Speakeasy
January 8th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
It’s been two weeks since the fight over who will wield the speaker’s gavel in the Texas House this session broke into the open, and incumbent Tom Craddick still can’t make a convincing case that he’s rounded up enough votes to retain the post.
That right there tells you how tenuous is Craddick’s hold on power. Four years after ascending with the GOP’s triumphant takeover of the chamber, the speaker has no mojo, and for the first time since 1975 a contested speaker’s race is headed for the floor.
Just how far has Craddick’s support eroded? Those who tried to count heads of lawmakers arriving at a private pep rally for Craddick at the Austin Club Sunday night put the turnout at somewhere around 60 (sources tell us it was 64). An amusingly grainy video of legislators going into the Club looks like a cross between a perp walk and an undercover prostitution sting. The video can be found here. Regardless, it’s far short of the 75 Craddick needs to keep his job, and fear rather than loyalty may have accounted for some of those present.
But the devil, as they say, is in the details, and in this case the pertinent details are how the vote for speaker will be taken. Members can only hide their intentions for so long. (A new website with a vote count, Speakerwatch.com, had Capitol denizens atwitter but it’s unclear how accurate it is.) Come Tuesday, they have to stand up and be counted.
The litmus test won’t be the actual vote for speaker, however. Instead, watch for a procedural vote beforehand on the form of the election. Craddick wants an open vote; challenger Jim Pitts would probably prefer a secret ballot but hasn’t said so publicly. Whichever the members chose should either signal that Craddick is toast, or allow him to flush out wafflers and herd them back into his camp.
If it’s an open roll call vote, it will take the clerk a long time to read through 150 names, and floor managers for the candidates will be racing around the chamber ahead of the alphabet.
How might a secret ballot be done? In 1975, when Democrats Billy Clayton and Carl Parker faced off in the last contested speakers race, members marked paper ballots and dropped them in a box. Only after all votes were cast was it known who voted for whom (Clayton 112, Parker 33). Members saved themselves from the agony of an open roll call, when all eyes would have been on each of them as they voted.
The Texas Observer will be there, of course, and keep you posted in this, our brand spankin’ new blog devoted to the best, most outrageous and most interesting news in Texas. You can come here for daily doses of the Observer’s special blend of reporting, insight and analysis during the session and well beyond. It won’t be all politics (though there’ll be a bunch of that for the next few months) and you’re welcome to chime in with comments of your own.
And for fans of Molly Ivins, whose columns have been appearing in this space, you can still find her latest writings, and archives of past, on the Observer home page.
