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Texas House Democrats who voted for Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows in January said Thursday they aren’t ready to commit to supporting him again in 2027.
This year, 49 Democrats joined a minority of House Republicans to back the sixth-term member from Lubbock, forming the backbone of the support he needed to defeat Mansfield Rep. David Cook, who had the votes of most GOP members, including the most conservative faction.
Yet, over the course of the year, the Burrows-led House went on to pass a wave of conservative priorities that had evaded the party for years, redraw the state’s congressional map in a bid to flip five Democratic seats and sideline Democrats with new chamber rules.
At a Texas Tribune Festival panel on Thursday morning, House Democrats contended that they had two bad choices for speaker and — with neither able to win the gavel relying on Republican votes alone — they used their leverage to pick the lesser of two evils.
Rep. Mihaela Plesa, D-Dallas, said she voted for Burrows because she believed he would uphold the House’s legacy of bipartisan input and power sharing. She said she’s waiting to hear speaker candidates’ pitches and to see the makeup of the House, including how unified Republicans are, before promising her support for anyone in the 2027 session.
“It’s going to be really interesting as we move through this next election cycle and go back to the House in January of ’27 to see if his promises were kept when he asked for our vote to be the speaker of the House,” Plesa said. “That’s something that he’s going to have to prove when he’s asking for the 150 votes again.”
Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said some in the House Democratic Caucus went for Burrows because they believed he was not “in the pocket” of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate. Patrick, who pressured former Speaker Dade Phelan to resign and has frequently derided the lower chamber for not passing enough of his conservative priorities, urged House Republicans to support Cook after the Mansfield Republican won the endorsement of the House GOP Caucus.
Although Burrows had a conservative record, authoring bills like the 2023 law limiting the regulatory powers of local governments, some Democrats believed that choosing a speaker who was not aligned with Patrick would allow the House to maintain separate priorities from the Senate.
Yet, through the 140-day regular session and subsequent special sessions over the summer, the House and Senate operated in lockstep and passed each of Gov. Greg Abbott’s top priorities, including the school voucher bill he spearheaded. Many Democrats had made that bill’s defeat their No. 1 priority.
The Legislature also approved new laws banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public schools, requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms, barring land sales to residents and governments from countries deemed national security threats and more, capping off what the Texas GOP celebrated as a successful session.
Rep. Nicole Collier, a Fort Worth Democrat who supported Democrat Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos in the first round of speaker voting then abstained on the Cook and Burrows head-to-head, said Burrows’ pitch was that Democrats would have a seat at the table. However, on major policy questions, he said he would put it to the will of the chamber, which is majority Republican.
“I don’t think they lied to us,” Collier said. “I think Burrows sold you a dream.”
On a TribFest panel with GOP lawmakers, Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from Allen who served on Burrows’ leadership team, said the Republican caucus is more united now than at any point in his tenure, which has spanned 15 years and four speakers. That’s because Burrows “empowered” every member of the body, Leach argued.
“While we may have some issues that we’ve got to squabble about, and we will, I believe we’re united, and I don’t see that ending anytime soon,” he said.
Rep. David Spiller, a Republican from Jacksboro who voted for Cook, credited Burrows with uniting the caucus.
On the Democratic panel, Howard said her caucus’ decision to flee the state over the GOP’s redistricting effort ended up bringing the GOP caucus together.
“If the numbers are what they are right now, they may not need us for reelecting Burrows,” she said.
Howard declined to back anyone for speaker until after the midterms.
“There’s too many things that can happen between now and when that session starts for me to make a prognostication about what I would or would not do,” she said.
Plesa suggested that freshman GOP Rep. Mitch Little, who backed Cook and was a spokesperson of the anti-leadership flank, might be angling for the speakership. She accused him of campaigning against 10 GOP incumbents, implying that Little was backing primary challengers who would support himself over Burrows.
Little denied the charge.
“If I were running for Speaker, I would have already asked David and Jeff, and they would have already told me, ‘No,’” he said, referring to his fellow TribFest panelists.
Little said he is generally campaigning to flip 10 Democratic-held House districts, including four where the incumbent is giving up the seat to seek higher office.
“This is an opportunity, in my view, for the Republican Party to carry out its initiatives and its legislative priorities, and I hope that we will seize it,” Leach said. “But if we are fighting one another that tends to disrupt that.”
