about. No way.

Were you off when this broke? You might have been off with your parents. I think I might have. Because I wrote this in my newsletter in the obscure and outdated section when he did announce. But yeah, he has filed for speaker. Mackenzie, tell us a bit about Robert Morrow. Oh, gosh. Why did you have to pivot that one to me?

I think if folks, no, I'm not even going to say that. I was going to say if folks want to know more about him, they should Google him. Don't Google him. He's a character that has, a character is a generous word. It's been in and around Texas politics for a very long time. Let's just say a lot of inappropriate statements, actions are associated with him. And he is a perpetual candidate for any given sort of thing. And he often wears, is it a uh like a gesture a jester's hat um yeah that's about that that's what i'll say folks let's just say robert morrow's not the not the kind of guy you want um running

anything you don't want him being dog catcher yeah yeah um but brad thanks for that pivot i appreciate you uh swinging that question to me. I will take it from here on that. And please do. You really don't want to talk about Robert Mara. I don't. I really don't. Well, you can read more in my fourth reading newsletter from a week or two ago or a couple of weeks ago. But when he announced, I put it in there, and he put out a statement, of course, announcing in a blog spot post, announcing his candidacy for the speakership of the Texas House.

If elected, he promised to retain Mike Toomey as the chief of staff and hire Hill Co.'s Buddy Jones and Bill Miller as his legislative directors. He would make Rick Perry and Karl Rove his advisors on something I'm not going to say, but you can read the Blogspot post if you want to hear that. He said he would hire Evan Smith and Mark Updegrove to advise him on, quote, how to suck up to and grovel at the feet of the bipartisan criminal elite who run our country. And his top issue, Mackenzie, guess what his top issue is for speakership? I don't know. To, quote, publicize the role of mastermind criminal and lifelong psychopath Lyndon Johnson in the JFK assassination.

Oh. That's not where you thought it was going, was it? No. Do you know where that was going? Oh, I know exactly where you thought that was going. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. know where i thought oh i know exactly where you thought that was going okay yeah yeah so yes the the court jester of texas politics is back in action and yeah he's filed for speaker officially which i'm going to tweet out right now as we sit here

again court jester is a very uh generous uh uh term for him anyways thanks for that detour brad appreciate it um but glad to know there's a seventh candidate that has uh filed at least for the speakers well i think he'd make eighth because uh anna maria ramos oh eight yeah yeah and i forgot feeling that's what i was not factoring in was Phelan. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Did you run through all of the reactions?

No, I did not. Okay. Okay. So Phelan said he issued a blistering statement. Actually, I think it was probably like 11 o'clock when this group convened. And he said, in part, it was pretty lengthy. You can see it on Twitter if you want to read the whole thing. But he said, in part, today's gathering is little more than an orchestrated scheme to generate headlines and fuel social media clicks, driving a caucus headlong into

unnecessary chaos. A very small handful of self-annoyed instigators put on this gathering, refusing to invite the majority of the current Republican caucus, misleading members to get them in the room, and permitting unauthorized proxy voting for those not in attendance in order to artificially inflate their numbers. He also went on to say that he has the votes and that that is the end of the question. So, you know, Phelan has kind of, especially since last session in the property tax fight, maybe impeachment being a bit of a counterexample to this, but he has stayed out of the public, you know, just tit for tat,

competing statements, bludgeoning each other. This was a bit of a departure from that. And he did not hold back, which of course right this whole meeting is happening to oust him so it makes total sense um but yeah that was that was phelan's take on this and um i'm sure that has not changed well let's talk about the different i mean just there's certainly a lot of factions that are uniting right now that had previously been at odds over various different issues whether it be impeachment or policy issues whatever it might be primaries like there's a lot going on here what has been if any blowback against cook as a candidate or just criticisms lobbed at him

by folks who are in the feeling camp saying hey why are you choosing this guy as a candidate or just criticisms lobbed at him by folks who are in the Phelan camp saying, hey, why are you choosing this guy as your candidate? Are you all getting along on these issues? Like what's the what are those arguments? So the biggest criticism of the choice from the meeting is that Cook voted for impeachment. Of course, he was one of 60 House Republicans, many of whom were in that meeting voting on a speaker candidate. Smithy did not. And, of course, Smithy, he gave the speech against impeachment from the floor, and he was lauded by Lieutenant Governor Patrick for that. I should back up a bit and talk the order that this vote occurred.

So Shelby Slauson was the first one eliminated, I think followed by James Frank. Then Tom Oliverson got edged out by Cook by one or two votes from what I hear. It was pretty close. And then it was Cook and Smithy, and they went head-to-head multiple rounds, and nobody could hit the threshold. So eventually Smithy just decided to withdraw from the race, withdraw his candidacy,

and then in the final round it was unanimous for Cook, 48, as the voting power. Of course, a chunk of that, at least six, I think, were proxy votes. Real fast, Brad, can you explain what a proxy vote is? Okay, so if a member can't be at the meeting, they will designate one person in the meeting to carry their vote and vote for them. So if one person, you know, if one member can't be there, they will say, X member or nominee, you have my proxy vote. Here's how I want you to vote in order for these rounds based on how it develops.

So, like, you know, they'll give their top nominee. And so as long as that person's in the race, their vote will go to that person. But then they'll probably do ranked choice voting where they'll have their second favorite, third favorite, fourth favorite, fifth favorite, and if their guy gets knocked out, that proxy will then start voting for the second place candidate

as long as they're in the race. So that's generally how it went i'm not sure if there were communications going on from the proxies to the members there there probably were i would i would say it's probably a pretty good assumption so maybe it wasn't as just cut and dry as here's my list um in some of the instances but but that's generally how it was going to go. Yeah. I'd be curious because you know, there were, again, these members are talking. I just know, I mean, the group chats that must have been active during this meeting, I'm just cannot even imagine the combinations of members, both who are present and texting each other,

they're strategizing and who weren't there, who are getting intel about the meeting i it's just i the group chat of it all yeah something that i think about and you know smithy topped each round of voting he won he had the the highest number each round he got 19 in the first round which is quite a bit and from my understanding the contract with texas guys. And from my understanding, the contract with Texas guys, those who signed the, quote, contract with Texas, most if not all of them were kind of going to the mat for Smithy. They were sticking with their guy. And eventually it got to the point where there was a stalemate.

Neither member could get to the needed, think it was 29 i think uh but they couldn't get there regardless of whatever the number was and then in the penultimate voting round the one before the the not the one immediately preceding the um yes the the one immediately preceding the unanimous vote. A vote or two went to Cook. And so that showed Smithy was not gaining any ground. So he's like, this isn't going anywhere. I'm going to drop out. I have heard some members say that it was questioned whether Smithy could even get to, including by himself, would he get to 76.

So I don't know for sure in what manner that was said, but that is something members have told me. And that caused the support, not support for Smithy, but just the votes in that moment to go, all right, let's just be done with this. We can't start this thing over again because if they had hit that eighth ballot and nobody got it, they would start the whole process over again. Then you throw into the mix, what if someone who's not even declared gets in and they decide, all right, let's just, to heck with the five that were in this already.

None of them could get it. So let's unite behind somebody else. They didn't have to do that. Smithy dropped out. They back Cook. Well, think about how hard it is to get 50, give or take, members in a room in an election election season i mean that's tough so i think there's a lot of well you know you couldn't even get motivation because how many of

them were proxies right so yeah give or take again right give or take but i mean you also had a few leave during the meeting you know wilson was up front right at the beginning about it, but there were a couple others who left and either didn't come back or came back later. You know, I heard there was a lunch at TPPF, and it had Dan Patrick there, and a couple of the members at this meeting left to go to that. And then they were told, I'm told by Dan Patrick to get their butts back to the meeting and vote on, quote, who their next speaker is going to be.

So when you say a lunch at TPPF, you mean an event right yeah an event an event at dbpf yeah but talk about herding cats you know it whatever number in there was in there it was it was definitely at least 40 um doesn't mean that number is going to stay with this group it could definitely vacillate, but you know, that, that's a lot of people to try and corral, especially when you have all these different factions within that pushing for their guy in this contentious meeting. Well, and that's kind of why I bring that up is to say that the longer the concern among these members is that the longer they wait to unite behind one candidate of

relatively like mind, which is what these five candidates all seem to have at this point in terms of their platform, the more likely it is that the status quo, which at this point is feeling a speaker, remains the same, right? And so their point is, okay, let's all rally behind each other. Let's get it in a room. Let figure this out now of course this is an imperfect process and we'll see what the results yields come january but you know the more you delay something like this the more likely you are to lose control of what's going on and certainly that's not what the organizers of this meeting were aiming for yeah they wanted a unified front and um i i cut myself off in the middle of talking about the blowback against Cook. So I'll just finish that.

But there's the impeachment. I said there were a bunch of members who had voted for impeachment there. So for them, that argument is not going to persuade anybody other than the ones that are already for Smithy because he voted and spoke against impeachment, right? But there's a lot of members that those who hate the impeachment need from members who voted for it. And that's just the reality of this numbers game, right? The other criticism I've heard of Cook is that he has voted for gaming. He supports, I think it was casino gambling.

He has been in favor of that. And I don't know if that's going to change. Who knows? That thing has no shot anyway, as long as Dan Patrick's lieutenant governor. So, I mean, let's just put that out there um but yeah those are those are two of the biggest criticisms of cook and i'm sure the feeling team is getting ready to dump its oppo file on cook and when that comes out you know we'll see how that affects his candidacy if it moves any numbers. But those two things were definitely talked about during and after that meeting. I do want to clarify, too, when I spoke about impeachment earlier, the House voted to

successfully impeach Paxton. So Paxton was impeached. He was then temporarily removed from office and um their interim attorney generals who took over the office in the meantime and then while he and that was while he waited for the senate to begin its trial and while the senate was continuing its trial which lasted a few weeks so that's what we're talking about the senate then chose to um not sustain any of the articles of impeachment that would have permanently removed the Attorney General from office. And there were 16 counts, 16 articles, none of them were sustained. So that's to clarify what I was saying earlier. I

think that bears repeating just to make sure folks know a little bit about that process. And that's where I also want to delve into this a little bit is, I think the moral of the story when I'm watching all of this go down is that the, all of us involved in the political sphere, especially those, you know, whether it's voters, whether it's members, whether it's those with any stake in the game at all, have such a short-term memory when it comes to these kinds of things, right? If you are violently opposed to someone's goal a year ago, but at this point could unite behind something together and your numbers could drive something across a finish line, you'll be very quick to forgive and forget and move forward with something else. And what you're seeing here is that exact thing happen where impeachment used to be top of mind for all these folks. And it's still certainly part of the

conversations that are being had behind the scenes. But now you have a lot of pro-impeachment, anti-impeachment folks uniting in order to oust Phelan, who by all accounts is being criticized in large part for his role in starting that process. Rather, you know, you can argue how much of a role he had. He said one thing, others say another. Did leadership do it? Did Murr do it? Did how, you know, where does that responsibility lie? I'm not here to debate that. But he was the speaker at the time that that happened and was very vocally opposed to Paxton on many different things, right? And it had a lot to say about the process and was supportive of the process. So, and now you're watching some of

these folks who are aligned with Fiedel and then opposing him now. It's just very interesting. And I think it goes to show, which will, there's so much we could get into, but how power can certainly entice folks to do certain things. And for good reason, it's politics. It's how this works. You want to be on the winning team, but it's really interesting to watch all of this go down. Yeah.

And it's, you know, however this shakes out and we're going to see this play out in slow motion over the next few months, but everyone wants to be on the winning team, but you know who the ones are that make it out best in a speaker's fight. slow motion over the next few months. But everyone wants to be on the winning team. But you know who the ones are that make it out best in a speaker's fight? The ones who go over late to the winner and swing the election for him. They're the ones that are going to get a very cushy gig somewhere, whether it's a nice office or a good committee, standing committee appointment,

maybe a chairmanship. You know, that's how this thing goes. And so there is the personal side of holding your cards close to your vest and not showing your hand. Because if you're kind of in the mushy middle, if you didn't come out strong for the guy that ended up winning and you weren't the one that swung the election, then you're going to be just kind of there.

You're going to be an afterthought. So, yeah, that is something to watch, I'd say. All that to say there's certainly room at the table for folks on either side for whoever wins at the end of the day to secure some sort of um very prominent or suitable position with whoever does become speaker or remain speaker at the end of the day there's a lot of game to be played and i think what goes to show that is that then there has been no letter released uh with people's names right that's no there's no binding anything at this point we just have a lot of support dozens of members supporting cook absolutely notable a very big deal but no binding letter

with names written in a list has been released by this group well and even if it were by if there were a letter put out it wouldn't exactly be totally binding either. You know, things could change. There's nothing binding these people to vote for Cook. It's just a pinky promise, basically. Yeah. It's a bad look, and you don't see it very often unless something crazy happens, right? So it's relatively, it's socially binding, but it's not legally binding. Yeah. What about Abb abbott where's abbott

all of this bradley he has been mysteriously quiet now i say mysterious though i say mysterious because of how much is at stake and even behind the scenes abbott is not one to come out and say oust Dade Phelan as speaker just like or like Dan Patrick has you know he's abrasive outwardly public about this right Abbott is not that way he never will be but um you know I have not heard of any rumblings about Abbott's team trying to push the needle one way or the other. You know, there are arguments that they're, of course, they're trying to come out with a, end up in a good spot, right? Because they want school choice to pass. Phelan now is pro for school choice.

But that's Abbott's biggest angle here. And he could, he won't, but he could push the envelope in a big way if he did come out one way or the other. But, so I wouldn't say it's surprising that he's quiet. But it is a little mysterious how even behind the scenes it seems like they're trying to stay somewhat impartial maybe that changes maybe uh you know things start snowballing and then abbott abbott's uh invisible hand pushes it even further but so far not so far that hasn't happened i don't see abbott though as someone who's historically gotten involved in the house's beeswax i think he's very purposely well until until last november right well that's i mean i'm talking about um but even then in the speakers right like he does like he

certainly will get involved in policy issues but that was even out of character for him but you're totally right the school choice thing that was a whole new Abbott in terms of the primary. And we talked at length about how different of an approach that was for the governor and how many millions of dollars he spent on that. But when it came to Bonnen and the scandal there, when it came to Strauss, like there were so many different instances in which there were arguably more contentious, salacious,

scandalous moments where Abbott still chose not to involve himself in the Speaker's situation. Sure. But, you know, a main criticism of Abbott is in comparing him to Rick Perry, say. This is a comparison I've heard quite a bit. Abbott does not know how to work the legislature because he's at least super well because he hasn't been in the legislature whereas Perry was and he would do that but you know during the school choice debates and in policy fight Abbott's team Abbott and his team were very much involved in pushing members to vote their way calling members into their office,

obviously threatening and then following through on primaries. That was the most outwardly public one, right? And the most effective, right? That got it done for him more than trying the behind-the-scenes smooth operator way. But he has meddled in the House's affairs. He's not just standing up there saying, hey, just bring me a bill and I'll decide what to do with it. No, he is pushing the envelope on his policies. But, yes, you're right.

He did that more with school choice than he has on a lot of stuff and more publicly. And I'm talking more about the speakership, right? That's more what I'm talking about is the speakership. But yeah, I, I I'm in agreement. I think we're on the same page there. And he certainly made school choice, something that he was very willing to go to the mat for. And we'll, I think this session, we'll just see that in spades. It's been very interesting. This is a side note,

watching the endorsements roll out from Abbott for the general right you've been tweeting about him it's been very interesting watching those um and that he's you know he had some of these some of these folks he opposed in the primary very uh forcefully and now he's like endorsed right yeah you're republican the one that's here you go the two that stuck out to me most were uh stan lambert who i'm sure uh saw that endorsement and just tossed it in the trash immediately i mean he there was a lot of money spent against him in that race against Liz Case Pickens and Stan Lambert is there's there are a lot of hard feelings with Abbott on that and then the other one that stuck out was Shelly Luther not because of anything this primary although Abbott did not endorse Shelly Luther against a member who did vote to strip ESAs, but because of their previous history, which is

probably why she did not get that endorsement. Obviously, you know, she rose to fame from during COVID when she was arrested and jailed for a few days because she would not shut her salon down during the height of COVID and the lockdown orders. Well, the governor eventually gave in, and I forget exactly the format of his order, but he issued an order, and the Supreme Court followed it up and said, all right, no one should be jailed. Get Shelley Luther out of there. But it took a while, and Luther did not hold back,

both in the realm of public opinion or in her campaign for the special election campaign for Senate. So now to see her get endorsed by Abbott is just pretty funny for those who know and have seen, have watched this evolution. It's not surprising, right? Of course, he's going to endorse the Republican in the general election, but it is interesting to watch. Yeah, it absolutely is. I think one sect of this conversation that a lot of folks in Austin are having, but maybe folks outside of Austin aren't as familiar with, are the fault lines of the consultants. And where, you know, again, consultant, we talked about this at length in a different episode of Smoke-Filled Rooms, so definitely go back and listen to that

one if you want more in-depth on just the apparatus that is involved with each elected official, whether it's consultants, campaign managers, fundraisers, what have you. But consultants are essentially hired to be advisors. And you can kind of, there are different kinds of consultants. Some are more ideological, saying I'll only work with certain members, certain legislators who align with me politically, who are kind of part of a certain sect of the party. Others are like, hey, let's just bring general folks from the Republican Party or the Democratic Party together. And I'll take whoever from any portion of the party as a client. So you have different kinds, right? But you can tell a lot about where certain elected officials stand based on who their consultants are. What are you hearing

on the behind the scenes shuffling of consultants specifically relating to this race for speaker? Let me first say that consultants are the most competitive bunch probably in Texas politics. And there's a lot of thin skin because there's a lot of money on the line, right? And reputation. So you can understand why. But consultants are very much involved in this race and every other speakers race that there has ever been. But one interesting angle that I was following and it panned out at this meeting is, so David Cook used to be a Murphy Nazca client. Murphy Nazca is one of the consultants for Dade Phelan. The other one is Rob Johnson. I hear Rob Johnson's running the speakership race. Murphy Nazca ran the HG21. Basically,

they're working together. They're all involved. It's just a question of who's on the front foot making any particular decision, right? david cook earlier this summer dropped murphy nasica and he picked up elliot griffin with griffin comms um i think his first cycle was 22 so he's fairly new to the scene uh his first cycle as a in terms of consulting as a consultant yeah and he ran a bunch of races in the primary. He had a pretty good batting average and had some pretty big wins. And, you know, he had Katrina Pearson in the runoff, not the primary. He had Shelly Luther.

That was one. He also had J.C.bro in the sd30 race and that was that was one of those primary victories that felt like a win even though he didn't win it outright um i think he finished second as well so griffin had a had a very good primary but now with cook winning this endorsement it pits um him against his old consultant and that's just you know these things shift and change so much behind the scenes i think we did our last our last podcast about shifting alliances right that applies to this too um something to follow there there are a lot of arguments about who should take credit for what and yada yada yada um but griffin played a role in here he was far from the only one but put aside the credit thing which they can can't. It's all about reputation.

They can't. Right. Yeah. Just from a storyline point of view, this is fascinating. So, yeah, that's something to watch, and maybe that changes. Maybe if Cook wins, something shifts at the top there. Maybe it doesn't. Regardless, everyone wants to have the speaker as their client. And that brings up, you know, Murphy Nasica and some of the other similarly aligned consultants

are not going to go quietly into the night on feeling, first of all, out of a pride thing, right? They don't want their guy to lose. They want to be able to say, we won. Ha ha, na na na na boo boo. Stick your head in doo doo. But, you know, it means influence. It means reputation, having the speaker as a client.

And so they're not going to sit on the sidelines. They are definitely working this, just like Griffin is on the other side. The question is who wins? We shall see. We shall see. And we could do a whole, which would be a little dangerous, but we could do a whole podcast just on consultants and how they run the behind-the-scenes part of it.

And not run it necessarily. Because members are very much independent individuals in so many ways, right? They do their own thing but i will i will say that there are um there's a lot to be said about their organization kind of you can almost count votes based on who's consulting who it just tells you a lot um it tells you a lot but i want to get to just the nuts and bolts of what you're hearing at this point will feel and be speaker come january will it be cook will it be somebody else is there any chance for a democrat i think we know the answer there but tell us what you're hearing at this point when it comes to the speaker's race no there's no chance of democrat that's not happening um but i am hearing wildly

different things from each side on this. You know, from the feeling side, they believe they have anywhere between 30 and 40 Republican votes with the potential to snowball into a lot more, right? Because that's what happens in a lot of these races. It snowballs one way or the other. Almost never do we have a hugely contested race for speaker on the floor. I don't know if one has ever happened, certainly not in recent memory. By the time we reach the floor, this thing has been settled.

We should look that up. That needs to be something we look up and do some research on. Yeah, we should. In all your free time. Yeah, right. Maybe I have Rob. Rob can do that for precedent at times. That'd be fun.

That's a good idea. Yeah, send that story idea to Rob. I'm literally doing it right now. Then on the other side, on this Reform Caucus side, I'm hearing that they're close to 52, 53 members or signees on their backers behind their thing, their push against Phelan. The reason 52 or 53 is important is because 52 votes right now

is the line needed to get the GOP caucus endorsement. And the caucus bylaws say that every member, every Republican member should commit to following the caucus endorsement and voting for them on the floor. That's what the bylaws say. They were created and put in place after Strauss left as a way to try and prevent his coalition from ever happening again, which was the original coalition was 10 or so Republicans with the rest of the Democrats. So that's why 52 or 53 is notable. As it stands, Phelan cannot get the caucus endorsement. That could very well change. You know, like I said about snowballing, that could happen before December 1st,

because members don't want to be on the losing side, right? But I think right now there are well more than 34 individuals opposed to feeling speakership in the caucus. And that 34 number is 86 Republican members minus 52, 34. That's the amount that you can have vote against you and still win the caucus endorsement. Now, that could change. That line could move. If Republicans gain one, have a net gain of one seat, or a net loss of one, that will move to either 53 if they gain or 51 if they lose. To move it down or up another seat, there'd have to be a net gain or loss of three. So a lot is going to depend on the general election and where that line actually is. But the reason the caucus is so significant is because the bylaws say that. And of course,

I mentioned the threat of a primary earlier. Well, this will be another driver of the primary next year if members do not follow the caucus endorsement. And unlike on the floor, the caucus vote is secret ballot. So that is another factor to play in here. How would members vote secretly versus in public? Tony Tenderholt go to the floor last session, vote for himself, along with two other members voting for himself, including Nate Schatzlein, who's still in office. The other member who voted for Tenderholt was Slayton, who's no longer in the legislature because he was expelled last year. Obviously, you're going to have, let's say, feel and wins. You're going to have more no votes against him on the floor than we've seen in a long time. I think that's pretty much a guarantee right now.

But the question is, do we even care about what the caucus bylaws say? Now there's the principled stance of, oh, it's being violated anyway, so why do we care? Then that you have the more practical side of, oh, I'm going to be threatened with a primary, right? So it's kind of, there's two angles to that. But Team Phelan is saying, you know, first of all, we want to win the caucus. But if that doesn't happen, why does it matter? Because all these violations are happening and it's barely being enforced just to hell with it, basically. So that's the significance of the caucus vote.

That comes on December 1st. The main vote comes on opening day of the session. Is that January 12th or whatever it is, whatever day it is in January. So it feels so close. It really does. Especially when you consider how close we are to the election. It's wild to think about. I think too, I mean, the caucus, I think it's fair to say that at this point,

the caucus bylaws and the rules, the caucus are very much used as political ammunition when it suits either side of this debate. Right. And when you look at reasons why these rules were instituted in the first place, I think there's usually a lot of really great intention behind them. There's a reason that these laws, that these bylaws were put into place in the first place, because very real things were happening within the caucus that made sense, right, at the time. And it's very easy then to say, okay, well, one side's not, you know, honoring the

bylaws, so we're not going to either. But at the same time, say, hey, those guys aren't following the bylaws, right? That's just, I think a lot of the, both sides are guilty of it right now. And I think there will definitely need to be some reform in order for folks to be able to say, yeah, we care about the bylaws enough to follow them, because that's certainly not the attitude of the GOP caucus right now. Well, and, you know, we've heard not about the speaker candidates provision, but about other provisions of the bylaws. We've heard about suggestions of altering it, specifically the, you know, campaigning against other Republican members in primaries. It was suggested by Tom Oliver, caucus chair, that they were going to address that

in the October 3rd meeting. I don't know if that's going to happen. Who the heck knows? Also, you know, notable that Oliver was a candidate for speaker, still technically is. And he said from the beginning, we're going to take this to the floor.

That itself is a violation of the bylaws. So there's selective viewpoints of the bylaws, which is why it's fair to question, do these things even matter anymore, or should we just call it what it is and a rank knockdown drag out numerical fight politically? Yeah, totally. Well, let's talk about the Democratic side of this because, as you said, no Democrat could at this point be nominated and elected as a speaker.

But we have a Democratic candidate. Walk us through that. So, you know, Democratic chairs is a frequent topic in this speakership fight. And, you know, the reason Democratic chairs exist, the reasons cited vary. You hear often, you know, it's tradition, it's bipartisanship, you know, there's something to that. But that tradition only goes back so far. I just saw one of the Twitter accounts, the Texas-led Twitter accounts tweeted out a picture of Tom Craddock back in the 70s when he was given his first committee chair appointment. I believe that was Ways and Means. He was the first Republican to hold a committee chair spot in the House in 100 years. And that was because Democrats controlled the entire legislature. I mean, Democrats ran the entire state. They ran the show. It's much like the Republicans these days. So that was put out there. That kind of, you know, if you didn't already know,

that just nixes the tradition argument. But that's not the real argument. The real argument and the real reason behind Democratic chairs is the Republican, the majority caucus is split enough and therefore some votes from the Democrat, the minority side, need to be peeled off in order to secure 76. That is the final number that matters more than anything else, 76. So that comes out in... I totally lost my train of thought. What was I talking about? You did a really, really good job. You're talking about Democratic speakers.

Democratic chairs, thank you. Democratic chairs, yeah. Okay. So that is the reason that Democratic committee chairs and any kind of power sharing exists. Republicans do not have a supermajority. They have 86 votes right now, and they are not going to get a supermajority. So A, they have to play ball with Democrats, at least some, in order to pass constitutional amendments, which require a supermajority. We've seen that run into problems with the bail reform stuff, right? So that's part of this. The other part is the

speakership. And that brings up Ramos. So Ana Maria Ramos is a Democrat from Dallas who joined the race. She's the only Democrat so far to jump in. A lot of the question was, you know, will Phelan go to the floor with the whole Democratic caucus and some Republicans, just like Joe Strauss did in 2008-9? But, you know, there's an argument from a lot of – or not a lot, some Democrats in the caucus. Ramos is one, who don't want Democratic chairmanships. They don't want the minority party to play ball with the majority party because that, they just want to get in there and blow stuff up. Much like the right from the other side of things wants to get in there and blow stuff up um you know we saw that a lot when Strauss was speaker right during his that was the whole reason the freedom caucus was

was created right but there are still those who who just want to when they're in the minority they don't want to work with the majority they want to blow things up. You see that in Congress a lot. And so Ramos is one of those members. She does subscribe to that belief. And there is also the question of, let's say the state gets closer politically, or even Democrats take the state back in a decade. that at that point, if Democratic chairs have been eliminated and no power sharing, then they will have, their argument is, they will have the ground on which to stand to just lock Republicans out. You know, that's the whole precedential side of things, line of argument. You know, we saw that in Congress, in the Senate, when Harry Reid used the nuclear option to get a bunch of judges approved when there was a deadlock. And that came back to bite him in the rear end when Republicans

did that for the Supreme Court members. And now it's just a simple majority to confirm judges. Well, the same similar line of argument is had here. And it seems like that's Ramos's gambit. And, you know, maybe if she has 10 to 15 members who are behind her lockstep. That gives her a lot of power, not only to affect the outcome, but to get something in return down the road. An example that I heard, a comparison I heard made was David Crane. Whenever Pete Laney assumed the speakership, he was a liberal Democrat in Dallas. He had 10 members who were committed to him, 10 to 15, whatever the speakership. He was a liberal Democrat in Dallas. He had 10 members who were committed to him, 10 to 15, whatever the number was. And he turned that into a good

chairmanship and a good spot in the House under Laney's speakership. So that's an angle to watch from the Democratic side. Things are still up in the air, but so far she So, uh, that's an angle to watch from the democratic side. Things are still up in the air, but so far she's the only one that's jumped in. Absolutely. I want to quickly, I asked Rob about the speaker floor fight situation that dovetails into the last topic. We'll get into,

uh, Rob says upon his first look, right? Our, our history guy here, but upon his first look, the first time the same person held the speakership between two sessions was 1933 and 1935. And that became increasingly common over time. Then basically, after the Sharpstown scandal, which you don't know about the Sharpstown

scandal, we don't have time to go into it, but check out Precedent of Times, Rob's newsletter. If you're not subscribed to the Texan, go subscribe to the Texan and you'll get access. But it's been these multi-session speakers over and over again since that Sharpstown scandal. Beforehand, it was always a different person for each session. So that's really interesting. And on that note, Brad, what happens if we get more than two candidates on the floor? What if it's more than Cook and Phelan? What happens then? Well, first of all, it would depend on if none of them can get to 76, right? But from what I'm told, if that is the case, if there is a deadlock and no one can

get the majority needed, then they will kind of do the elimination we – similar to what the reform group did and what the caucus bylaws lay out, except the threshold needed is a majority, simple majority. So they will do a round of voting. Then they will eliminate the third member. And, of course, that is spelled out in the resolution at the beginning passed before the speaker vote so i guess that could change they could change the way they do that but um you know i don't know i don't know if that's ever been done but if there is a a deadlock where let's say phelan cook and ramos none of them get to 76 uh from what i'm told ramos on the next round would be dropped and eliminated and then you would have another round head to head could be such a spicy time but of course that also means that no candidate has locked up the

speakership by the time they do get to the floor and that is historically not something we've seen for a long time if ever so we'll do some more research on that and see if we can find some answers for folks. But regardless, it's a pretty interesting angle there. Brad, any final thoughts now that we've really just blathered on and on about this? We could talk about this for a long time and maybe we do another podcast on this exact same topic in a couple of weeks, right? But any final thoughts? This thing is anybody's ballgame right now. There is so much up in the air. Members, there are definitely a group of members that are playing both sides, telling both sides what they want to hear. And there's simply no

other way to square the math that I'm hearing from either side on this. So whenever things start to move, we are going to see them snowball. Which direction that is, I don't know. But that's how these things go. And Phelan's goose is not cooked. David Cook is not guaranteed to be speaker. He's also not guaranteed to be out of it. There's also the chance that we have more candidates jump in.

It's all in flux. And that's how things go, even if this particular race is shaking out a lot sooner than most of them do. When Ph that didn't, that speaker's race didn't really start until shortly after the general election. And then like a week and a half in, he declared he had the votes. This is obviously happening a lot sooner and playing out a lot more publicly. Absolutely. And for, you know, in recent memory, this is the first time where we've seen an incumbent speaker battling for his own position that he's held um for a couple of sessions the last few times we've seen a change in speaker it has been because either someone said i'm not running for re-election or there's been a scandal i'm talking bonnet i'm talking strauss and those

two speakers span 12 years essentially well and then you and then you had Craddock, who was pushed out by the Strauss coalition. He didn't take this to the floor. He just dropped out when it became clear he wasn't going to be reelected. Which very well could happen in this instance, right? Where we still go to the floor and we know exactly who's going to be speaker at the end of the vote. So it still could happen. But very notable. Absolutely. Well, Brad, thanks for breaking it all down for us. And folks, if you aren't tuned into Brad's Twitter, I would highly encourage you to go check it out. It's exactly where you need to be to be finding everything that's going on

with the speaker's race and text ledge, the legislature at large. And tune in to the next smoke-filled room where we just might be talking about this again. There's a lot to discuss and we did not hit everything we wanted to talk about in this podcast. So lots to chat about. Brad, thank you. Good discussion as always.

Soon enough, we'll have to do it in person again. Twist our arms. You sound so thrilled about the prospect yeah just stay in europe just stay in europe well folks thanks for tuning in to another episode of smoke filled room we'll catch you next time Thank you.