13-02-2025
'Shaping statewide policy': Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows appoints committees
Ending more than four weeks of speculation and launching what will likely be the first sprint of the 2025 legislative session, newly minted Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows unveiled his committee assignments Thursday in which many of his top supporters emerged with key chairmanships.
But Burrows — who won the House's top office Jan. 14 backed by a coalition of Democratic and Republican members after a high-spirited and unusually public campaign against a fellow Republican — did not exile his main rival for the speakers gavel to chamber's back bench. Instead, Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield, was named the chairman of the subcommittee that oversees juvenile justice issues.
And several of Cook's supporters in the race for speaker also came away with either chairmanships or plum committee assignments.
As has been a long practice in the 150-member House, most of the top committee chairmanships went to seasoned members. But in breaking a long tradition, none of the Democrats, who are outnumbered 88-62 in the chamber, was awarded a chairmanship of a standing House committee as per the rules adopted last month.
"This process is much more than filling seats," Burrows, a Lubbock Republican first elected to the House in 2014, said in a message to the members. "It's about structuring the House in a way that allows each member to contribute their expertise where it truly makes a difference. There is no small role in the committee process, as each plays a unique part in shaping statewide policy."
The budget-writing House Appropriations Committee will again be chaired by Friendswood Republican Greg Bonnen, a 12-year House veteran who has held the post since 2021. The vice chair will be El Paso Democrat Mary Gonzalez, who has been in the House since 2013. The committee is charged with combing through the finances of virtually every state agency as it crafts the House's version of the state's the two-year spending plan for the cycle that starts Sept. 1.
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Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican who is the House's eighth-most senior member, will chair the Calendars Committee. This panel is considered the gate keeper of legislation in the House. No bill comes to the chamber floor without passing through the Calendars Committee.
Former Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont, who in December gave up his bid for a third term at the helm of the House amid his collapsing support among rank-and-file Republicans, will chair the House Committee on Licensing and Administrative Procedures.
Hunter and Phelan helped form the core of Burrow's Republican support in his bid for speaker.
Rep. Tom Craddick of Midland, also a former speaker and the House's most senior member, supported Cook over Burrows. But Craddick, a member since 1969, was award the chairmanship of the Transportation Committee, which oversees the state's web of highways as well as air and sea transportation assets.
Under the rules adopted as the House was getting organized early in the session, only Democratic members could serve as committee vice chairs. The rules also reorganized some of the standing committees by creating 12 subcommittees to take some of the workload.
The chairmanships of those subcommittees were evenly divided between Democratic and Republican members. Moody, the Democrat from El Paso, was also named speaker pro tempore, a largely ceremonial role he has held under Republican speakers in previous sessions.
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Still, Moody's appointment did not sit well with one Republican member who has been among the most ardent critics of any power-sharing arrangements with Democratic members.
"Breaking : DEMOCRAT named Speaker Pro Tem of the (GOP dominated) Texas House," Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Waxahachie, who opposed Burrows' bid to lead the chamber and has frequently sparred with him on the House floor, posted on X shortly after the appointment.
Still, Harrison received a coveted committee assignment: a seat on the appropriations panel, which gives him a platform to criticize any state spending that he finds wasteful.
Much of Harrison's pique toward the House's leadership has had to do with the time it took to get members appointed to committees and to get the legislative flow started in the chamber.
The first real action on legislation, some of which was filed in early November, takes place once committees begin to hold hearings. The 31-member Senate, which is one-fifth the size of the House, typically gets out of the blocks much sooner. Senate committee hearings began almost three weeks ago and they've advanced a handful of bills to the floor, two of which have already passed the chamber.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Legislature: House Speaker Dustin Burrows appoints committees
