Why Help Republicans Solve Craddick Problem & The Way To Elect A Speaker Is To Win A Majority

Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick is on the ropes again. It seems clear that he is weak and should go. Mr. Craddick should not go because he is a bully or because he is harsh on the poor, though he is those things, he should go because he is a political failure.

Mr. Craddick is failing his caucus and as such he is failing in his highest political obligation as Speaker—To deliver a Republican House majority in the 2008 elections. After Republican division over the Speaker’s post at the beginning of the session, Mr. Craddick has not delivered party unity at this late date. 

Why would any Republican who wants to be in the majority past 2008 support Mr. Craddick at this point? He obviously can’t get the job done. Frankly, it might serve Democrats to keep the guy. Why help Republicans solve this big problem?

Some Democrats do hope to influence the process of who becomes Speaker. They might be able to because the Texas legislature is not a real democracy where competing parties articulate competing visions. Instead, deals are cut behind the scenes and nobody really knows why a legislator supports one candidate for Speaker over another.  

My hope is that Republicans get their act together and take command of the process. Not because I like the Republicans. I don’t. It’s just that we had an election in 2006 and Republicans won a House majority. That should be the end of the matter.

I understand it is possible that a Republican other than Mr. Craddick might pursue a more humane course towards the poor in Texas. Yet in the end I feel we must respect the outcome of the last election. An elected legislative chamber should be run by the elected majority.

After 2008 or 2010, when a different party may hold the Texas House majority, I’ll have this very same viewpoint. I bet that I’ll have a few more people from my side of the aisle agreeing with me at that point—Especially if the demographics of Texas appear to suggest a long- term Democratic Party revival in the Lone Star State.