HK: Speaker Phelan Should Begin the Next Special Session with Article X and Hold up Everything Else Until It Is Resolved
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Quorum Report: Article http://www.quorumreport.com/Subscribers/Article.cfm?IID=30559 July 29, 2021 2:25 PM HK: Speaker Phelan should begin the next special session with Article X and hold up everything else until it is resolved Expedited passage of legislative funding would potentially unify the House, poke a finger in the eye of a callously imperial governor, and expose the Lt. Governor as a partner in the pain that’s about to be inflicted on so many employees so loyal to the Legislature Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan is a freshman speaker and clearly a work in progress. Being Speaker means creating a coalition out of an unruly, self-centered mob of 149 other House members all ultimately playing for their own political advantage. Threading that needle makes being speaker the toughest job in the Capitol, especially when the Governor and Lt. Governor are transparently collaborating to inflame passions and drive divisions. Phelan’s committee assignments caused much consternation both in the House specifically and the political community generally. However, despite the disjointed nature of a session ripped by covid and ice storms, his instincts in navigating minefields have been relatively good. Phelan has shown early signs of success. But his future is far from certain in this turbulent moment. As we have previously noted, he does not have good faith partners at the top of the food chain with which to work, leaving him potentially vulnerable. While many in his GOP caucus are angry that they are trapped in Austin (a favorite junket – the GOP leaning ALEC is getting underway in Utah) and want to rip out the hearts of the Democrats in DC, Phelan has tried to offer a modulated response. He’s opted for simply busting Speaker Joe Moody and issuing an arrest warrant for a single member, Rep. Philip Cortez, which did not turn down the thermostat and locked down both sides in their inflamed positions. Democrats issued news releases noting that it takes 76 to be speaker or to be removed as speaker and that there were nearly 60 angry members already among their ranks. Some members of Phelan’s own caucus were still angry over committee demotions and others raged that he did not strip chairmanships from absent Democrats and send bounty hunters to find them. All this leads to a lot of grumbling. 1 of 3 7/29/21, 2:32 PM Quorum Report: Article http://www.quorumreport.com/Subscribers/Article.cfm?IID=30559 We are a long way from a Motion to Vacate the Chair but the mere fact that it routinely comes up in conversations with members points to how poisonous the situation is for the freshman Speaker. And on top of that, the Empower Texas gang and the new Republican Party of Texas Chairman, former Rep. Matt Rinaldi, are attacking the Speaker from his right. I would argue Speaker Phelan missed a golden opportunity to take control and reframe the argument. His first duty is to defend the House. When Governor Greg Abbott vetoed Article X, which funds the Legislative Branch, the Speaker should have responded forcefully that the other special session items were interesting but none of them would pass until the funding was restored. That simple act would have unified his institution behind him, poked a finger in the eye of a callously imperial governor, and exposed the Lt. Governor as a partner in the pain that was about to be so maliciously delivered to the innocent employees so loyal to the Legislature. Not to mention the fact that Abbott had previously promised the special session topics would be tackled one at a time instead of all at once the way he eventually designed the call. When he vetoed Article X, Abbott didn’t prove any point other than that he is a bully capable of an adolescent temper tantrum. Far from leading the State of Texas, he was willing to thrust a dagger directly in its heart and put dedicated, hardworking, underpaid people and their institutions at risk – and they are not even part of the argument. More importantly, he put the families and children of public servants in jeopardy. And it is not yet clear whether once broken, Humpty Dumpty can be put back together in a timely fashion. This should not be a surprise coming from the governor who privately in 2017 told CEOs they had nothing to fear from the silly bathroom bill because Speaker Joe Straus had the moral fortitude to kill it publicly. Abbott simultaneously publicly chided House leadership including then-State Affairs Committee Chairman Byron Cook as “obstructionist” on the issue. Abbott is also the same guy who as attorney general issued an opinion that the House could not remove the speaker. Instead, then-AG Abbott opined that the House was required to impeach, meaning the House could indict but only the Texas Senate could remove a speaker. The argument was laughable on its face. Perhaps Speaker Phelan might think that the Texas Supreme Court will come to the rescue. But this is the same institution recently exposed as having refused to hear a case involving Apache Petroleum until the corporation secretly donated $250,000 to a mysterious PAC to help win their re- elections. Within weeks, the Supreme Court reversed itself and heard the Apache case. Guess who won the case. 2 of 3 7/29/21, 2:32 PM Quorum Report: Article http://www.quorumreport.com/Subscribers/Article.cfm?IID=30559 Speaking of the Supreme Court, the justices do need to render a decision on the Article X veto because future governors will otherwise be encouraged to take the legislative and judicial branches hostage as it fits their whims. Institutions should not negotiate with those who practice hostage taking. Bottom line, there is only one person in this whole mix who seems capable or interested in defending the institution of the Legislature. While the voting bill is important to both sides, it is secondary to the constitutional wreckage Governor Abbott is willing to inflict on irreplaceable Texas Institutions. As House Administration Committee Chair Will Metcalf pointed out, employees and their kids will be put in economic and insurance jeopardy, State Reps and senators will have to break the leases to their district offices and lose their phones and the long-published phone numbers that go with them. Travel will be curtailed. Legislative proceedings will no longer be live streamed online. Constituents will be ill served if they’re served at all. The same will happen on the Senate side damaging both Republicans and Democrats. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Lege Council, LBB, the Legislative Library, and Archives will all disappear and third-party contracts will be broken creating additional hardships at the hands of a governor with no apparent endgame other than proving he has more testosterone than Don Huffines and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. When first elected, the Capitol community had high hopes for Greg Abbott and the intellectual horsepower he brought to the game. Instead, they found a man willing to destroy the village – and not even in order to save it. So, Speaker Phelan: Pick your battles wisely. Your allies are ephemeral. If there is another called session, make resolution of Article X the starting point, not the conclusion. Defend the House and let the Senators live with what they have permitted and therefore created. By Harvey Kronberg IID 30559 Copyright July 29, 2021, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved 3 of 3 7/29/21, 2:32 PM.