{"id":384,"date":"2013-04-06T00:41:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-06T00:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/06\/straus-in-statewide-office-going-to-be-tough"},"modified":"2013-04-06T00:41:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-06T00:41:00","slug":"straus-in-statewide-office-going-to-be-tough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=384","title":{"rendered":"Straus in statewide office? Going to be tough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Texas House Speaker Joe Straus might have his eye on a statewide office, says Texas Monthly blogger Paul Burka.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting idea, but it\u2019s fraught with peril for the San Antonio Republican.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.texasmonthly.com\/burka-blog\/will-straus-run-statewide<\/a><\/p>\n

Why is that? It seems that Straus works too well with House Democrats, whose numbers have dwindled considerably in recent years. The Democrats\u2019 numbers ticked up a bit over the 2011 Legislature, but they\u2019re still in a serious minority mode in the 150-member legislative chamber.<\/p>\n

Texas Republicans appear to have climbed aboard the vessel that says Republicans should work only among themselves and to heck with them nasty Democrats. That explains why Straus\u2019s speakership has been challenged by members of the far right wing of his GOP caucus. The challenges haven\u2019t gone anywhere mainly because the alternative candidates have been unable to muster enough support from lawmakers who get prime chairmanships courtesy of the speaker.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been said that Straus runs the House the way former Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, used to run it. Laney \u2013 the Panhandle cotton farmer \u2013 was fond of \u201cletting the will of the House\u201d determine legislative flow. He was ousted from the speakers office prior to the 2003 session by Republican Tom Craddick of Midland, who ran the place far differently.<\/p>\n

Straus replaced Craddick two sessions ago and has returned a more collegial environment to the House. But as other Republicans elsewhere have learned, collegiality doesn\u2019t win votes among diehard conservatives who\u2019ve taken over many GOP state machines. Just ask former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, who got the boot in his state\u2019s 2012 Republican primary from someone who actually campaigned against Lugar\u2019s willingness to work with Senate Democrats.<\/p>\n

Texans are thinking much the same thing these days, it appears to me.<\/p>\n

And that makes any notion that Joe Straus has his eye on a bigger prize a bit unlikely. Unless, of course, he tries to become a rigid right-winger overnight \u2013 of which there is plenty of precedent.<\/p>\n\n

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Texas House Speaker Joe Straus might have his eye on a statewide office, says Texas Monthly blogger Paul Burka. It\u2019s an interesting idea, but it\u2019s fraught with peril for the San Antonio Republican. http:\/\/www.texasmonthly.com\/burka-blog\/will-straus-run-statewide Why is that? It seems that Straus works too well with House Democrats, whose numbers have dwindled considerably in recent years. … Continue reading Straus in statewide office? Going to be tough<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}