The Texas Tribune: House Speaker Dade Phelan’s immigration record central in bid to oust him

Catching up with the Texas speaker.

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Early in the 2023 legislative session, Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan vowed to present “a very innovative solution” to combat the surge in migrants attempting to enter Texas from Mexico — one that would test the limits of states’ roles in immigration enforcement.

The proposal Phelan teased, known as House Bill 20, sought to create a team of police and deputized citizens to patrol the southern border. The legislation, which critics said would empower “vigilantes” and endanger the lives of asylum seekers and Hispanic Texans, died when Democrats killed it with a procedural tactic. And despite Republicans’ best efforts to revive a version of the measure, it never made it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk before the regular session ended.

HB 20 has since been overshadowed by Senate Bill 4, which lets any law enforcement officer arrest someone suspected of illegally crossing the border, a boundary-testing immigration law that has been put on hold amid legal challenges.

But the earlier proposal has resurfaced in the speaker’s own GOP primary as his critics blame him for its demise in their broader effort to paint the Beaumont Republican as soft on the border and overly deferential to Democrats. Phelan has slammed the attacks as “absurd” and “misleading” attempts to deflect from his oversight of other far-reaching border laws and a record $6.5 billion spending spree to pay for Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which includes building a state border wall.

That has not stopped David Covey — the GOP activist and energy consultant who pushed Phelan into a May runoff for his House seat — from also condemning the speaker for not casting a vote on SB 4. Two of Covey’s most prominent backers, former President Donald Trump and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have echoed the same attack.

House speakers rarely vote on legislation, and they control whether a bill can reach the floor — meaning SB 4 could not have passed without the green light from Phelan. The speaker argued as much in a post touting SB 4 as “the strongest border security law in the nation.” It would let authorities arrest people they suspect of illegally entering the state from another country and allow judges to order their removal, essentially granting deportation powers long reserved for the federal government.

The way immigration is playing into Phelan’s primary serves as a telling example of where things stand in Texas politics: the issue is being used as a cudgel to jeopardize the political career of a Republican speaker whose record includes an eightfold increase in Texas’ border security spending and passage of laws that dramatically expand state law enforcement’s immigration role.

Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said it’s no surprise that Covey is trying to convince voters he is more committed to border issues than Phelan, given that “poll after poll shows that immigration and border issues are a central concern for Republicans.”