Unhappy House members?
To keep leading the House, Speaker Tom Craddick had to make sure at least 75 House members were happy - he surpassed it and got 80.
But now, three weeks later, he's going to need the votes of 120 members to be able to start bringing bills to the floor for debate before the beginning of March (it's in the constitution and usually suspended). If 31 members say no, then any legislation will that’s not labeled an emergency by the governor will have to get the approval of 120 members before it can be voted on.
What does this have to do with committee assignments? It's all about timing.
The vote on the constitution takes place on Tuesday.
If they vote it down, legislation gets slowed waaaay down. The first week in March, that goes away. But then deadlines start looming – and the minority position (whether it’s by party or by loyalty) in the House has begun to get very good at gumming up the works. Session ends in May, whether anything gets done or not.
The timing of committee assignments, then, is interesting. Rep. Robert Talton, the Republican House chairman who defected from Craddick's camp during the speaker race, says Craddick opponents (and some supporters who feel slighted) are in a good bargaining position to avoid retailation.
It could also delay the committee assignments until after the vote, he said. For the record, Talton has no problem voting down the suspension on Tuesday. He’s expected to get busted from his chairman position.
“If the assignments have already been done (on Tuesday), then he has nothing to bargain with,” Talton said. “There’s nothing you can do, you’ve already done it to whoever you could. And now you want us to do what?!”
Talton said he had heard that Craddick supporters were already “unhappy” with some of their assignments – which have yet to officially come out.
“If it doesn’t come out the way they think, you’ll have more members that are dissatisfied, and dissatisfaction leads to them going and talking to others,” he said. “All of us have different parameters for getting dissatisfied. This is going to be step (toward that) for some members.”