Tag Archives: Dade Phelan

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Speaker’s job still threatened

Dade Phelan’s close runoff victory in the Golden Triangle of Texas well could come at a price for the Beaumont Republican.

He wants to keep his job as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. To do that he had to fend off a GOP primary challenge from a first-time candidate David Covey, recruited to run in the primary by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who sought revenge against Phelan.

The speaker led the House that impeached Paxton on criminal charges. The vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan. Paxton then stood trial in the Senate, which acquitted him in a partisan show of cowardice.

Covey by all rights had no business forcing a runoff with the veteran legislator. He did and now Phelan is set to take office for another term.

I have spoken, though, with veteran lawmakers who believe Phelan’s victory in the runoff might not be worth having. His fellow Republicans are split among themselves over whether Phelan did the right thing by letting the House work its will in impeaching Paxton. The Texas House is chock full of MAGA Republicans who would love nothing better than to boot Phelan out of the speaker’s chair and install someone more to their liking.

As we have seen throughout the country, today’s Republican Party is controlled by those who are desperately loyal to the cult leader who is calling the shots.

My own preference, not that it matters? I hope Dade Phelan keeps his job. We need someone with a brain managing at least one of the state’s legislative chambers.

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Sanity prevails in SE Texas

Here’s a glimmer of good political news for those who care about such things: Sanity won the day Tuesday in a highly contentious race for a Texas House of Representatives seat in the Golden Triangle region.

State Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, fended off a challenge by a MAGA candidate, David Covey, and won the Republican Party nomination. OK, this isn’t just a House seat that was at stake.

Phelan happens to be speaker of the Texas House. He wields tremendous power and authority over the legislative flow in the chamber. He had drawn the ire of Attorney General Ken Paxton and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who endorsed Covey. So had the 45th POTUS.

Phelan had the temerity to let the will of the House prevail during Paxton’s impeachment and trial in the Senate.

Consequently, Covey entered the race at Paxton’s insistence and proceeded to launch a terribly negative, smear-laden campaign against Phelan.

Here’s the question of the day: Will the sanity prevail in January 2025 when House members choose the speaker? That’s far from a done deal, as the MAGA-dominated House well could oust Phelan in favor of someone more to the liking of the far-right-wingers who occupy so many House seats.

I’m glad Phelan survived this challenge. It’s not so much that I am a fan of Phelan. I just am glad to see Paxton, Patrick and POTUS 45 come up short in this latest Republican Party rebellion.

local news, political news

Hoping speaker survives

An earlier post on this blog noted the absence of signage extolling the candidacy of the POTUS No. 45.

I want to discuss briefly another candidate who is showing plenty of lawn-sign support in the city he represents in the Texas Legislature.

Dade Phelan is running for re-election against David Covey for the House of Representatives in Beaumont. Phelan also doubles as speaker of the lower legislative chamber. This contest — to borrow a phrase once muttered by the current president — is a big fu**ing deal.

I noticed many lawn signs adorning neighborhoods throughout north and west Beaumont. Virtually all of ’em were for Phelan. I saw one Covey sign near Interstate 10.

Why is this a big deal? Because Covey has no experience as a legislator. He is a stalking horse candidate, a MAGA loyalist, a pal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Covey has never run for public office. Yet he finished first in the Republican Party primary in March; Phelan finished second. Covey didn’t reach the 50% mark to win the primary outright, so Phelan and Covey are now in a runoff.

I have heard from two sources, one of whom serves in the House with Phelan, that Covey well might knock the speaker out of office in the May 28 runoff. The other source happens to be a former newspaper colleague of mine who lives in Beaumont who echoed my legislative friend’s assessment.

The political advertising in Beaumont has been ferocious … and dishonest. One ad features a doctored photo showing former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hugging Phelan’s neck, suggesting that Phelan is a closet liberal. Good grief, man! He isn’t!

I don’t know Dade Phelan. I left Beaumont nearly 30 years ago. I am acquainted with his dad, a well-heeled real estate developer in Beaumont. What I know of the younger Phelan is that he is a mainstream conservative who allowed the House to work its will in impeaching Paxton on charges of corruption, and who eventually survived the Senate trial.

Do I have a dog in this fight? Not really, I suppose, except that the Legislature serves all Texans. I am alarmed at the MAGA movement’s encroachment in local politics. Therefore, I don’t want to see Dade Phelan booted from the Texas House because he allowed his colleagues to do what they believed was right.

Thus, I hope the plethora of signs bodes well for Speaker Phelan.

local news, political news, State news

Craziness on the ballot

The political craziness that has infected the Texas Republican Party comes to a head tomorrow.

Several GOP politicians are facing runoffs as a result of challenges within their party. One of them happens to be a very powerful pol: Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont, who’s facing a MAGA challenger in the form of David Covey, a first-time candidate.

I am pulling for Phelan to hold onto his state House seat, even though it might not be worth keeping, particularly if House Republicans decide to boot him out of the speaker’s chair for the 2025 Texas Legislature.

It’s all part of the MAGA movement’s declaration of war against Republicans who have the temerity to stand up against their party leadership and work Democrats to actually govern.

Speaker Phelan shouldn’t have to pay the price for doing what is the right thing.

local news, political news, State news

House speaker is no ‘liberal’ … period!

I need to clear the air on a Texas politician I do not know personally, but who is someone I trust implicitly to run a state legislative chamber with conscience and competence.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, has become a prime target of the Club for Growth, a national right-wing political action committee that aims to spend $4 million in ads to defeat the legislator who is in the midst of a runoff election.

The Texas Tribune reports: “From failing to support school choice to allowing radical liberal Democrats to chair committees, Speaker Phelan is a certified RINO with a long record, and he will be held accountable by the voters in the runoff,” said David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth’s Super PAC.

Phelan is nothing of the sort that Club for Growth describes. The speaker let his Republican colleagues vote their conscience — and their constituents’ conscience — in opposing Gov. Greg Abbott’s dream of siphoning off public education money to a voucher plan that would enable parents to enroll their children in private schools.

Why the opposition from Republican legislators? Because they represent House districts that depend mightily on the strength of the public school systems that serve their constituents.

Why is that worthy of the attacks that Club for Growth and other hardline right-wingers plan to hurl at the speaker? I don’t see it.

Club for Growth wades into Texas primary battles | The Texas Tribune

As the Tribune reports: Over two regular legislative sessions, the House under Phelan has passed some of the most conservative legislation in the chamber’s history, including allowing permitless carry of handguns and a near-total ban on abortion. Phelan has come under particular criticism from many within his party for the House’s failure last year to approve a school voucher bill favored by Abbott.

Dade Phelan clearly considers himself to be a conservative. I guess he is not conservative enough to suit the one-issue zealots who think it’s OK to gut our public school system.

local news, political news, State news

Non-GOP observers feeling the pain

The fight that is developing in Texas between non-believers of certain politicians and those who adhere to their every proclamation gives us non-Republicans considerable angst.

How come? Because I, as one of them, find myself rooting for the non-believers in their scrap with those who follow the will of the crooks who happen to hold high public office.

I want to point directly to the troubles that continue to dog Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The AG has taken dead aim at several pols who had the temerity to favor his impeachment in the House. His slate of candidates in this month’s Republican Party primary did pretty well.

One of Paxton’s “enemies” hails from a city I once called home. He is House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont. Phelan faces a runoff against some political newbie, a guy named David Covey. Paxton recruited Covey to run against Phelan. He finished first in the GOP primary, but the two of them are headed for a runoff to see who gets the nomination. Covey finished first and Phelan finished second, but Covey didn’t get the 50% margin he needed to win outright.

I am rooting for Phelan to win the runoff. Not that I care about his politics, per se. I just favor the stance he took in voting to impeach the crooked AG and the manner in which he conducted the House proceedings that led to Paxton’s impeachment. Phelan is a conservative and, frankly, not my ideal politician. Yet the AG refers to him as the “liberal speaker.” What a fu**ing crock!

This intraparty squabbling is playing out in states across the country. I drive through Collin County, where I live, and I see signs for politicians proclaiming themselves to be a “conservative Republican” running for office. How do they define “conservative”? Everyone’s a conservative Republican, yes? You have one conservative Republican running against another of the same ilk. How does a GOP voter choose?

The election season is playing itself out a little at a time. Those of us who sit on the sidelines watching this GOP internecine battle being fought are left to cheer silently for those who respect the system and who put the law above party loyalty.

local news, political news, State news

‘Will of the House … ‘

Pete Laney’s name comes into my head when I think of the Texas speaker of the House of Representatives.

Laney is a Hale Center cotton farmer and businessman who once served as speaker … until Republicans took control of the Legislature. Then he got the boot prior to the 2003 Legislature.

One of Laney’s governing principles was to “let the will of the House” dictate the flow of legislation. He chose to avoid exerting the considerable power he possessed. My memory of the latest Democrat to hold the speaker’s gavel came to mind as I watched the current speaker, Republican Dade Phelan of Beaumont, seek to fend off an intraparty challenge from a first-time candidate named David Covey.

Phelan and Covey are headed for a runoff after neither man failed to win 50% plus one vote in the GOP primary. Covey finished first and Phelan finished second. Covey was endorsed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Why the AG endorsement? Because the “will of the House” produced an impeachment of the AG, who then was acquitted in the Senate trial.

Paxton is so angry at Phelan that he recruited Covey to run against the speaker who, by almost anyone’s reckoning, is a traditional GOP conservative.

Phelan has sought to tout the conservative legislation that the House has approved on his watch. That doesn’t matter to Paxton, who — along with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — calls Phelan a “liberal” speaker. They make me want to laugh — and then vomit!

Pete Laney established a reasonable template for how the Texas House speaker should conduct business. The House’s will resulted in an overwhelming impeachment vote on the way Paxton has performed as AG.

Paxton is angry that Phelan presided over a House of Representatives that saw fit to do its constitutional duty and rise up to effectively condemn the attorney general’s conduct.

I don’t know Phelan, nor do I know much about him. I know that he is the son of a prominent Beaumont developer who I did meet back when I worked in the Golden Triangle. I don’t know Covey, either, other than he is running for the first public office he has sought.

If the voters of Phelan’s legislative district have any brains, they’ll reject the trashy notion of replacing him just because he followed the path blazed by one of his predecessors as speaker.

He let the “will of the House” do its job.

local news, State news

Censure House speaker … for what?

For the life of me I cannot understand what in the world has gotten into the noggins of many Texas Republicans these days.

Now the state Republican Party has censured one of their own, House Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont, because he didn’t stop the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton this past year.

Have these people lost their MAGA-muddled minds? Have they all gone ’round the bend? Have they all swilled the MAGA Kool-Aid offered by the former POTUS, the guy who has called for Phelan to resign from the House, even though he doesn’t know a damn thing about how Texas politics works?

Phelan presided over Paxton’s impeachment, which occurred after a House committee recommended the AG be impeached because of the shabby way he runs his office. The House voted overwhelmingly to impeach Paxton, but then the Senate acquitted him in a trial that lasted about a week.

The state GOP is still chapped over the impeachment. The censure is being fueled by the MAGA wing of the Texas GOP

To be clear, I want to stipulate a couple of things about Phelan. I don’t know the fellow, even though I lived and worked in Beaumont for nearly 11 years. I only was casually acquainted with Phelan’s father, an uber-rich Beaumont developer. I have heard from some of my Golden Triangle snitches that Dade Phelan was cut from the traditional Republican fabric that creates a politician who favors wealthy Texans. Therefore, he is a standard GOP pol.

He also just happens to be a fellow, apparently, who dislikes corrupt politicians … even when such allegations stain the records of fellow Republicans.

Texas GOP censures House Speaker Dade Phelan over Paxton impeachment (houstonchronicle.com)

It makes me wonder: Why in the world is that such a bad thing, something the produces censure?

As the Houston Chronicle has reported: Phelan has remained defiant in the face of the criticism and has touted the House’s work to ban abortion and allow the permitless carry of handguns as conservative wins passed under his leadership.

Doesn’t any of that other stuff matter … or is the Texas GOP intent on protecting an attorney general who continually makes many Texans wince over the way he conducts himself?

local news

Texas GOP sounds battle cry

These are difficult times if you are a Republican speaker of a House of Representatives, whether on a state level — such as Texas s — or on the national level in D.C.

Kevin McCarthy was tossed out of his speaker’s chair in Washington by an angry MAGA moron — Rep. Matt Gaetz — who filed a motion to declare the speaker’s chair “vacant.” McCarthy made the deal with the MAGA cult … and it cost him!

Next up will be Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, who is set to open the House proceedings in the third special session called this year by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Except that Phelan is in trouble with his own caucus, too. He led a House of Reps that impeached Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. It turned out that the “will of the House” had its say. Then the Texas Senate acquitted Paxton on all the complaints filed against him.

There’s a move afoot in Austin to boot Phelan out of the speaker’s chair. Conservative lawmakers don’t like the way the speaker handled the impeachment of Paxton. They want his head on a platter.

It looks as though, to my eyes, that the Republican Party simply is too damn dysfunctional just to govern. Why is that? Because too many of the mainstream GOPers are afraid of retaliation by the MAGA cult.

Shameful, man.

local news, national news

Patrick fills me with regret

Dan Patrick quickly made me regret that I issued a compliment to him over the way he had presided over the impeachment trial of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The lieutenant governor, who presides over the Texas Senate, received a bouquet from me because he seemed to be impartial and unbiased in his handling of the trial in the Senate.

Then came Paxton’s acquittal by 30 senators … and what did Patrick do? He shot off his pie hole by declaring that the Texas House that had impeached Paxton had wasted Texans’ tax money by alleging that Paxton had committed impeachable offenses. Paxton was impeached overwhelmingly, I must add, in a bipartisan vote among House members.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a fellow Republican, was having none of that, telling Patrick that the lieutenant governor only has revealed his bias. I’ll go with Phelan on this one.

I hate having regrets over what I spew on this blog. But I’ll be damned if I am feeling them now, with Patrick suggesting that he was able to hide his bias.

Oh, and now he wants to conduct an audit of the money spent to impeach the attorney general and then put him on trial. What does he hope to find? That the money went to partisan interests whose mission was to enough evidence to convict the AG?

Sounds as if Patrick has ripped a page out of the congressional GOP caucus’s playbook as it seeks to find a reason — any reason — to impeach a U.S. president.