MATTHEW MCDADE "DADE" PHELAN

Patrick made the comments at a daylong conference in Austin hosted by The Texan, a political news site started by former GOP state Sen. Konni Burton.

The radio ad, which criticizes Phelan for appointing Democratic committee chairs, prompted pushback from Republican colleagues in the House over why the state party would use resources to attack its own member.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, snuffed out a monthslong push Wednesday to end the chamber’s longtime tradition of having committee chairs from both parties.

Mike May was one of more than 20 losing candidates in Harris County who filed election contests, citing reports of Election Day issues.

About two months into his comeback bid, few prominent Texas Republicans have endorsed Trump — and some are showing more willingness to cross him publicly.

Phelan defeated Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, for the House leadership position in a vote, 145-3. In cruising to victory, Phelan secured the support of Democrats as well as the most conservative members of his party.

Here’s a rundown of how a bill becomes a law, how the Texas Legislature works and the power players who keep things moving under the Pink Dome.

Lawmakers begin work today for their biennial legislative session. They’ll debate over the state budget, school issues, border security and property taxes, among other issues.

Republicans are backing legislation targeting gender-affirming care for children, classroom lessons about sexuality and drag shows.

There are 64 Democrats in the 150-member House, one fewer than before the election. There is also one fewer Democrat in the Senate.

Republican members of the Texas House endorsed Phelan’s bid for reelection in a nonbinding vote on Saturday. An official vote from the entire Texas House will take place in January.

Republican critics say conservative priorities will always be hamstrung if Democrats, who are in the minority party, get a say in which legislation reaches the floor.

The current speaker, fellow Republican Dade Phelan, is expected to seek the gavel again but has not made an official announcement yet.

The Texas Tribune reviewed the 15-page document, which will be handed out to new drivers, and asked historians to comment on how accurately and thoroughly it chronicles the state’s history.

One of the longest-serving Republican state senators, Robert Nichols is among the first to say publicly he’d support revising the state’s abortion prohibition. He spoke Friday at The Texas Tribune Festival.

At the 2022 Texas Tribune Festival, the Texas House speaker also signaled willingness to consider exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

Lawmakers say they need the latest pregnancy-related death data to more precisely address the problem during the legislative session. But delays means they won’t see it until after the session ends.

Almost half the money is going toward bullet-resistant shields for school police officers, a move that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called on fellow state leaders to support.

After the May 24 school shooting, mental health help is now pouring into Uvalde, where a fourth of residents are uninsured and counseling options are few and far between.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had asked House leaders to support his push for arming school police officers with bulletproof shields after the Uvalde shooting. House Speaker Dade Phelan is also asking for more money for mental health and school safety programs.

Patrick said he wants police in as many Texas schools as possible to have bulletproof shields before the fall. He’s asked other state leaders to move around money in the state budget to make it happen.

Phelan said it is an “outrage” that officials still do not have a clear picture of what happened during the shooting. The committee’s findings will inform the House’s legislative response.

Almost all the preferred candidates of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan nabbed enough votes to head into the November general election. And nearly all sitting House and Senate members seeking to return to the Texas Capitol kept their seats.

The new Texas Sands PAC has already spread over half a million dollars across more than three dozen primaries for the state House and Senate.

The primaries are also the first major electoral test for House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who took over the gavel more than a year ago.

Legislative leaders overseeing the Texas Military Department say they are looking into reports of suicides, habitual pay problems and poor working conditions on Gov. Greg Abbott's highly touted border mission.

The Rio Grande City lawmaker was the least liberal Democrat in the Texas House this year, according to a political scientist’s rankings of lawmakers.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office says there’s no plan for a fourth special session at this time. If this was the final special session of the year, what did we learn from it?

If voters approve the measure next year, it will raise the state’s homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000 for school district property taxes, netting the average homeowner about $176 in savings.

Three times this year — in the regular session and in two subsequent special sessions — legislation targeting transgender student athletes sailed through the Senate only to falter in the House.

Lawmakers will return to Austin at least one more time this year to redraw the state's political maps. Only Gov. Greg Abbott knows when that will be and if there will be additional special sessions beyond that.

Navigating the quorum break, Speaker Dade Phelan said he was especially mindful of not doing “un-repairable harm” to the chamber, indicating that could have happened if members were physically detained and brought to the chamber.

After a standoff that lasted more than a month, the Texas House appears to have enough state representatives in Austin to conduct business. The divisions are deep, relationships are frayed and redistricting lies ahead.

As of Wednesday, there were no known cases of absent Democrats being arrested, and the chamber was still shy of the 100 members it needs for a quorum to conduct official business. That is despite its Aug. 10 vote to proceed with the arrests.

In a bid to block a voting restrictions bill, House Democrats for weeks have denied the lower chamber the number of present members needed to pass legislation. House Speaker Dade Phelan has already signed dozens of civil arrest warrants.

It’s unclear how far Republican leadership plans to take the arrests, and there remains debate about the limits of law enforcement’s authority to detain lawmakers who are not accused of committing crimes.

The Texas Supreme Court earlier Tuesday ruled that Democrats who refuse to show up could be detained by law enforcement and brought back to the state Capitol.

The Democrats had left the state to block the passage of a Republican elections bill they say would restrict voting rights in the state.

This is the second time in recent weeks the majority Republican House has voted to issue a “call of the House,” though members on Monday did not offer or debate a motion to enable law enforcement to track down members still missing from the chamber.

The warrant to apprehend state Rep. Philip Cortez is the first one signed by the speaker since more than 50 House Democrats left the state to block Republicans from having the quorum needed to pass legislation during the special legislative session.

The plane will be on standby at Dulles International Airport, and Dade Phelan’s team said his political campaign, not taxpayers, will pay for the flight.

Moody, one of House Speaker Dade Phelan's closest Democratic allies, is the first Democrat to suffer political backlash after the quorum break.

Phelan has touted a list of conservative wins in his first session as House leader, such as passing legislation to let Texans carry handguns without a license and approving some of the strictest restrictions on abortion in the country.

A governor targeting the Legislature’s budget would be unprecedented in Texas history.

Since House Democrats staged a walkout that killed Republicans’ priority elections bill for the regular session, the governor and the leaders of the state House and Senate have diverged notably in interviews about how they are approaching the overtime round.

Abbott’s vow came after a Democratic walkout in the House late Sunday night blocked passage of Senate Bill 7, his priority elections bill that would overhaul voting rights in Texas.

Members celebrated the end of the session, but also acknowledged that they'll be back sometime soon for at least one special session.

Tensions between the two chambers are peaking, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is putting pressure on Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special session for unfinished business on conservative priorities

HillCo lobbyist Rick Dennis did not slip GHB into the drinks of two legislative staffers, an investigation found. But a history of complaints against him for inappropriate behavior raises questions about how seriously the Legislature takes misconduct.

In this week's TribCast, Matthew speaks with Ross, Patrick and James about the politics and the policy surrounding Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's push to reconvene the Legislature in June.