AUSTIN \u2014 Republican legislative leaders are flashing mixed signals about whether the party\u2019s hold on the Texas House is secure.<\/p>\n
A day after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick warned that the GOP could face a steeper fight to keep the House this November, House Speaker Dustin Burrows pushed back Thursday, saying the party is not at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve seen the numbers. We are not going to lose the Texas House,\u201d Burrows said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Patrick said Republicans will \u201chave a tough time holding the Texas House,\u201d as he urged party unity behind the Senate runoff winner between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n
Without that, he warned, Democratic nominee James Talarico could find a path to victory.<\/p>\n
Patrick\u2019s remarks underscored how the Senate fight could ripple into other races. Democrats are expected to run strong, and a bruising Senate runoff could weaken Republican turnout in the fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Patrick, who manages the state Senate agenda, said losing the majority in the House could derail the GOP\u2019s 2027 priorities, including property tax cuts and school voucher expansion.<\/p>\n
Burrows, appearing at a policy summit organized by the conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation, said Patrick\u2019s assertions about the House were taken out of context. He agreed, though, that Republicans will need to brush aside any intraparty campaign swipes after the May 26 runoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got to be on the same page,\u201d Burrows said. \u201cWe’ve got to be working and rowing in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Democrats have not held a majority in either chamber in more than 20 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The last time they came close was in 2018 \u2013 also a midterm election during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term \u2013 when Democrats fell nine seats shy of taking control of the House.<\/p>\n
Democrats need to flip 14 Republican seats to seal a majority in the 150-member chamber. Taking the House would upend the Republicans’ agenda and threaten Burrows\u2019 job as its leader.<\/p>\n
Burrows also called on lawmakers to research annexing portions of New Mexico \u2013 a \u201cpoorly run state,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Lubbock Republican supports adding portions of Texas\u2019 neighbor after a pair of New Mexico state lawmakers introduced a measure allowing for counties to secede.<\/p>\n
Burrows said being under Texas law would allow those counties to make better use of their rich oil and natural gas resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can do so much more with our regulatory framework than what New Mexico allows that industry to do over there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said New Mexico, which is controlled by Democrats, should allow those counties to vote on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the governor of New Mexico makes me an offer,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN \u2014 Republican legislative leaders are flashing mixed signals about whether the party\u2019s hold on the Texas House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-242551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}