United States House of Representatives elected a Speaker of the House after 15 ballots on January 7, this stands in contrast the Texas State House of Representatives elected a Speaker of the House with nearly unanimous support.
“I cannot vote for the gentleman from California, Mr. McCarthy,” Republican U.S. representative for Arizona’s 5th district, Andy Biggs, said.
In the first round of voting for the Speakership of the United States House, 19 members of the 222 Republicans in the House majority defected, deciding to vote for a candidate other than the Republican Leader, Kevin McCarthy. The defectors held up the process of selecting a Speaker by preventing any candidate from reaching the vote of a majority of members present.
“What we’ve agreed to in framework will need to have accountability,” Republican U.S. representative for Texas’ 21st district, Chip Roy, said to reporters. “We need to be able to continue to trust that we’re gonna be able to execute on what we’ve agreed to in framework,”
Roy, and other defecting Republicans, changed their votes for Speaker to leader McCarthy after a deal was struck between the two Republican factions. Defecting Republicans obtained what they wanted: changes to the rules package. In exchange they voted for McCarthy for Speaker.
“It is a privilege to again serve as speaker of the Texas House this session – thank you to my colleagues for the honor,” Republican Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Dade Phelan, said in a tweet. “The work we do over the next 139 days will be hard and demanding, but I know that we will get it done together.”
In a stark contrast to the intra-partisan struggles of the US House Republicans, Texas House of Representatives re-elected its speaker in a nearly unanimous vote. Speaker Dade Phelan was elected in a vote of 145-3, securing the support of not only most of his fellow Republicans but also the House Democrats.
“After watching Congress attempt to function last week, I cannot imagine why some want Texas to be like D.C,” Phelan said.
Texas House adopted a rules package that allowed the minority party, in this case the Democrats, to have committee chairs. Despite more partisan Republicans opposing Democratic chairs. The Texas rules package further contrasts with the Federal House of Representatives, as the Federal package is viewed as more extreme and partisan by most pundits.
“Don’t judge us on how we start, watch how we finish, and I think by having the disruption now really built the trust with one another and learned how to work together,” Republican Speaker of The United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, said to reporters.