As my 2302s know, this is one of the major powers the Texas Speaker has.
- Here's the list by committee.
- Press Release from Straus.
- Story in the Texas Tribune.
- Straus gives GOP members the plums, Democrats the crumbs with Texas House committee assignments
- Straus favors GOP in reshuffling of House leaders
- Commentary from Paul Burka:
The Joe Straus who put together these committee assignments was a different Joe Straus from the one who made the appointments in 2009. Straus 2.0 is a much more skilled politician. For those who had labeled him a RINO, he spiked that attack by appointing 27 Republican chairs to only 11 Democrats, a ratio well in excess of the Republican majority of 101 to 49. His enemies had focused on Straus’s appointment of Democrat Rene Oliveira as chairman of Ways & Means as evidence that he was too cozy with Democrats. Straus removed Oliveira as chairman but gave him another chairmanship (Land and Resource Management).
... I don’t see much for Straus’s critics to harp on. He has loaded up on Republican chairs, strengthened the Appropriations committee, and banished his enemies to the dark corners of the Capitol. This guy knows what he is doing.
