Latest news with #Burrows'
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
After years of tension, Texas House emerges as cooperative partner for Dan Patrick and his conservative agenda
With tensions boiling over in the final days of the 2021 Texas legislative session, Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican and a top House lieutenant, went out of his way to throw shade at the Senate and its leader, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, for letting too many House bills languish. From the back microphone on the House floor, Burrows rhetorically asked then-Speaker Dade Phelan if he was aware that 'less than 50% of the House bills that we sent over were passed by the Senate' — much worse than the success rate for Senate bills sent to the lower chamber. It came shortly after Patrick had flayed the House for killing several of his top conservative priorities. Four years later, Burrows' first session wielding the speaker's gavel is winding down with little of the same inter-chamber acrimony. Conservative priorities that had failed in session after session in the House, from private school vouchers to stricter bail laws, have cleared the Legislature with time to spare. So have once-thorny issues, like property tax cuts, school funding and immigration, that in years past had generated bad blood between the chambers and needed overtime sessions to address. Many of those now-imminent laws were in the sweeping agenda Patrick unveiled near the start of the session in January, marked by several issues that Gov. Greg Abbott also championed as 'emergency items.' All but a handful of Patrick's priorities — from conservative red meat to top bipartisan priorities to the lieutenant governor's own pet issues — have made it across the finish line or are poised to do so in the closing days of the session, which ends June 2. The lack of discord reflects the collegial relations Patrick and Burrows have worked to maintain from the start; Burrows' apparent desire to avoid drawing Patrick's wrath and the political damage it inflicted upon his predecessors; and the reality that the House, thanks to the turnover wrought by a bruising 2024 primary cycle, is now more conservative and more receptive than ever to Patrick's hard-charging agenda. 'The tools that Patrick uses — and I think he uses them as effective as anybody — is he's aggressive, he's up front, and he's early,' said Bill Miller, a veteran Austin lobbyist and political consultant. 'He lets you know what's coming and why and how important it is to him.' Patrick's influence — and that of the hardline conservative Senate he oversees — is evident down the homestretch of the Legislature, as a steady drumbeat of his highest priorities make their way onto the House floor as a waystation to Abbott's desk. For critics of the dynamic, the most telling case was the House's move this week to adopt Patrick's ban on hemp-derived THC products, in lieu of the carefully crafted regulatory bill offered up by one of Burrows' lieutenants. Patrick's crusade to eradicate the hemp industry, underscored by his threat to force a special session if the THC ban fell through, met almost no resistance from House Republicans, nearly all of whom stayed silent on the issue throughout the session. Speaking from the House's back microphone Friday, Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, jokingly asked whether Texas has a 'bicameral legislature' and, if so, whether either of the chambers is 'superior to the other.' 'I believe that democracy calls for this house to exercise its authority in as much as or to the same extent that the other side does, and I don't believe that's happening,' Dutton said, before echoing his favorite refrain about the Senate: 'If they won't respect us, they need to expect us.' In a statement, Patrick disputed the notion that either chamber 'gets its way over the other' and noted that, without cooperation from the House and Senate, 'nothing gets to the governor's desk to be signed into law.' 'The Speaker and I don't keep track of what's a Senate bill or a House bill. That simply depends on the flow of legislation and how we divide up the work as the session progresses to find the best way to pass a bill,' Patrick said. 'The Speaker and I, and the members from both chambers, have never had a more positive and collaborative relationship in my 18 years in office and that's why this session will be the most productive in history on so many major issues.' Burrows said he and Patrick 'began session aligned on many major issues' and kept their 'shared legislative priorities' moving by staying in contact. 'As a longtime conservative member of the Texas House, I appreciate the input and perspective from our Senate colleagues in crafting legislation and the support of Lieutenant Governor Patrick in making sure this was a banner conservative session for our state,' Burrows said in a statement. Democrats in recent weeks had intensified their criticism of Senate Republicans for failing to move on a multibillion-dollar school funding package, sent over by the lower chamber in tandem with a $1 billion school voucher bill that was quickly sent to Abbott and signed into law. The Senate's lead negotiator, GOP Sen. Brandon Creighton of Conroe, said the delay was a matter of lawmakers doing their due diligence on 'the most complex piece of legislation we will consider and negotiate this session.' Both chambers struck a deal on the $8.5 billion package this week. Just before it advanced out of the Senate Friday evening, Patrick — perched on the Senate dais — took aim at 'the media and those outside who said, why is it taking so long?" 'You don't pass those bills with the snap of a finger, because there are 150 opinions over there and 31 opinions over here,' Patrick said. 'So, we shut out the rest, the outside noise, the media who doesn't even understand how a bill passes. … It's really been a five-month process, and it's a masterpiece for the rest of the country to follow.' This session, Patrick has also taken a special interest in reining in the Texas lottery, which has come under scrutiny over the proliferation of online ticket sellers — known as couriers — and the revelation that a $95 million jackpot in 2023 went to a group that printed 99% of the 26 million possible ticket combinations. Couriers and bulk ticket purchases would each be banned under a last-minute Senate bill that has zoomed through the House and is set to reach the floor on Sunday. Patrick has also championed a push to more than double the amount of money the state spends to lure film and television production to Texas, with extra incentives for faith-based productions. That measure, Senate Bill 22, also made it onto Sunday's House floor agenda. The House has until the end of Tuesday to give initial approval to most Senate bills. The Senate, meanwhile, faces a Wednesday deadline to grant final passage to legislation from either chamber. Senators and House members will then spend the final days of the session reconciling their different versions of bills in closed-door conference committees. Some of Patrick's priorities have already cleared those hurdles and been sent to Abbott's desk, including a measure to allow time for prayer in public schools and create a $3 billion dementia research fund, the latter of which will also need approval from voters in November. Several priorities of Patrick and fellow hardline social conservatives also are on track to reach Abbott's desk after stalling in the House in recent sessions. Those include a requirement for public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments and a law barring residents and governments from countries deemed national security threats from buying property in Texas. The pressure for the House to pass conservative legislation has also come from within the chamber, with GOP members from the party's rightmost flank urging Burrows' lieutenants to push key bills through their committees. On Friday, a group of the House's most conservative members called on Rep. Ken King, a moderate Republican from Canadian who chairs the influential State Affairs Committee, to advance a bill aimed at restricting the flow of abortion pills into Texas. 'If Chairman King kills a bill that would protect tens of thousands of innocent children from the murder that is abortion, Republicans will be forced to hold him accountable,' Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, said at a news conference highlighting conservative legislation stuck in limbo. King's committee advanced the measure, Senate Bill 2880, hours later. It was one of a handful of high-priority Senate bills that have been voted out by King's panel in recent days after being parked there for weeks, including the school prayer measure and a proposal to bar local governments from helping Texans travel out of state to receive abortions. Around the same time, some of King's bills sent over to the Senate — most of which had been frozen — suddenly began moving. Patrick has denied that King's bills were purposely being held up. The House's hardline ranks have swelled after last year's wave of GOP primary defeats that saw more than a dozen incumbents ousted, largely over their opposition to vouchers, support for the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton or a combination of both. Others chose to retire and were replaced by more conservative successors, forming a class of insurgent GOP freshmen who make up the bulk of the House's more than 30 new members — the largest freshman class since 2013. 'There are two things that are working in Patrick's favor,' said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. 'Number one, the House is more ideologically conservative than it's ever been. And two, a lot of the members are brand new.' Still learning the ropes, many of those new members 'are going to follow Patrick's lead,' Rottinghaus said, 'because he is, in some ways, the party's de facto leader.' That was especially clear in the debate over THC. King, who carried the Senate's THC bill in the lower chamber, proposed a version that would have sharply tightened regulations on the hemp industry and restricted which products are allowed to contain THC, while preserving hemp-derived THC edibles and drinks. That was done away with by proponents of a ban, who centered their pitch for a complete crackdown around the idea that Texas would expand its limited medical marijuana program, known as the Texas Compassionate Use Program, or TCUP. Midway through the House's THC floor debate, Patrick voiced support on social media for expanding the medical program to allow for more licensed medical marijuana dispensers and let providers operate satellite storage facilities designed to make it easier for patients to fill their prescriptions. Rep. James Frank, R-Wichita Falls, read off Patrick's post to the full chamber to bolster the case for a ban. House lawmakers included those provisions in legislation approved by the chamber last week. Their draft also would add several qualifying conditions, including chronic pain, and extend eligibility to honorably discharged veterans — both key selling points from House Republicans championing the THC ban. Both provisions — eligibility for chronic pain and veterans — were stripped from a new Senate draft of the bill unveiled days after the House's THC vote. The change sparked one of the first real signs of public discord between the chambers, kicked off when Rep. Tom Oliverson, the Cypress Republican who led the charge to restore the THC ban in the House, wrote on social media Saturday that he was "deeply disappointed in the removal of chronic pain" from the Senate medical marijuana bill. Pitching the ban this week, Oliverson told his House colleagues he had fought to include chronic pain in their version of the bill, and he promised he would "fight for that on the other side." In an addendum, he later added, "To clarify my statement below, no agreement on chronic pain in TCUP was ever reached with the Senate and none have been broken." Patrick followed later Saturday evening by thanking Oliverson for clarifying, before adding a key detail: Patrick said he had told Oliverson personally that the Senate would not add chronic pain as a qualifying condition, well before Oliverson later told House members he would fight for its inclusion. "I was as transparent as I could be. He knew the Senate wasn't adding chronic pain 2 weeks ago," Patrick said, adding, "For all of us, our word is the most important currency we have in the legislature." In conference committee, Patrick said, "Tom will get a chance to make another pitch. We'll listen in good faith." Disclosure: University of Houston has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. First round of TribFest speakers announced! Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd; U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California; and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas are taking the stage Nov. 13–15 in Austin. Get your tickets today!
ITV News
30-04-2025
- ITV News
Searching billions of photos led police to fugitive paedophile Richard Burrows after decades
A paedophile who stayed on-the-run in a place he called "paradise" for almost 30 years was caught after a search of billions of online photos. Richard Burrows fled the UK, in 1997, to escape justice for sexually abusing boys during his time as a scout leader and school housemaster. He failed to appear at a court in Chester while on bail, but the authorities did not know he had managed to leave the country and no appeal helped to trace him. In 2023, advances in facial recognition software offered detectives the chance to scour the internet for Burrows. Out of the billions of images the system trawled, there were matches to someone calling himself 'Peter Smith' who was living in Thailand. 'Smith' worked at an advertising company and had appeared in the local Thai media. Detective Inspector Eli Atikinson told ITV News about what she called the "breakthrough moment." She said: "We put in the custody photograph from 1997. "The software provided a couple of matches to images from news articles from Phuket which showed his retirement do from the sailing club that he was a member of." The identity Burrows was living under had been stolen from a terminally-ill acquaintance of his. Back in 1997, he had used Peter Smith's name to fraudulently obtain a genuine passport and then travel to Thailand undetected. After confirming that 'Smith' was Burrows, Cheshire Police contacted the National Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service to begin extradition proceedings. But officers soon became aware of Burrows' intention to return to the UK under his stolen alias after he ran out of money. Last March, the now 81-year-old was arrested at Heathrow Airport. For Burrows' victims, seeing him in a courtroom has taken a painfully long time with some passing away before it could happen. James Harvey is among those still here to see it. He was just 12-years-old when he was indecently assaulted by Burrows. Mr Harvey waived his right to anonymity to speak about what happened to him. He told ITV News: "I suddenly was aware that this man was trying to touch me in a way that nobody had ever tried to touch me before. "I knew in that instant that this was not normal. This was terribly embarrassing and uncomfortable, and I didn't like it. "[Burrows] is a serial, pitiless, cruel, manipulative, cynical human being who deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison." Burrows' offending in Cheshire took place between 1969 and 1971 while he was employed as a housemaster looking after vulnerable children at Danesford Children's Home in Congleton. His victims in the Midlands were abused between 1968 and 1995, the majority through local Scout groups where Burrows worked as a leader. In each case, he befriended the boys using his position of trust. One victim told Chester Crown Court that Burrows had "stripped away my humanity" in an eight-hour ordeal during his camping trip with the Scouts. The Honorary Recorder of Chester, Judge Steven Everett, replied: "You have done nothing to be ashamed of." Another victim said at the time he hid the abuse from his parents, could not tell any of his friends or trust a grown-up any more. He said: "I had no-one to turn to and just internalised it all. It totally affected my future relationships and behaviour. "Even now I keep going through my head: 'Why did you assault me?' I looked up to you.'' Judge Everett responded: "I want to be crystal clear. There is only one person at fault here and he is sitting opposite me in the dock." Those who finally tracked down Burrows hope this case shows that suspects will always be found, even in far-flung corners of the globe. Det Insp Atkinson said: "In emails that we have found since his arrest, Burrows described how he has spent the past three decades 'living in paradise', while his victims have all been left to suffer as they struggled to try and rebuild their lives. "Thankfully, following our determination, he has finally been held accountable for his actions and is now behind bars where he belongs. "I also hope that this case acts as a warning to any other wanted suspects - demonstrating that no matter how long you hide, we will find you and you will be held accountable."
BBC News
22-04-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Paper boys and girls reunite at Ely newsagent to mark closure
A man who delivered newspapers in the 1950s has joined more than 80 former paper boys and girls at a reunion for a retiring opened more than 125 years ago in Ely, Cambridgeshire, but is set to close after its third generation owner Jeff Burrows, 76, decided to closure was marked with a call-out on social media to former employees to turn up at the shop at 09:00 BST on Burrow's niece, Annabel Reddick, who works at the shop, said the response was "incredible, I thought we'd get about 15 or 20 if we were lucky". "We had at least 80 people turn up, including one girl who now lives in Manchester -and one gentleman who came from Norfolk and said he did his round in the 1950s," she said."Many of them wrote down their memories, thanking Jeff and saying it was a great start to their working life." The cash-only shop opens every day except Christmas, as well as deploying about 20 girls and boys to deliver papers to nearly 700 customers. Mr Burrows was 25 when he took over the business from his father Percy in 1973 - it was set up by his grandfather James reckoned that he had employed at least 500 paper boys and girls over the years since, most aged between 13 and 16, whom he described as "good as gold".Ms Reddick, who opens the shop every day at 05:00 BST, said: "Jeff and my grandad had a tradition of having hot cross buns for the paper boys and girls at Easter - they'd buy big trays of them - so we did the same and served them all buns from Boswell and Son Bakers on Saturday."Luckily she had bought enough to go round, she added. Burrows' last day of trading is 26 April and its paper round has been sold to a national company. Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Winners and losers: Who came out on top — and who didn't — in the Texas House's committee assignments
House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced his highly anticipated committee appointments on Thursday, laying the groundwork for legislation to start moving through the lower chamber. The committee assignments relied heavily on the leadership team of Burrows' predecessor and close ally, Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont. Yet Burrows also gave nine lawmakers their first opportunity to lead a committee. As always, there were only so many chair positions to go around, with 30 standing committees for 88 Republicans, making it inevitable that some members would miss out on plum appointments. Adding an additional wrinkle this year, a new House rule banned members of the minority party from helming committees, which meant Burrows had to consider how to divide the spoils among Republicans — many of whom did not support him for the speakership — while still making sure the Democratic coalition that won him the gavel received enough crumbs to be satisfied. Here is a breakdown of some of the winners and losers of Burrows' first-ever committee appointments. The Lubbock Republican had fielded criticism from the far-right of his party since the moment he announced he would run to replace Phelan as speaker. But on Thursday, Burrows, who hardline conservatives accuse of being too cozy with Democrats, seemed to have pulled off a tough balancing act, rewarding his closest allies and elevating new ones while neutralizing many critics. He appointed four Republicans who voted against him to chairmanships, including one of Phelan's GOP rivals for the speaker's dais, fellow Panhandle Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo, who was appointed to lead the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Burrows also tapped two former speaker hopefuls, Rep. David Cook of Mansfield and Rep. James Frank of Wichita Falls, to lead new subcommittees. Democrats, who suffered a blow by losing their ability to lead committees, still seemed pleased with their committee assignments. Burrows appointed Democrats to lead six of the 12 standing subcommittees, and El Paso Democratic Rep. Joe Moody was named speaker pro tempore, a largely ceremonial position that nonetheless gave the minority party another win. Keeping the Democrats happy is crucial for Burrows because they make up the majority of his tenuous coalition. He was elected speaker with the support of 49 Democrats and 36 Republicans. But he also made enough Republicans happy to avoid sparking an uproar within his own party. Burrows followed an unsteady path to the speaker's dais after he announced his candidacy in December. When the House Republican Caucus soon after endorsed Cook, his main GOP opponent, Burrows said in a news conference he had the necessary 76 votes to win the speaker's gavel. But only hours later, lawmakers started taking their names off his list, dropping him below the majority threshold. The battle for uncommitted and flippable lawmakers continued into the first day of the session, with neither Cook nor Burrows having a clear lock on 76 votes heading into the speaker election that day. Lawmakers who eventually flipped from Cook to Burrows were handsomely rewarded in their committee assignments. Rep. Caroline Fairly, a Republican from Amarillo who announced the morning of the speaker's election that she was flipping her vote to Burrows, was appointed to the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, a major assignment for a first-time lawmaker. Magnolia Republican Rep. Cecil Bell Jr. also benefited from backing the right horse at the last minute. Bell initially went along with the GOP caucus and pledged to support Cook, but he switched his vote to Burrows on the first day of the session expressing frustration about the rhetoric from Cook's supporters, which he compared to 'having neighbors who constantly blare noise all day and all night in mind-numbing disregard of time and civility.' Now, the seven-term lawmaker and long-time budget writer will helm his first committee after being appointed to lead the newly created Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. Burrows also rewarded Republican lawmakers who voted against him in the first round of the speaker's vote but switched in the second round to help get him over the top. That group includes Rep. Sam Harless of Spring, who will lead the Corrections Committee, and Rep. Tom Craddick of Midland, a former speaker and the chamber's longest-serving member, who will head the Transportation Committee. Democrats knew they were likely to lose their ability to lead committees after a wave of establishment Republicans were swept out of the chamber by insurgent primary challengers who ran, in part, on upending the system of power-sharing. Republicans then picked up two more seats in the November general election, further limiting Democrats' leverage in shaping how the House would operate. They bet on Burrows to somehow continue the bipartisan tradition that had prevailed in the House since the 1970s. Burrows did not disappoint those lawmakers, rewarding them with leadership positions. Veteran Democrats like Reps. Rafael Anchía, Terry Canales and Chris Turner were tapped to lead standing subcommittees on telecommunications, transportation and property tax appraisals, respectively. Houston Rep. Gene Wu, the House Democratic Caucus chair, landed a spot on the influential Appropriations Committee. He was also appointed vice chair of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and he will serve on the subcommittee on juvenile justice, both areas of focus over his prior six terms. A few Democrats also received multiple leadership slots, including Rep. Oscar Longoria of Mission, who was appointed chair of the subcommittee on workforce and vice chair of the subcommittee on international relations. Austin Reps. John Bucy, Sheryl Cole and James Talarico were each appointed vice chairs of a standing committee and a subcommittee. Several less-experienced Democrats who were in Burrows' corner early scored leadership roles, too. A pair of second-term Democrats, Rep. Christian Manuel of Beaumont and Rep. Venton Jones of Dallas, won coveted appointments to the Appropriations Committee while also being appointed vice chairs of the Human Services and Corrections committees, respectively. And two Democratic freshmen, Reps. Cassandra Garcia Hernandez of Farmers Branch and Lauren Ashley Simmons of Houston, were appointed to the Appropriations Committee. Garcia Hernandez was additionally tapped to be vice chair of the subcommittee on state-federal relations. Lawmakers who backed Burrows faced a barrage of text blasts and other attacks from hardline conservatives who were determined to defeat him in the speaker's race. But those who hung tough with Burrows saw their loyalty pay off. Among them was Rep. Lacey Hull of Houston, who received sustained backlash on social media as the only Republican from Harris County to not line up behind Cook. She went on to give a fiery nomination speech for Burrows on the House floor, and she was rewarded with an appointment to chair the Human Services Committee, her first leadership position since she joined the House in 2021. Hull is also on the influential State Affairs Committee this session. Reps. Cole Hefner of Mt. Pleasant, Keith Bell of Forney and Jay Dean of Longview also were tapped to lead their first standing committees after being some of Burrows' most loyal supporters. The three stood with Burrows at a news conference in December as he announced he had enough votes to win. Dean in particular went on local TV stations in East Texas to voice his support for Burrows even amid threats of censure by his local Republican county parties. Though committee chairmanships are traditionally reserved for members who have served at least two terms, some freshman and sophomore Republicans still landed plum assignments after they sided with Burrows despite pressure to defect. Rep. Carl Tepper, one of Burrows' earliest and loudest supporters and a fellow Lubbock resident, was placed on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, along with the Calendars Committee, which controls the flow of legislation, and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee, which was created with broad jurisdiction to consider a sweeping range of bills. Another Burrows supporter, sophomore Rep. Janie Lopez of San Benito, scored appointments to the Appropriations and Calendars committees. And two Republican freshmen, Reps. Jeffrey Barry of Pearland and Denise Villalobos of Corpus Christi, were placed on Appropriations. First-term GOP Rep. John McQueeney of Fort Worth also won a spot on the key State Affairs Committee, a rarity for a freshman. McQueeney backed Burrows even after Attorney General Ken Paxton held a rally in his district as part of a tour to pressure House lawmakers to back Burrows' rival for the gavel. There's no way around it: Compared to where they stood in the 2023 session, Democrats emerged as losers. After last year's elections, House Republicans had not only increased their ranks by two members, to a total of 88 of the chamber's 150 seats, but they also were bringing back more socially conservative politicians who were bent on ending the tradition of power-sharing with the minority party. That meant that after 22 years as the minority party in the House, Democrats finally lost their ability to run standing committees this year, under a rules package adopted by lawmakers last month that dictates how the lower chamber will operate. Democrats are also outnumbered by Republicans on every committee and subcommittee, unlike before. Wu, the House Democratic leader, highlighted the positives in his statement, pointing to the minority party's 30 vice chair positions and the 10 members who will serve as subcommittee chairs or vice chairs. Aside from barring Democratic chairs, the new House rules also expand the power of vice chairs by allowing them to request witnesses and hearings on bills or topics. Additionally, the speaker can refer bills to subcommittees, some of which are chaired by Democrats. But any way you slice it, Democrats chaired eight of the 34 standing House committees last session, and that number has been reduced to zero. Republicans who were hoping for more fodder to condemn Burrows' leadership — or anyone hoping to watch Republicans tear each other apart over committee appointments — largely came away disappointed. There were some scattered complaints by hardline conservative activists and a handful of House Republicans who charged that Burrows had 'kept Democrats in power.' Rep. Brian Harrison of Midlothian posted on social media his displeasure that Burrows had named a Democrat as speaker pro tem, and Rep. David Lowe of North Richland Hills shared an infographic implying that giving Democrats vice chair positions amounted to keeping them in power. But for the most part, Burrows avoided much public criticism, even among the new socially conservative batch of freshmen who made up much of the self-proclaimed 'reform caucus' that opposed Burrows' speaker bid. Usually vocal critics like Reps. Mitch Little of Lewisville, Shelley Luther of Tom Bean and Katrina Pierson of Rockwall either celebrated their committee assignments or kept their powder dry. A few Republicans took a big risk last year when they decamped from Phelan's team to advocate for a change in House leadership. Many of those lawmakers found themselves in the doghouse under Burrows' appointments. Reps. Briscoe Cain of Deer Park, J.M. Lozano of Kingsville and Tom Oliverson of Cypress were among Phelan – and then Burrows' – biggest critics and they all respectively lost their committee chairmanships on Thursday. Not all chairs who went against Burrows were completely left out in the cold, however. Burrows tried to bring Smithee and Frank, both former contenders for the gavel, back into the fold, and Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City — who defected to Cook on the day of the speaker election — was tapped to replace Cain as chair of the Agriculture and Livestock Committee. Lozano previously chaired the Urban Affairs Committee, which was abolished and folded into the new Intergovernmental Affairs Committee chaired by Keith Bell, the late defector to Burrows. Oliverson was replaced as Insurance Committee chair by Dean, the Longview Republican.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Critics of Texas House leadership spent big in this year's speaker's race. They fought years for that chance.
A bruising election season had come and gone, but the political attacks kept rolling in. Voters in state Rep. Cody Harris' East Texas district were flooded with text messages the week before the legislative session kicked off. The barrage of attacks accused the Palestine Republican of colluding with Democrats to elect a speaker of the Texas House. 'A small group of Republican Texas House members are trying to cut a deal with a majority Democrat coalition to elect a speaker who will kill our conservative policies' said one text, which included a disclosure that it was paid for by the Republican Party of Texas. 'Unfortunately, your Representative Cody Harris decided to ignore the Trump mandate and is working with the Democrats to stop the GOP nominee.' Over the past year, outside groups spent heavily on campaigns for their speaker of choice, turning a race that is usually waged quietly and behind closed doors into a public and caustic spectacle that has raised allegations among its members of foul play. State Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock, the candidate most closely associated with prior House leadership, ultimately won. But the result came only after a deluge of spending made legally possible by a pair of lawsuits 14 years apart filed by close associates or allies of a chief Burrows' adversary: West Texas oil billionaire Tim Dunn, who has for years funded an effort to disrupt the traditional Republican leadership of the House and push the chamber closer to his no-compromise, Christian conservative ideals. As a result of the most recent lawsuit, the Texas Ethics Commission agreed in 2023 to stop enforcing laws that ban outside spending in the speaker's race, cementing a ruling in the previous case that found the prohibition violated the First Amendment. The commission's decision was made at the encouragement of Attorney General Ken Paxton's office, which refused to represent the commission otherwise. Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who dropped out of the race seeking his third term as speaker after enduring several months of a loud campaign against him, said the presence of outside spending marks a new era in the speaker's race. "Outside forces, folks who may not even live in the state of Texas or in the United States, are going to be able to exert pressure among members about their vote for speaker," he told The Texas Tribune in an interview. "It's just something we haven't ever dealt with in the state of Texas." The lawsuits ushered in an open season on spending for attack ads. House members for months saw their districts bombarded with social media and text message campaigns, targeting them over their speaker allegiances. 'It was totally different,' said Rep. Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston, who said every day leading up to the start of session his inboxes were full of messages threatening him if he didn't vote for Burrows' opponent in the race, Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield. 'We received thousands of phone calls and emails from all over the state, just really ugly voicemails left and it was totally out of hand.' In prior sessions, VanDeaver, who voted for Burrows, remembers only a few people expressing opinions about his vote for speaker. Early financial reports show that allies and political groups funded by Dunn spent heavily in the last few months of 2024. The Republican Party of Texas, funded largely by Dunn in recent years, spent at least $163,000 on the speaker's race. Dunn's PAC, Texans United for a Conservative Majority, spent at least $43,000. At least one PAC supporting Burrows also spent nearly $60,000 in the last weeks of 2024. Dunn did not respond to an interview request. Those numbers likely represent only a portion of the spending. It will be months before those groups are required to disclose their spending in the two weeks leading up to the vote. And the state's weak ethics laws mean Texans may never know the total spent to influence this speaker vote. Lawmakers have responded to the latest political warfare with lawsuits and legislation. Harris filed an ethics complaint against the chair of the Texas GOP, accusing him of bribery for threatening political retribution if he didn't vote for Cook. (The ethics commission dismissed the complaint stating it wasn't in their jurisdiction.) Another Republican House member filed a lawsuit against a group he said published his cell phone number in a message to constituents that falsely alleged he supported Burrows. And other Republican lawmakers have filed bills to put more guardrails around mass text messages sent as part of political activity. 'It felt like a highly contentious primary runoff,' Harris said. 'They tried to elevate the speakership to a statewide elected office and the reality is it's not. It's determined by 150 members of the Texas House. … This time they tried to completely disrupt that.' In the early 1970s, political scandal rocked the Capitol after nearly two dozen Texas officials, including then-House Speaker Gus Mutscher Jr., were embroiled in what became known as the Sharpstown stock fraud scandal, where lawmakers were found to have passed legislation favorable to a Texas businessman in exchange for the opportunity to buy stock in his banking business. Angry voters sent a largely new crop of lawmakers to Austin in 1973 with demands to restore public trust. Dubbed 'The Reform Session,' the Legislature passed a sweeping set of ethics rules, including one bill barring legislators from using campaign money 'to aid or defeat a speaker candidate,' and prohibiting individuals from spending more than $100 on correspondence that might influence the speaker's election. The punishment was up to a year in jail, a $4,000 fine or both. From then on, it would be almost unheard of for outsiders to get involved publicly in a House leadership race. Lawmakers considered the vote to be an internal legislative act — a matter of 'housekeeping' — to be treated differently than an election for office. But in 2008, a coalition of legal groups sued the Texas Ethics Commission over the prohibition. Among the plaintiffs was the Free Market Foundation and its president Kelly Shackelford. The Free Market Foundation eventually became the First Liberty Institute, of which Shackelford remains the president. Dunn has been a longtime board member. At the time, their argument — that the ban on spending in the leadership race violated the First Amendment — had bipartisan support. Other plaintiffs included the Christian conservative Texas Eagle Forum and the American Civil Liberties Union. 'We were shocked that this would be in the law,' Shackelford said. 'The speaker has a lot of power over pretty much every issue and to allow the general public to speak into that, I think, is important.' Dunn has served on the board for more than two decades. Shackelford told The Texas Tribune that Dunn was not involved with the lawsuit. Then U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, ruled that lawmakers were too broad when they blocked outside spending in the speakers' races. 'The election of the Speaker is not, therefore, a matter of internal Housekeeping,' wrote Yeakel in his ruling. 'It is an issue of great political importance and a legitimate subject of public debate. Therefore, public speech relating to the election of the Speaker is subject to all the protections of the First Amendment.' Yeakel's ruling came around the same time that factions within the Texas GOP started to diverge. Moderate Republican Rep. Joe Straus of San Antonio rose to power in the House with the help of Democrats, a fact that conservative members of the party used against him in subsequent primaries. Empower Texans, a conservative lobbying group funded largely by Dunn, started testing the waters, publicly advocating for their preferred speaker candidate. In 2011, they supported Ken Paxton, who was at that point a relatively unknown state representative from McKinney, in his campaign to unseat Straus as speaker. Paxton vowed to choose more conservative lawmakers to chair influential House committees. 'This is the first time in modern history when Texans can express their preference on the speaker's race and involve themselves in it,' Empower Texans wrote in a blog post in 2010. 'Some in the Austin power elite – including the media – don't like it.' Paxton ultimately dropped out of the race, and Straus held on to the gavel. Throughout the rest of the decade, Empower Texans continued to attack House leaders, accusing them of being 'Republican in Name Only,' and advocating for more conservative leadership in the lower chamber. When Dennis Bonnen, an Angleton Republican, succeeded Straus as speaker in 2019, Empower Texans initially praised him. Then, the group began to complain that the new House leader — who was supposed to be more conservative than his predecessor — was compromising too much on key issues and ignoring their input. Bonnen served one term as speaker, brought down by the leader of Empower Texans who released a secret recording where Bonnen and Burrows offered media credentials to the organization in exchange for his help to 'pop' some House Republicans in the next primary. Bonnen retired and the House handed the gavel to Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont, a Bonnen ally. Only two representatives voted against Phelan for speaker, including former Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royce City, a freshman at the time. Slaton was bankrolled by Defend Texas Liberty, another Dunn-backed PAC that rose from the ashes of Empower Texans, which disbanded in 2020. Slaton was expelled from the Legislature in 2023 after a House investigation determined he had sex with a 19-year-old intern after giving her alcohol. It was Slaton who took the Ethics Commission to court in late 2022 to once again challenge state statutes that prohibit outside spending in the speaker race. He and two other plaintiffs sued to remove a few remaining statutes that banned the practice. Slaton, Robert Bruce, a San Antonio conservative activist, and the Grayson County Conservatives PAC, argued that they wanted to spend campaign funds, personal money and PAC funds, respectively, to show support for a speaker candidate and state law was unconstitutionally prohibiting them from doing that. The group was represented by Tony McDonald, an Austin lawyer who served as the general counsel for Empower Texans and then Texas Scorecard, a conservative news website also funded by Dunn. McDonald and Slaton declined to speak to the Tribune. Representatives from the PAC did not respond to requests for comment. Bruce said he joined the lawsuit because he felt the "good old boys" of the Texas House operated in the dark, and outside individuals and groups had a right to speak their mind about who should lead the lower chamber. At the time, Burrows and Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, tried to intervene in the lawsuit to oppose Slaton's case, arguing that the speaker's race is a 'legislative process.' 'If existing law is struck down, Intervenors will be subjected to the effects of limitless spending of political contributions to PACs and legislators on efforts to influence the selection of the Speaker of the House,' wrote Geren and Burrows. 'This raises the prospect of influence-buying and corruption tainting the selection of the Speaker.' But the attorney general's office, led by Paxton, urged the ethics commission to settle, according to a letter from the Ethics Commission. Paxton is also one of the top recipients of Dunn's campaign war chest, and he was one of the most vocal opponents of Burrows and Phelan in the speaker's race. The commission relented, writing in a letter to Geren in 2023 that the attorney general's office would no longer represent it as a client in the case unless it settled. The attorney general's office typically represents state agencies in lawsuits. Phelan, the former House speaker, took issue with the attorney general's role in the matter. "When [Paxton was] elected to office he's responsible for representing the state whether he agrees with the laws or not," said Phelan, in an interview. "It's still the job of that office and they chose not to do their duty to the taxpayers. Now, we are where we are." The attorney general's office did not respond to a request for comment. But Bruce said Paxton's decision to settle signaled they did not have a strong legal argument. "There was no way it was going to stand constitutional muster," he said. "It would've been pointless to have a trial because they knew they were going to lose, because it was a clear First Amendment violation." The state GOP's decision to campaign against one of its own for House speaker this round was unusual. A review of campaign spending disclosures over the past 15 years leading up to the start of each legislative session shows the vast majority of spending by the party was to support Republican candidates. They had not previously spent money in the speaker's race. But in early December, Burrows announced he had the votes for speaker from a coalition of Republicans and Democrats just minutes after the GOP caucus voted in to endorse Cook, setting off off a feverish campaign against the now-speaker. Party leadership accused Burrows of being a Democrat, spending tens of thousands of dollars on advertising and text message campaigns to pressure Burrows and his supporters to endorse Cook. Dunn's Texans United for a Conservative Majority PAC also sent text messages, urging voters to call their representatives and encourage them to 'make the Texas House Republican again.' In one message paid for by the PAC, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller declared that the 'RINO hunt in Texas continues.' At the same time, a pro-Burrows group, American Opportunity PAC, spent around $60,000 in support of Burrows' candidacy for speaker, according to the group's most recent campaign disclosure. The full scale of spending around the race is still unclear due to a patchwork of filing deadlines and a lack of specificity about what types of spending individuals or groups are required to disclose around this particular race. 'You've got an election that's not really an election,' said Austin ethics lawyer Ross Fischer, of the speaker's race. 'It's not a primary election. It's not a runoff election. It's not a general election. It's in an entirely different statute. … It's going to be up to the Legislature to decide whether they want to impose disclosure requirements for those involved in the speaker's race." In one instance, a group called American Action Fund posted a Facebook ad in December asking people to sign a petition demanding their representative 'vote against liberal Dustin Burrows for speaker.' The group is not registered as a PAC with the state and had not filed a campaign expenditure report as of Feb 11. On American Action Fund's Facebook page, it says it is run by Young Americans for Liberty Inc., which has not filed a report with the state for its political spending in 2024 either. Neither group responded to a request for comment. Some House Democrats who were supporting Burrows, including Rep. Erin Zweiner, D-Driftwood, were also targeted by text message campaigns. The Courageous Conservatives PAC also sent a text to her constituents that included her personal cell, according to screenshots she provided to The Tribune. Another text message sent out accusing Zweiner of supporting 'MAGA Republican Dustin Burrows' didn't include a disclosure. It's still unclear who sent that text. That murkiness is at the heart of the lawsuit that Rep. Pat Curry filed against the Courageous Conservative PAC days after the speaker's race. The freshman from Waco said the PAC, which is based in Virginia and chaired by Texas conservative Chris Ekstrom, sent a text message to his constituents claiming he had agreed to vote for Burrows for speaker, labeling him a 'turncoat,' and publishing his phone number. Curry said when his cell phone number was publicized, he was inundated with messages, some of them threatening. His family grew concerned for their safety. He sued, alleging the PAC violated Texas election laws by failing to register as a PAC with the Texas Ethics Commission. He also reported the incident to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is investigating the incident, according to the complaint. Curry said the attacks were misplaced because he was supporting Cook all along. He thinks he was targeted by the group for not being more publicly supportive of their candidate. 'If they want you in their camp, they want you solidly in their camp,' Curry said in an interview. 'And I wasn't really willing to come out and jump out and scream on the corners for Cook.' Ekstrom declined to comment on pending litigation but told the Tribune he is frustrated that allegations of so-called 'dark money' controlling the House are betrayed by the fact that Burrows won. 'I think President Trump needs to get directly involved in 2026 & save Texas Conservatives from themselves, frankly,' he wrote in a message. 'I have zero confidence in the current powers-that-be.' As the legislative session continues, at least two lawmakers have filed a bill that would require 'mass text message campaigns' to include a disclaimer identifying who paid for the political advertisement and slapping a $10,000 fine on each individual message sent that violates the disclosure law. Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, filed the identical legislation. Neither responded to a request for comment. But the day after the bills were filed, McDonald, the lawyer who sued to help end the ban on outside spending in the speaker's race, railed against the bill on social media. 'These bills don't just impact 'text messaging,' he wrote. 'They're poorly conceived, and even more poorly drafted, and will have the effect of impacting speech rights for Texans of all stripes.'
