IT’S STRAUSS: ABC Republicans Select San Antonio Lawmaker As Their Consensus Candidate
By Vince Leibowitz on Jan 2, 2009 in 2009 Speaker's Race, 81st Texas Legislature, Featured ![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
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Meeting in Austin, 11 “Anybody But Craddick” Republican members of the Texas House on Friday selected State Rep. Joe Strauss (R-San Antonio) as their consensus candidate to replace House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland).
Capitol Annex was the first outlet to report–nearly a month ago–that Strauss would likely be a factor in the race (although our timing was a bit off).
Strauss, a true “Establishment Republican,” was elected to the Texas House in 2005 in a special election after Elizabeth Ames Jones was elevated to the Texas Railroad Commission. He also served in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1989 through 1991 as Deputy Director of Business Liaison at the U.S. Department of Commerce and also in the Reagan administration as Executive Assistant to the Commissioner of Customs.
Hardly a “mavericky” choice for the ABC Republicans, Strauss has limited tenure in the House and may not be there much longer, as he is rumored to be considering a challenge to State Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) as early as 2010 or possibly after redistricting in 2012.
Conventional wisdom (from Kuff, from Burka, and others) is that Strauss is the best choice Democrats could hope for in a House that tilts to the right–and that Strauss is palatable to the rightwing Republicans because he is the GOP Establishment.
We disagree. Strauss as Speaker would be a complete and utter unmitigated disaster for Democrats.
Perhaps from a public policy standpoint, he won’t push some of the exceedingly right-wing Leo Berman-style garbage like denial of education benefits for immigrants, but you can bet that he’ll still push a far-right-of-center agenda that has nothing to do with tuition re-regulation, electric re-regulation. But, you can bet his agenda will be all about right-wing issues like voter identification, bogus property tax “relief” schemes that will take more money away from important programs, and school vouchers.
Worse than that, Strauss will stop the GOP hemmoraging seats in the chamber, and possibly deny Democrats a majority until after redistricting? How? Why? Because Strauss is the GOP establishment. He’ll bring money and power to a House Republican campaign organization that needs it. He’ll bring a fresh, less controversial face–one that will be awfully hard for Democrats to hang on GOP incumbents necks’ like an albatross come 2010. It means less gains in seats for Democrats, and, possibly, less Democratic holds.
In reality, if Democrats can’t elect a Democratic speaker at this point, then they should honestly just sit back and let the Republicans to it. Granted, it might take 120 ballots, but it would make little or no difference if Democrats sat in the chamber and just left the keys out of their voting machines and essentially told Republicans, “you’ve made the bed since 2003, you can lay in it; we’ll clean the sheets in 2011 when you are out of power.”
Face the facts: from a public policy standpoint, Democrats have zero to gain from a Strauss speakership. As a matter of fact, Democrats have zero to gain from any Republican holding the Speaker’s chair at this point. The people of Texas have, essentially, nothing to gain, either.
Democrats already have enough votes from their own caucus and the few moderate Republicans in the chamber who have some desire to be re-elected to stop the worst GOP offenses like CHIP cuts and worse. A Republican speaker–whether Craddick or not–gives Democrats nothing they don’t already have.
To boot, a Republican like Strauss amounts to a takeaway for Democrats. He’s less controversial, and more palatable. That means it helps Republican members when it comes election time.
The Speaker’s race has reached the intersection of public policy and electoral politics. Democrats can either deny their firm support to any Republican challenger and let the Republicans elect their own damned Speaker and them (Republicans) suffer for it in 2010, or support a Republican other than Craddick and get a few scraps from the kitchen trash can and hope for the best in 2010, or support Joe Strauss and watch short-term future serious Democratic gains go down the toilet.
We’ve said before that Democrats should let the Republicans fight this one out, support a Democrat for Speaker, and serve the people of Texas as a firm, vocal, forceful minority in the Legislature, because we have more to gain this way. We’ll say it again: Let the Republicans fight this one out, and let them suffer the consequences.
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[...] We added Rep. Joe Straus on Saturday — he’s the San Antonio Republican who may be the leading candidate among the Anybody-But-Craddick members of his [...]
[...] Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at Joe Strauss, the candidate for speaker anointed by the 11 “Anybody But Craddick” Republicans and now the presumed Speaker. [...]
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