It was a bad Election Night for residents of the largest city in McLennan County. After years of regional dominance, their congressional seat belongs to Bryan, halfway to Houston; their state senate seat is 86 miles away in Granbury; and one of their House seats has moved three counties east, to Centerville.
Texas House of Representatives
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State Government
Michael Quinn Sullivan: The TT Interview
The bomb-throwing president of Empower Texas and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility on why Joe Straus hasn’t proved himself as a conservative, why the entry of outside groups like his own into the insiders’ race for speaker is proper and what he’d like to see out of a Texas House with 99 GOP members in it.
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State Government
Michael Quinn Sullivan Speaks
The conservative leader speaks out on his role in the race for Texas House speaker and why current GOP Speaker Joe Straus has a “high bar” to meet to get re-elected.
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State Government
TribBlog: Straus Rebuffs Patrick
State Sen. Dan Patrick issued a release saying he would host a sit-down meeting of the three candidates for speaker in a “neutral” location. But House Speaker Joe Straus’ office says it never agreed to to the meet-up.
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State Government
TribBlog: Speaker Candidates on Anti-Semitism
Both GOP challengers to House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, are distancing themselves from activist efforts to emphasize the speaker’s Jewish faith.
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State Government
TribBlog: Huckabee Hearts Paxton
Former Arkansas Gov. and current Fox News host Mike Huckabee waded into the speaker’s race today. His pick: state Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney.
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State Government
2010: One Election, Ten Candidates
Ten candidates signed up to run for Edmund Kuempel’s seat in the Texas House, a group that includes seven Republicans, two Democrats and a Libertarian.
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State Government
Inside Intelligence: The Next Speaker Will Be…
For this week’s installment of our non-scientific survey of political and policy insiders on issues of the moment, we asked two main questions: “Do you think Joe Straus will win another term as Speaker of the House next year, or do you think it will be someone else?” and “Should the Senate keep or abandon its practice of requiring approval from two-thirds of the senators before raising an issue for debate and approval?” And we asked an open-ended third: “How do you think the election outcomes will affect the legislative session ahead?”
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State Government
Grand Old Parties
Now that the Republicans have a huge majority in the Texas House, they aren’t sharing power with the Democrats; they’re sharing power with themselves. More precisely, one faction of Republicans is sharing power with another faction of Republicans. However you label it — moderate vs. conservative, country club vs. country, Bush vs. Perry — it’s bumpy.
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State Government
TribBlog: GOP Chairmen for Straus
On the heels of a defection by state Rep. Tan Parker, R-Denton, House GOP chairmen release a letter supporting the re-election of House Speaker Joe Straus.
