Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick closed the book on a signature priority that took him 10 years to accomplish when he released a list of committee appointments on Friday that didn't include a single Democrat as a chairman for the first time in a regular session since his initial election as Texas Senate president.
As House Speaker Dustin Burrows intense pressure and threats from conservatives to exclude Democrats from leading committees in his first session with the gavel, Patrick made history with the unveiling of Senate assignments gave the Republicans their first chairmanship monopoly in the Capitol's east wing.
But Patrick didn't go as far as to say that he'd banned Democrats from committee chairs like the Republicans on the losing side in the speaker's election contend is necessary for the success of the conservative agenda they want lawmakers to pass. Instead of declaring Democrats to have been banned from Senate committee chairs, Patrick simply didn't appoint any in a move that let his actions speak for themselves.
Patrick took exception later on Friday to an unspecified news report that identified the winners and losers of the epic House leadership battle that Burrows won with 49 votes from Democrats and 36 from Republicans. State Rep. David Cook - the GOP caucus nominee - had a majority of the majority party's members on his side of the ring along with three Democrats for the second and final vote in Tuesday's leadership contest.
"Recently, a story was written about the winners and losers in the election of Speaker Burrows," Patrick said in a long post on X. "The story underscores the total lack of understanding by the media of politics, principles, and courage. The article said the 52 were losers when, in fact, they were reformers and the true long-term winners."
Capitol Inside lumped Cook's 55 supporters in the losers category. This was an easy call based on the fact that they all can expect to spend the next four months on the House bench while the GOP representatives who stuck with Burrows enjoy the spoils of victory with the best assignments and opportunities to sponsor the major legislation that the Legislature weighs in 2025.
But Patrick saw the outcome through a different lens - portraying the Republicans who backed Cook as the real victors in the election for speaker. Patrick also disputed depictions of the new speaker as a major winner in the battle that he won in a fashion that had been predictable for a month.
"Dustin Burrows, who once strongly agreed with those rules and who famously said Democrats should never pick the Republican Speaker, won with a majority of Democrats," Patrick noted.
"But make no mistake, Burrows was not the big winner on Tuesday," the lieutenant governor asserted. "He took the shortcut to victory when he couldn’t get his own party to elect him speaker. The big winners were the 52 courageous and principled Republicans who stood tall and voted for what they believed was right despite potential political repercussions."
Stability emerged as the central theme of Patrick's committee selections with only two changes from the leadership lineup he assembled for the regular session in 2023. Patrick appointed GOP State Senator Phil King as the chair of a new Economic Development that the lieutenant governor created when he severed that role from the Natural Resources Committee.
Patrick named Republican State Senator Pete Flores as the chairman of the Criminal Justice after Democrat John Whitmire stepped down from the Senate in the wake of his election last year as the Houston mayor. Patrick decided to keep Flores in the position for the regular session instead of replacing his lone Democratic committee chair with another Democrat.
State Senator Angela Paxton of McKinney failed to land a committee chair for the fourth time in four regular sessions in the upper chamber. But Patrick selected four Democrats to serve as vice-chairs along with a dozen fellow Republicans including Paxton in the number two spot on the State Affairs Committee. .
Paxton's snubbing comes 16 months after Senate Republicans acquitted her husband - Attorney General Ken Paxton - at the end of a trial that she watched from the floor even though she didn't have a vote on the outcome. Paxton the solon had opposed a special Senate panel's decision to prevent her voting on her spouse's case based on a conflict of interest due to her longtime relationship with the defendant.
King - a former House member - emerged as the only senator to score a chairmanship for a second regular session in the Capitol's east wing. Patrick appointed the chamber's two freshmen Republicans - State Senators Brent Hagenbuch of Denton and Adam Hinojosa of Corpus Christi - as vice-chairs.
Patrick didn't mention the red-hot House caucus position on Democratic committee chairs - possibly because he needed a full decade to fulfill a promise to have the Senate majority party chairing all the committees. That was clearly the number issue for activists who poured on to the Capitol grounds on Tuesday including many with red shirts that had BAN Democrat Chairs in big white letters on the front.
Patrick chose to wean the Democrats from the custom of chairing Senate committee in a deliberate manner after cutting the number of minority party chairs in half during his debut as lieutenant governor in 2015. Patrick had two Democrats chairing committees during his first three regular sessions as the Senate's presiding officer. Whitmire had continued as the Democrats' lone Senate chairman in the regular sessions in 2012 and 2023.
House Republicans who opposed Burrows and some who supported him have said they plan to make a run at a Democratic committee chair prohibition when the rules for the regular session are up for debate on Wednesday.
Senate Committees 2025
Administration - Bob Hall, R-Edgewood
Border Security - Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury
Business and Commerce - Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown
Criminal Justice - Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton
Economic Development - Phil King, R-Weatherford
Edcuation - Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe
Finance - Joan Huffman, R-Houston
Health and Human Services - Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham
Jurisprudence - - Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola
Local Government - Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston
Natural Resources - - Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury
Nominations - Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels
State Affairs - Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola
Transportation - Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville
Veteran Affairs - Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills
Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs - Charles Perry, R-Lubbock
