{"id":4177,"date":"2013-12-08T21:47:25","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T21:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=4177"},"modified":"2013-12-08T21:47:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T21:47:25","slug":"smithee-for-house-speaker-dont-think-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4177","title":{"rendered":"Smithee for House speaker? Don’t think so"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Paul Burka, the estimable Texas Monthly editor and blogger, is one of the smarter Texas political analysts around.<\/p>\n

I like his analyses — most of the time. I have to disagree with his view that Republican state Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo may be angling for a shot at becoming the next speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.texasmonthly.com\/burka-blog\/does-john-smithee-want-be-speaker<\/p>\n

He’s posted a couple of blog items wondering out loud about Smithee’s aspirations in the wake of his emceeing an event in Tyler involving some tea part Republicans. <\/p>\n

Burka notes that Smithee voted against the House budget this past session. It’s a big deal, Burka said, because Smithee chairs the House Insurance Committee, thanks to Speaker Joe Straus’s appointment powers.<\/p>\n

Burka asserts further that Smithee appears to have a following among members of the tea party wing of the Republican Party, who don’t like Straus’s coziness with House Democrats.<\/p>\n

Here’s my take: John Smithee is a comfortable as a back-bench member of the House, where he has served quietly since 1985.<\/p>\n

He’s been mentioned in recent times as a possible speaker candidate. I have asked him directly about the earlier reports of his alleged interest in becoming the Man of the House. I’ve always thought Smithee to be a pretty direct guy; he answers direct questions with direct answers. His response to the query was that he didn’t like the “political” nature of the speakership. And political it is. It involves a lot of deal-making, cajoling, hand-holding, bullying … all of it and more.<\/p>\n

Smithee just doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s comfortable assuming all those responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Would he make a good speaker? He has a lot of friends in both legislative chambers — in both parties.<\/p>\n

My sense is that he values those relationships more than he values being speaker.<\/p>\n\n

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Paul Burka, the estimable Texas Monthly editor and blogger, is one of the smarter Texas political analysts around. I like his analyses — most of the time. I have to disagree with his view that Republican state Rep. John Smithee of Amarillo may be angling for a shot at becoming the next speaker of the … Continue reading Smithee for House speaker? Don’t think so<\/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":[2519,2553,3516,4642,4653,4661],"class_list":["post-4177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-joe-straus","tag-john-smithee","tag-paul-burka","tag-texas-house-of-representatives","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-monthly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4177","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=4177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}