The Texas House is preparing to weigh a potential end run around right-wing demands for a Democratic committee chairmanship ban when the rules for the 2025 regular session are up for debate on the chamber floor on Thursday afternoon.
The tentative rules are spelled out in House Resolution 4 - a document that spans 272 pages with some dramatic revisions including the elimination of seven current committees and simultaneous creation of a dozen standing subcommittees that new GOP Speaker Dustin Burrows would appoint.
The new subcommittees would have the same basic powers that standing committees have now. The speaker would have the option of referring legislation directly to the subcommittees that he would name. Committee chairs would retain the ability to conceive subcommittees that they would appoint without the same authority that the new standing sub-panels would wield.
The subcommittees appear to be a consolation prize for Democrats and face-saving tactic for Burrows, who won the gavel last week on a promise to continue the practice of selecting minority party members for chairmanships. Burrows failed to generate sufficient support from fellow Republicans to claim the powerful post without the lion's share of Democrats supporting him in the speaker's election.
Burrows is claiming now that he doesn't have the muscle to prevent some of his own GOP allies from capitulating to his opponents with a vote today to prohibit the appointment of Democrats to standing committee chairs. The Republicans have been poised this week to end the long-standing tradition of minority party committee chairs to appease conservative base voters and a state party chair who's threatening to block GOP members who defy him on the issue from the primary ballot in 2026.
But Texas GOP Chairman Abraham George and the grassroots haven't said anything up to now on the possibility of Democrats leading the new standing subcommittees. .
Sponsored by GOP State Rep. Todd Hunter of Corpus Christi, the proposed rules don't bring up the issue of partisan affiliation in the selection of House committees and their chairs. A ban on Democratic chairs would be tacked to the rules as an amendment.
HR 4 proposes the shuttering of the Business and Industry Committee, the County Affairs Committee, the Defense and Veterans Affairs Committee, the International Relations and Economic Development Committee, the Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee, the Resolutions Calendar Committee and the Urban Affairs Committee. Four of those are currently chaired by Democrats.
But the rules package contains the creation of a new standing House panel that would be called the Delivery of Government Efficiency Committee - a copycat proposal based on President Donald Trump new DOGE panel that he has Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy leading as co-chairs.
The resolution also proposes the hatching of an Intergovernmental Affairs Committee that would have two separate standing subcommittees with focuses on local government issues and the relations between the state and federal governments.
A new Trade, Workforce, Economic Development Committee also would have two standing subcommittees with international relations and workplace issues in their separate jurisdictions.
Standing subcommittees would be added to the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, the Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee, the Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, the Pensions, Investments, and Financial Services Committee, the Public Health Committee, the State Affairs Committee, the Transportation Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.
more to come ...
