Texas House Speakers Dade Phelan, Joe Straus call for civility in politics

AUSTIN — Speaking at civic engagement conference, two speakers of the Texas House called for more civility in politics, following a tumultuous month that’s seen a riot at the U.S. Capitol and a second impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican who served as speaker from 2009 to 2019, said divisive political rhetoric had been building for a decade but had become more dangerous recently.

“What I think needs to happen is people like [House Speaker] Dade Phelan, and people like [Gov.] Greg Abbott, and people who are in positions of some legislative and executive authority, need to be role models,” he said. “They need to show an example of how people can be decent.”

“They don’t have to agree with the side that opposes them on some philosophical issue but they darn well should be decent and set the tone and example for those who are not in public office but are involved, engaged citizens,” Straus added.

Phelan, a Beaumont Republican who is the current House speaker, said social media and network news fan the flames of controversy and that he tries to block them out. From his position as speaker, Phelan said he would recruit “responsible people” to run for local elected office.

“Just to get individuals who just want to do the right thing and inspire them, support them, help fund them, educate them and get them involved in the process,” Phelan said.

Straus moderated a conversation with Phelan as part of the kick-off to the annual Texas Lyceum public conference.

Phelan discussed his priorities for the legislative session which are passing a balanced budget and drawing new electoral maps for the state. He also said he was open to increasing the number of Texans covered by Medicaid if it could be done in a revenue-neutral way.

“I’m not saying the word expansion because the votes aren’t there for expansion in the Texas House, but an improvement,” Phelan said. “Texas can do better than what we’re doing and I think Republicans and Democrats can agree on that.”

Phelan also said appraisal reform is an issue the House could take up and that civil unrest over police and criminal justice reform is another big topic.

“Those are not easy topics to tackle and they’re very, very emotional,” he said.

Phelan said the Legislature’s chances of taking up the decennial redistricting process was looking “very unlikely” because census data needed to draw new maps was delayed by the federal government. He said the first special session that could be called to address redistricting would be in September.

Phelan said the state should be careful about how to spend $5 billion in education funding from the CARES Act. He said he didn’t want to spend it on recurring budget items because the one-time funds could leave a hole in the next budget cycle that could be considered a cut on public education.

But Phelan said he was confident that the state would have enough money between its revenue and federal funding to cover promises made to public schools in the 2019 legislative session.

“I feel good that our budget will eventually stand pretty close to where it is,” he said. “I don’t think we’re gonna have to do any any cuts.”

“No one wants to walk back anything we did on House Bill 3 last session,” he said. “That’s a firm commitment from all the members.”

Phelan hinted that the House would move one step closer to being fully organized to conduct legislative business next week when committee appointments were announced.