Capitol Context: The House speaker's power beyond the gavel
With the elections behind us, we're shifting from providing you context from the campaign trail to context from the State Capitol as the Texas legislature gets to work. Keep up with Capitol Context this legislative session as we examine bills being debated, the messages we’re hearing from elected leaders and how their votes impact us all.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — As members of the Texas House elected Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, as their new speaker at the start of the 89th legislative session, we wanted to dig into the power held by the person elected to that seat.
The House speaker serves as the presiding officer of the House of Representatives maintaining order during floor debates. They also sign all bills and resolutions that get passed by house representatives.
The speaker refers proposed legislation to committees to get the ball rolling on new laws, and house members can also give the speaker the authority to decide which lawmakers get to sit on those committees.
Beyond the speaker's powers and duties on paper, the speaker also holds a specific kind of political power. For insight, we turned to James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.
“Probably most important is, as presiding officer of the house, the speaker has a lot of influence over the movement of the 'flow of legislation,” Henson said.
Henson said the speaker also has an enormous amount of influence over what succeeds and what doesn't in the house.
The speaker's power is not unlimited, however, with provisions in place for lawmakers to override a speaker's will.
As we saw with former Speaker of the House, Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, there can also be personal political consequences for a speaker who butts heads with other powerful state leaders.
“The speaker is, whatever the limitations on the office, one of the three most powerful political actors in the state,” Henson said, “The preferences of the speaker are going to influence what kind of output we see in any session and particularly in the coming session."