Speaker Joe Straus (left), Warren Chisum running for speaker (right)
AMARILLO, TEXAS -- "The nasty tenor of this race emanates from you," "scorched earth campaign," "Have you no shame"...all quotes from the two of the candidates in the race for the Speaker of the House post in the Texas Legislature. That made us here at ProNews 7 wonder if all of this infighting among the candidates would have an effect on the session come January.
So, we set off to get some answer and find out what lawmakers themselves thought. The question was simple: Will the infighting over the speaker's race affect the legislative session?
Our first call was to current speaker, Joe Straus' office. We spoke to one of his press people who said she probably couldn't get a hold of the speaker himself but that they would send something on the topic. Another call made to Straus' office around 3:00 Thursday afternoon was never returned.
Second, we put a call into Texas Panhandle lawmaker, Warren Chisum. Same question, Chisum contends that "This is the business. We have to do it first thing when the session starts. When it's done we'll all hold hands and move forward."
To offer a little balance, we thought we needed to get input from the other side of the aisle, so we placed a call into Representative Lon Burman, a democrat from the Fort Worth area. When asked the question, Burman said "What speaker's race?" Burman added "That unless your calling Straus a lier, he announced he had over 100 votes last week." Burman said there's been enough noise and fluff and that he would like to start talking about reality.
Finally, we headed down to West Texas A&M and posed the same question to Dr. Dave Rausch, Teel Bivins Professor of Political Science.
Dr. Rausch said that "One of the key indicators that a one-party system is a bad idea is when that one party starts competing with itself and not with the other party." Rausch added that "Depending on how long the contest lasts, the work of the legislative session could be affected and that certainly would not be good for the state."
Another Republican, Ken Paxton from McKinney, announced Thursday he would also be running for the job, that sets up a three way race between Paxton, Chisum and Straus.
So now, we want your input, do you think the current infighting will have a negative effect on the session? Please let us know your thoughts below.
