State Rep. James Frank becomes fourth Republican to challenge Dade Phelan for House speaker

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State Rep. James Frank, a Wichita Falls Republican who is one of the Texas House’s leading voices on health and foster care, announced Tuesday he is running for speaker, making him the fourth member to challenge the lower chamber’s current leader, Beaumont Republican Dade Phelan.

In a statement announcing his bid for the speakership, Frank said he would work to bring better communication, member empowerment and management of the flow of legislation if he became the chamber’s leader. Like the three previous challengers to Phelan, he pledged to appoint only Republicans to leadership positions on legislative committees.

“Following the end of last session, and especially after the primary election results of March, it became clear to me that the House itself and our voters want to move in a different direction,” Frank said in his announcement. “By today’s actions, I am asking you to consider whether I represent that direction.”

Pushing back against critics who say appointing only Republicans to leadership positions would take Democrats out of the legislative process, Frank said Texas is one of only three states that continues to give the minority party leadership positions. He said restricting committee chair positions to the majority party would "allow significantly more Republicans to participate in leadership roles."

Without naming Phelan, Frank was critical of the current speaker's communication with the members of the chamber and with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott. By the end of last session, relationships between the "Big 3" — Phelan, Patrick and Abbott — had been the worst in recent years with Patrick frequently sniping at Phelan on social media.

"Relationships don't get better by not talking," Frank said. "I have the time, willingness and understand the importance of spending as much energy as necessary to ensure communication flows between the chambers and among the members."

Frank also pledged to decentralize power away from the speaker and to "empower members" of the chamber to represent their constituents. He also said he would fast-track the passage of GOP priority legislation at the beginning of the session so that Republican priorities aren't killed in end-of-session battles.

"This will allow us to ensure that Republican members can fulfill their promises to their constituents," he said. "It will also allow members of both parties to spend the rest of session focused on the 90-95% of other bills that constituents on both sides of the aisle want us to debate and pass."

Phelan has said he plans to seek another term as speaker when the House reconvenes next January. But his control of the chamber is tenuous: In May, Phelan narrowly fended off a primary challenger backed by his party’s rightmost flank, and three GOP members were already trying to wrest control of the gavel before Frank joined the fray.

Much of the opposition to Phelan stems from his support for last year’s impeachment of fellow Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton on corruption and bribery charges, which drove a wedge between Phelan’s allies and the party’s right flank. Frank was among the 60 House Republicans who voted to impeach Paxton.

Frank has served in the House since 2012 and chaired the chamber’s Human Services Committee since 2019. He is the second committee chair to challenge Phelan, joining state Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, who was tapped by Phelan to oversee the House Insurance Committee. Also running for speaker is state Rep. Shelby Slawson, R-Stephenville and Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield.

Slawson was one of 23 who voted against Paxton’s impeachment and Oliverson missed the vote. Cook voted for impeachment but later clarified he would have voted against three of the articles against Paxton.

Frank is a staunch supporter of private school vouchers, the other issue that has emerged as a political litmus test for GOP lawmakers amid backing from Abbott. Oliverson and Slawson also support school vouchers, or the policy of using taxpayer funding to help parents pay for their children’s private school tuition.

Phelan kept his personal feelings about vouchers close to the vest as the issue fractured House Republicans last session. He did not cast a vote on a measure that ultimately killed the voucher bill, which is often the case for the House speaker. He later told The Texas Tribune he would have supported a limited voucher program.

Within the chamber, Frank is best known for his work on health care policy and child welfare legislation. He was the House sponsor of a 2017 law overhauling the state’s beleaguered foster care system, adopting a new model that relied on third-party contractors to place children in residential facilities or find foster parents. This so-called community-based care model has progressed slowly since the law took effect, the Tribune has reported.

Frank has also led efforts on legislation limiting the ability of Child Protective Services to remove children from their homes.

Additionally, he has ushered a number of bills through the Human Services Committee aimed at improving Texas’ Medicaid managed care program, the privatized system used to deliver the majority of the state’s covered benefits, such as drug and treatment services.

Frank, a 57-year-old businessman, owns an iron manufacturing company in Wichita Falls, where more than half his district lives.

He represents a rural and solidly Republican swath of 14 counties, several of which run along Texas’ northern border with Oklahoma. The district also covers some of the state’s most sparsely populated areas south of the Panhandle.

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