A weakened Speaker’s team must now do something they had hoped would be unnecessary: hustle speaker votes.
In Straus’ perfect world, it would be unnecessary for Team Straus to make a single phone call or have a single meeting. The speaker vote would be a foregone conclusion.
That is not the world we are in, though Team Straus still projects this perception, even while acting out of accord with it.
Pressure from his team on previously unpressured legislators can be expected to increase after election day. Establishment capital media will spin in his favor, too.
Mike Hailey of Capitol Inside gave us an early look at the quality of spin available to them. Hailey strongly insinuated that incoming freshman Giovanni Capriglione was leaning toward Straus. This was naked, reaching speculation. Hailey never spoke to Gio, and incoming freshmen had a good laugh at the notion.
In the end, Straus’ best political friend is his veneer of inevitability.
In fact, Straus has a poor relationship with many of the most powerful people in his state and his state party. There are even rumors that the captains of the legislative crew Straus represents are shopping for a replacement.
His crew are the liberal Republicans. They are closer to the Democrats than the rest of their own party. They inflate the importance of the Democrats and deflate the importance of the rest of their own party in order to get to their desired destination – “forced” to contend much more heavily than necessary with the party Texas voters keep thinking they’ve voted into irrelevancy.
This is not the crew that should be in charge of this political cycle in Texas, and their hold on power is increasingly tenuous.
Over the weekend RedState released offensive emails, showing the Speaker’s team was working against conservatives in redistricting, that they have disdain for the tea party, and that they have filthy mouths.
The Texas GOP platform has a plank calling for the Republican House members, after the November election and leading up to the Legislative session, to hold public town hall meetings in which the voters can express their wishes and thoughts about the leadership for the 83rd Session.
No doubt the Speaker’s team won’t respect this plank of the Republican platform any more than they respect Republican voters.
The problem for them is, the grassroots is much more aware than before, and are promising to recruit against Representatives who vote wrong in the Speaker’s race. Recruitment against Straus supporters last time was extremely successful, though not widespread. If needed, such activity is poised to be greater next cycle.