I Didn't See That One Coming

TEXAS POLITICS TODAY has been eager to cover Speaker politics. In Texas, politics is a full-contact sport, and nowhere does it get bloodier than on the floor of the Texas House. At the end of the last session, a full-blown insurgency paralyzed the House during the last four days and provided the best show in town, whether you sat in the House Gallery or watched it on cable TV.
Tom Craddick and his parliamentarians, Terry Keel and Ron Wilson, held off the insurgents with a novel theory of parliamentary procedure: that the Speaker has the right to refuse recognition to any member for any purpose, even if that member is making a so-called "privileged motion," which to ordinary mortals means IT MUST BE ALLOWED, CONSIDERED AND VOTED UPON.

I don't know if parliamentarians get together for conferences, the way lawyers or engineers or accountants -- updates on the latest developments in the profession, with some night life in a fun place like New Orleans or Las Vegas thrown in. But if they did, you can bet all the conference this last year or so have had a seminar on "The Craddick Rule."

In any case, the insurgency did not die and has re-emerged since the November election. Tonight, 11 ABC ("Anybody But Craddick") Republicans announced that they'd agreed upon an alternative to Craddick: two-term House member Joe Straus from San Antonio. Straus seems an unlikely choice: he joined the House less than four years ago, elevated in a special election. He's not distinguished himself in the House, although he seems popular and serious.

On the plus side, he is wealthy and, through his family, very well-connected in Republican circles. He's not a winger, though -- he supports stem cell research, among other transgressions. He's probably pretty representative of the Alamo Heights district he's from.

The ultimate question is, can he translate the consensus among the 11 ABCs into a majority? Will the 64 members of the Democratic caucus who've pledged not to support Craddick "under any circumstances" hold together and, better yet, jump in with Straus? If so, then he's right at the 75 votes he needs. We may see a stampede this weekend or the first part of next week.