MMatthew McDade “Dade” Phelan is the incumbent speaker of the House, a title and position he retains only by the House not convening to elect a new speaker until January. For now, he can sit on the dais, hang out in his Capitol office just steps from the House chamber, and retain the cool parking place. But he’s functionally out of power.
Like Joe Biden left to wander the White House until his term expires, Dade Phelan is the third most powerful man in Texas… but he’s being effectively shunted aside. His lack of relevance to the 2025 policy agenda of the Lone Star State is on full display.
The causes of both Biden and Phelan being cast aside from power are remarkably similar. Like the electoral blowout feared by national Democrats with Biden at the top of the ticket, Phelan’s abysmal record of the Texas House under his mismanagement resulted in a political disaster; more incumbent Republicans lost their primary re-election campaigns than any time in modern history.
Phelan himself is damaged goods, politically. He outspent his primary opponent by a 5-to-1 margin yet garnered a “win” of less than 700 votes in a race that saw a couple of thousand Democrats flip primaries, clearly to “help” him.
Everyone in the House knows that their defeated colleagues earned challengers because Phelan made them vulnerable… and then left them to go down in defeat.
But he is, for now, still the speaker… in name, anyway.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was publicly done with Phelan more than a year ago after the speaker and his cronies sent a deeply flawed, legally problematic, and factually vacuous “impeachment” of Attorney General Ken Paxton to be sorted out by the Senate.
While Phelan’s House has refused to say how much their kangaroo proceedings cost taxpayers, the Senate was forced to spend a half-million taxpayer dollars in adjudicating it as nonsense. Voters took their recompense at the polls, decimating the ranks of Phelan’s allies.
Patrick actively opposed Phelan’s re-election to his Southeast Texas seat and explicitly opposed many of Phelan’s (now defeated) top lieutenants. He spent much of his address to the Republican faithful at the Texas GOP convention taking the Phelan-run House to task for failing to deliver on the conservative priorities of the party.
The governor, meanwhile, has been more circumspect. Greg Abbott endorsed against many of Phelan’s lieutenants—ostensibly because of their opposition to school choice—but yet also did a series of “chamber of commerce” style appearances with Phelan (a NASA event, a semiconductor industry event) ahead of the primary runoff. Not campaigning for Phelan, just a light nudge of signaled support.
Well, that’s over.
In recent weeks, major policy initiatives that would in the past have borne the signatures of the Big Three—governor, lieutenant governor, speaker—have instead only been pushed by Abbott and Patrick. Phelan has been cut from the picture.
First, it was a major initiative to add $5 billion to the state’s new power infrastructure fund in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. Notably, Phelan’s Beaumont-based district abuts those areas most impacted. Yet, he was noticeably absent from the announced policy push.
More recently, there has been a push from Abbott and Patrick regarding the 2025-2026 budget period. The only job of the Texas Legislature, constitutionally, is to pass a budget. Therefore, if anyone should be involved in directing the workflow of state agencies regarding the budget, it is the House Speaker—who stands as the functional embodiment of the lower chamber.
Significantly, this letter to the state agencies about the budget process was written by Gov. Abbott… and doesn’t mention or include the speaker.
Members of the House, including Phelan allies like Deer Park’s Briscoe Cain, have been saying the quiet part out loud: there is no way Phelan will be the speaker in 2025.
Patrick, who has long demonstrated a finely tuned ear to the grassroots, has known it. Abbott knows.
The only question is if Dade Phelan knows he is done. Or does he cling to the idea that he might still be relevant in the governing of Texas?
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