Meanwhile in the Panhandle, Republicans were less excited that Burrows won the speaker contest thanks largely to Democrats.

Lubbock Republican state Rep. Dustin Burrows clinched the Texas House speakership Tuesday with 85 votes in the 150-member chamber.

The trial lawyer from Lubbock has served in the House since 2015, slowly building his stature and overcoming a scandal in 2019.

The unusually public battle to helm the Texas House divided both Democratic and Republican lawmakers between Rep. Dustin Burrows and Rep. David Cook.

Conservative activists in the GOP caucus called any power sharing with the minority party a betrayal of Republican voters.

Rep. Dustin Burrows is elected Texas House Speaker, winning with support from Democrats, amid GOP internal tensions.

Since then, the vast majority of House speakers have been elected by acclamation or with more than 140 votes. Even Rep. Dade Phelan, whom hard-right Republicans forced from seeking a third term, received 143 votes in 2021 and 145 in 2023.

Democrats will serve as House committee vice chairs, which some lawmakers said harks back to the Texas tradition of power sharing. But vice chairs don't have nearly the power enjoyed by chairs, who can push or kill legislation and are better positioned to pass legislation.

Conservative state lawmakers have filed hundreds of bills targeting the school finance system, LGBTQ+ students, undocumented immigrant children, and more.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows navigates bipartisan tightrope with the adoption of new rules governing committees in his chamber.

The envy of every school choice state” is how a bill author teased legislation designed to bring school choice to the Lone Star State. The night before Senate Bill 2 was posted, Sen. Brandon Creighton told a group of local Republican party donors in Austin that the bill answers many objections opponents and skeptics had

The Texas House of Representatives decided to ban members of the minority party from chairing committees in a vote on Thursday. The vote came after months of Texas conservatives calling for House