February 13, 2025      2:50 PM

Braddock: With committee assignments, Speaker Burrows extends olive branches and merges generations of GOP Texas House leadership

The team that brought Burrows to power includes the “baby chairmen” from 2019 along with the old guard under Speaker Straus; placing agitators in some key spots amounts to rewarding bad behavior

In the days and evenings to come, plenty will be written and said –the truly provocative and insightful comments will be made at Austin bars – about the new Texas House committee assignments.

So, let’s start the public conversation about it with this: It’s not the worst thing in the world when Texas Capitol rumors turn out to largely be true. With some exceptions, the rumblings of the last few weeks were mostly borne out by the committee assignments announced on the Texas House floor Thursday.

The chairmanships reflect some continuity with the Speakerships of Dennis Bonnen and Dade Phelan. But they also tap the experience of more senior Republicans who were partially pushed out when Bonnen rose to power in 2019 in favor of the “baby chairmen” that year including Chair Jeff Leach and Speaker Dustin Burrows himself.

There are already outsiders complaining about which Republicans will hold gavels but keeping the leadership team at least partially intact is something that members undoubtedly voted for when they chose Burrows over Rep. David Cook as their presiding officer.

By Scott Braddock

Copyright February 13, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved