Republicans are firmly in control of the Texas Legislature, but conservatives are forming a new political action committee...with the sole goal of removing Alamo Heights State Representative Joe Straus from his position as Speaker of the House.
The Texas Monitor reports the new PAC, called the 'New Leadership PAC,' exists with the goal of funding challenges in next year's election not jut to Democrats, but the key Republican Straus allies like State Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana).
NLP Treasurer Don Dyer told the Texas Monitor that Straus has been killing conservative priority bills for years, and its time for a change.
"It's become clear that leaders in the Texas House have lost contact with the core principles of the majority of Texans," Dyer told the Monitor.
In the regular and special sessions of 2017, the State Senate, led by deep red conservative Dan Patrick, easily passed all of Gov. Abbott's priorities, including a bill to limit local government property tax increases, a bill to restrict the collection of labor union dues of teachers and state employees, and the high profile 'bathroom bill,' which was designed to limit transgender use of public restrooms.
But all of the measures were killed in the House, many of them without a floor vote, after Straus shuffled them off to committees headed by Republican allies like Cook, where they were quickly buried.
Straus, who has weathered for years claims that he is insufficiently conservative, has proven to be unbeatable in his Alamo Heights district, after Republicans mounted two unsuccessful campaigns to unseat him.
So the goal of the NLP is to replace enough moderate and Straus-allied Republicans that the conservative challengers who replace them will agree to a rule change before the 2019 session calling for only the majority party to elect the Speaker.
Conservatives have long complained that under the current system, in which all House members vote for the Speaker, claiming Straus is elected largely with the support of minority Democrats.