{"id":315259,"date":"2026-05-30T09:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/315259\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T09:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T09:05:20","slug":"texas-democrats-chair-calls-for-house-dems-to-drop-burrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/315259\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrats\u2019 chair calls for House Dems to drop Burrows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder is calling on members of his party in the state House to drop their support of Republican Speaker Dustin Burrows<\/a>, who won the gavel with mostly Democratic support last legislative session over an insurgent candidate favored by the hard-right.<\/p>\n

In a nod to the wave of conservative policies Burrows subsequently green-lit, Scudder authored a resolution \u201ccondemning the Shameful Leadership of Speaker Dustin Burrows and Declaring No Future Democratic Support for His Speakership.\u201d The measure was submitted in March to the Dallas County Democratic Party, Scudder\u2019s home base, and is set to be considered by the broader state party at its convention next month.<\/p>\n

Burrows\u2019 leadership, the proposal reads, \u201ccaused profound harm to millions of Texans across this vast state\u201d and \u201cstands in direct opposition to the Democratic values that define our party across Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democratic members whose votes gave him the gavel must now acknowledge the consequences of that decision and must be held to account,\u201d the resolution continues. \u201cNo Democratic vote should be cast for Dustin Burrows for Speaker of the Texas House in the next speaker election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burrows won the speakership<\/a> last year after a bitter power struggle within the Texas GOP, whose hardline faction had sought to shift the chamber further to the right and elevate a rival speaker candidate who vowed to strip all power from the House\u2019s minority party. Most Democrats went for Burrows, who promised to protect the chamber\u2019s independence and the minority party\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

He then presided over perhaps the most conservative legislative session in modern Texas history, overseeing the passage of long-sought GOP priorities that had previously died in the House, including a school voucher program championed by Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> and a \u201cbathroom bill\u201d aimed at transgender people initially pushed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the resolution, Scudder faults Burrows for having \u201cbetrayed the very coalition that elevated him to power, weakened the independence of the Texas House and surrendered the authority of the speakership to the political agenda of\u201d Abbott and Patrick. He also said Burrows \u201cquickly discarded the bipartisan governing traditions that helped place him in power\u201d when the GOP majority voted to ban<\/a> Democrats from chairing committees.<\/p>\n

The resolution does not mention repercussions for Democratic lawmakers who violate it. But the push could reverberate politically, by sharpening a question that has loomed since the Legislature gaveled out last summer: whether Burrows will still need Democratic votes to retain the speakership next session. Some of his initial skeptics on the right had come around by the time lawmakers departed Austin, raising the prospect that the Lubbock Republican had earned enough trust<\/a> throughout the GOP caucus to win the gavel without Democrats.<\/p>\n

Republicans currently hold an 88 to 62 majority in the Texas House, though potential gains by Democrats in November could eat into that margin and complicate the speaker election. Forty-nine Democrats joined a minority of Republicans to elevate Burrows last year; Rep. Ana-Mar\u00eda Rodr\u00edguez-Ramos<\/a>, D-Richardson, ran a protest campaign and won just 23 votes, all from her fellow Democrats.<\/p>\n

Democrats have failed to cut into the GOP\u2019s majority in the lower chamber since 2018, when they flipped a dozen seats on the coattails of Beto O\u2019Rourke\u2019s narrow loss to Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a> and voters\u2019 discontent with the Trump administration. Some Republicans have sounded the alarm about a possible repeat this November amid a parallel political climate.<\/p>\n

In the resolution, Scudder cites a litany of Republican bills approved by the Legislature last year, including anti-abortion measures<\/a>, the new congressional map redrawn to net the GOP up to five new seats, and a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion<\/a> programs \u2014 including LGBTQ+ student clubs \u2014 in public K-12 schools. <\/p>\n

Scudder is up for reelection next month to decide if he will lead the party into the critical fall midterms. He was elected interim chair by the party\u2019s governing board after a 2024 election that proved disastrous for Texas Democrats. He faces three challengers to his position, including Monique Alcala, who served as executive director of the party from August 2023 until Scudder\u2019s election, and Marco Orrantia, a former TDP staffer of the past decade. <\/p>\n

Scudder did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Burrows.<\/p>\n

The proposal, which has so far been adopted by the Bexar, Calhoun, Collin, Denton, and Rockwall county parties, reflects the simmering Democratic discontent over Burrows\u2019 leadership, at least among the nexus of activists who make up the state party.<\/p>\n

At the Texas Tribune Festival in November, House Democrats said they were keeping their options open<\/a> for speaker in 2027 after backing Burrows under the belief that he was the lesser of two evils and would maintain the House\u2019s tradition of bipartisanship and independence from the Senate. There is little upside for Democrats to declare their plans for the speaker vote this far out, given the potential for the midterms to scramble things \u2014 and the reality that they will have the most leverage by voting as a unified bloc.<\/p>\n

House Republicans, meanwhile, have said their caucus has never been more united after successfully passing major conservative legislation and further marginalizing Democrats in the chamber. Beyond the ban on Democratic committee chairs, the chamber\u2019s GOP majority approved stiffer penalties<\/a> for lawmakers who participate in walkouts after Democrats fled the state to stall passage of the new congressional lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we may have some issues that we\u2019ve got to squabble about, and we will, I believe we\u2019re united. I don\u2019t see that ending anytime soon,\u201d Rep. Jeff Leach<\/a>, R-Allen, said at the Texas Tribune Festival last fall.<\/p>\n

Burrows, too, has projected confidence that Republicans will maintain their dominance in the House, despite the political headwinds that led Patrick last month to warn<\/a> that Democrats could seize control of the lower chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to unite as Republicans,\u201d Burrows said, alluding to the acrimonious primaries playing out at the time. \u201cBy the way, just be real clear: I\u2019ve seen the numbers. We\u2019re not going to lose the Texas House.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2133,1865,73828,2425,27,2963,29,293,28,6473],"class_list":["post-315259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-democrats","tag-dustin-burrows","tag-kendall-scudder","tag-speaker-of-the-texas-house","tag-texas","tag-texas-democratic-party","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-well-a-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315259","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=315259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}