Republican senators in Washington, D.C., are furious.
They’re upset at voters who, just one week ago, sent a clear message about the direction they want the country to go. These same voters are pressuring them to select a majority leader who shares their vision.
To try and shield themselves from accountability and undercut the will of the voters, the Republican Senators will hold a secret ballot to choose their next leader.
In Texas, a similar vote will take place in less than a month to pick the GOP nominee for Speaker of the Texas House.
Systems are designed to achieve or avoid outcomes.
Voting secretly on leadership roles makes the process opaque, diluting democratic will through the layers of government. In the case of the majority leader, it creates space for a leader who may work as an impediment to the will of voters.
That’s how it’s worked out in Texas.
Over the past two sessions, Speaker Dade Phelan has led the Texas House. He does not reflect the electorate’s will and has worked against it. During his tenure, he empowered Democrats, allowing them to stall and kill bills that should have quickly passed the Texas House.
This started in 2021. That’s when he and his leadership team partnered with Democrats to kill election reforms. After the abomination of “election fortification” in 2020, election integrity was a priority for Governor Greg Abbott. Phelan aided Democrats in their Bud-Light-fueled flight to D.C. to stall these reforms.
Phelan did it again with school choice in 2013. Also, a priority of Gov. Abbott, school choice was held hostage by Phelan, a cadre of Democrats, and cocksure Republicans bought into the lie that they wouldn’t suffer electorally by opposing choice.
Voters showed them how wrong they were. bigly. Phelan’s gang of misfits was whipped out in the primary. The incumbent Speaker himself narrowly escaped a run-off loss.
Now, Phelan is trying to keep power. He’s turned to a secret vote in the shadows and bad talking points.
The Texas House GOP caucus will meet in early December to select a Speaker. Like the current campaign to elect a new majority leader in D.C., the House GOP members also plan to pick a Speaker via secret ballot.
This setup benefits a select few with power. It’s an anti-citizen approach to governing that lobbyists love.
Conducting critical decisions behind closed doors creates a separation from the source of electoral power, which contradicts the foundational principle of the government.
Lawmakers like to cast secret ballots to avoid accountability. If the buck stops with a nameless, tally-filled piece of paper, then making excuses and finger-pointing after the fact is easier.
Voters may reasonably assume that in a secret process, it is more likely than not that their representative is making a selection that does not align with their values. If they thought their actions would make voters proud, they’d make their selection public. We’re not talking about a husband planning a surprise for his wife; the characters involved aren’t known for their fidelity.
The environment created in a closed system is the people versus the establishment. In the case of the Texas House, the current leadership views voters as hostile to their existence. Loyalty to the Speaker and the lobby outweighs accountability to Texans.
The same is true of sharing power with the opposition.
Phelan and the Texas lobby thrive on diluting the potency of the Republican party in Texas. They do this by ceding power to Democrats. But it’s not Phelan’s power to cede.
Texans haven’t elected a Democrat to statewide office in thirty years. The governing majority they hired in both chambers is convincing. Prioritizing issues that flow from this clear governing mandate, including having committees run by the majority party, aligns with representing voter preference.
The current system predates Phelan. And it’s one with predictable outcomes.
Think of the moving walkways at an airport. For years, Texas should have been flying toward the gate voters wanted to reach, our gait matched by the speed of the moving tread beneath our feet. Instead, Phelan and his leadership team have us on a conveyor headed in the opposite direction.
We may still get to the plane, but it will be needlessly laborious. This will depress the electorate and empower the lobby, creating leverage for pet projects that cost Texas billions.
This is the same energy that animates secret ballots.
Voting in secret for leadership is more akin to the dysfunction synonymous with the public’s view of Congress, and so is sharing power. This is an actual “worst practice” imported from D.C., ironically used by the crew, who will never grow tired of claiming they want to avoid D.C.-style politics.
In order to better understand the intended results, pay attention to the systems when it comes to governing.
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