Straus faces tea party-backed challenge for Texas House speakership

Texas speaker of the house Joe Straus speaks during a luncheon for the Great SA Chamber of Commerce at the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. Texas speaker of the house Joe Straus speaks during a luncheon for the Great SA Chamber of Commerce at the Grand Hyatt on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012. Photo: Billy Calzada, Staff Photo: Billy Calzada, Staff Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Straus faces tea party-backed challenge for Texas House speakership 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

AUSTIN - House Speaker Joe Straus' bid for a third term as leader of the 150-member state House may not come as quickly or as easily as he had anticipated.

The San Antonio Republican finds himself caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place: His re-election path is complicated by a challenge from the hard conservative wing of his own GOP, combined with growing unease among some Democratic legislators upset with how Straus handled last year's redistricting and other issues affecting minorities.

Straus faces a challenge from Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who is drawing support from tea party Republicans, FreedomWorks and some of the chamber's more conservative members.

Straus, confident of prevailing, is content to let the process play out.

"I have a broad-based bipartisan coalition of supporters in the House that spans the ideological spectrum," he said. "The members know that I have presided over the House in a way that is fair."

76 votes needed

Unlike the governor and lieutenant governor, who are elected by Texas voters, the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives is chosen by members during the first day of each legislative session. It takes at least 76 votes to win the highly prized speakership.

The speaker appoints legislative committees and their leaders and also controls the flow of legislation.

Straus is counting on support from a solid chunk of the chamber's 95 GOP members along with most Democrats, who have supported him in the past, particularly in 2009 when he upset incumbent Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland.

However, during a Democratic caucus meeting on Thursday, members decided to temporarily withhold support for anyone.

"We're not in any hurry," said Democratic Caucus Chair Jessica Farrar, D-Houston.

'I am not excited'

Farrar said Democrats, generally, could not back Hughes because his support from the most conservative Texans conflicts with the state's need to invest in education, health care, water, transportation and other infrastructure.

"I don't really have much of a choice, quite frankly. I am not excited about Joe Straus," she said.

Straus' standing among many minority lawmakers diminished during the 2011 legislative session following good reviews of his leadership two years earlier. Many remain upset with Straus' handling of redistricting, voter ID, immigration and cuts to public education funding, including a $300 million cut to kill the state's full-day pre-K program.

"Joe Straus seemed to be very uncaring when he cut public education by $5.4 billion for a statewide system that's 51 percent Hispanic," Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said. "He had no problem trying to curtail and take away minority voting rights (voter ID), and he participated in a scheme to intentionally discriminate against minority voters when it came to redistricting."

Hispanic strength

Federal appellate courts have invalidated both the voter ID bill and the redistricting map as violations of the Voting Rights Act.

Martinez Fischer said Straus needs to decide if he will be pragmatic or cater to his party's extreme fringe, which does not reflect the state's future. Hispanics are expected to surpass whites as the state's largest population group by 2020. Texas Hispanics and African-Americans combined already outnumber whites, but those numbers are not reflected in the state Legislature where 67 percent of its 181 members are white.

"When Joe Straus makes it clear to me what direction he wants to go in, then I will evaluate whether or not that's a direction that I can support," Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said.

Hughes is a six-term legislator from East Texas making the same pitch to his colleagues from both parties. He believes the House needs to be more open, transparent and inclusive. Straus advocated the same when he challenged Craddick.

"Members are questioning whether his record matches up with the rhetoric," Hughes said.

Hughes endorsements

Both liberal and conservative legislators are upset with disclosures during the redistricting trial showing that outside forces had considerably more influence on redrawing new House maps than they did. GOP lawyer Michael Hull did much of the work behind the scenes on a map that targeted several hard-core conservative Republicans.

Texans for Lawsuit Reform also played a heavy hand, behind the scenes. In an email to Straus allies and senior staff members, TLR co-founder Dick Trabulsi discussed his preference for the House redistricting map and proposed a coordinated statement from his organization and two GOP groups declaring support for a specific map.

"If TLR is going to help proactively, I need to know what's going on and what you want us to do," Trabulsi wrote in an email discovery during the redistricting trial process.

At least 100 Texas grass-roots conservative leaders, including more than 20 county GOP chairs and 10 State Republican Executive Committee members, endorsed Hughes last week.

'Mainstream issues'

Former Texas GOP Chair and Texas Eagle Forum President Cathie Adams said Straus' challenge is more serious this year than the effort Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, made before the 2011 session because Hughes started earlier.

"The issues that matter to voters are mainstream issues that Straus was unable to accomplish," Adams said, citing "balancing the budget without gimmicks and TSA (Transportation Security Administration) groping were two of them. Sanctuary cities were another."

But Rep. Lyle Larson contends his fellow conservatives are misguided in taking on Straus and are hurting the cause by "competing against one another in a fight to be perceived as most conservative."

Veteran legislator Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, will support Straus and agrees with objections from fellow Democrats about Straus' handling of issues important to Democratic constituencies.

"That's because he's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican," Coleman said. "He's not going to be anything but. I never had any expectations otherwise."

Rep. Ana Hernandez Luna, D-Houston, is taking a wait-and-see attitude like many of her Democratic colleagues. She is still unhappy with Straus' leadership last session.

"We need commitments from speaker candidates that they will respect the legislative process and that we will be allowed to represent our districts," she said.

Straus: 'I look forward'

Hernandez Luna is still upset that GOP leaders stopped debate on an immigration-related bill last session before Democrats could present all their amendments. She responded with an emotional personal privilege speech describing her fear as a child that one of her undocumented immigrant parents would not return from a shopping trip because of detection and deportation.

The speaker said most legislators agree with him that Texas needs to focus on such priorities as education, water, energy, transportation and budget transparency and not get sidetracked with divisive speaker politics.

"The state is growing and evolving and always changing," Straus said. "I don't look back. I look forward..... Demographics change, and the House changes, but the way I have done business in the House - trying to draw people together and doing the serious work of the state - is going to continue to succeed."

gscharrer@express-news.net