What do you think?
Rate this book
Focus on American History
The House Will Come To Order: How the Texas Speaker Became a Power in State and National Politics
In a state assumed to have a constitutionally weak governor, the Speaker of the Texas House wields enormous power, with the ability to almost single-handedly dictate the legislative agenda. The House Will Come to Order charts the evolution of the Speaker's role from a relatively obscure office to one of the most powerful in the state. This fascinating account, drawn from the Briscoe Center's oral history project on the former Speakers, is the story of transition, modernization, and power struggles. Weaving a compelling story of scandal, service, and opportunity, Patrick Cox and Michael Phillips describe the divisions within the traditional Democratic Party, the ascendance of Republicans, and how Texas business, agriculture, and media shaped perceptions of officeholders. While the governor and lieutenant governor wielded their power, the authors show how the modern Texas House Speaker built an office of equal power as the state became more complex and diverse. The authors also explore how race, class, and gender affected this transition as they explain the importance of the office in Texas and the impact the state's Speakers have had on national politics. At the apex of its power, the Texas House Speaker's role at last receives the critical consideration it deserves.
- GenresPolitics
272 pages, Paperback
First published February 22, 2010
About the author
Patrick L. Cox
4 books3 followersPatrick L. Cox is Resident Historian at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 16, 2021
Like many stories of leading positions or people, this one inevitably becomes a story of the institutions they head, in this case, the Texas House of Representatives. So this book also provides a general overview of Texas legislation, everything from the 1918 law providing free textbooks, supported by former teacher and former Texas House member Sam Rayburn, to the 1950 Gilmer-Aiken education reform act, establishing broad state support for the first time (leading fiercely anti-union speaker Durwood Manford to lock the house down and send out the rangers to pull in members to vote for it).
Despite the title, the Texas speakership only had national implications in two major moments. First, Sam Rayburn's term as Texas state speaker in 1910 to 1912 prepared him for his eventual run as the longest Speaker in the US House of Representatives, from 1941 to 1960 (with two short breaks.) Second, after 2003, the first Republican House Speaker in 130 years, Midlands businessman Tom Craddick, who himself was the first Republican appointed to chair a House committee in a hundred years in 1975, engaged in a furious redistricting battle that twice lead Democratic legislators to escape the state and which eventually help hand the state's congressional delegations to Republicans. (It is worth mentioning that Craddick had won a state redistricting case in 1970 to keep his district and his county intact and in 2000, the Republicans had lost the state legislative races despite winning 55% of the vote.
The best part of the book are those dealing with the daily life and scandals of the Speakership. The 1971 "Sharpstown Affair" centered on Houston businessman Frank Sharp selling cheap stock to legislators and then manipulating the price, and then trying to get a bill to regulate his bank under the looser state laws. Speaker Gus Mutscher was indicted and removed from his position (he was later cleared on appeal). In 1979 Speaker William Clayton was indicted in an FBI bribery string (Brilab) but the jury later exonerated him. Speaker Gib Lewis of the 1980s and early '90s had deer and black bass transported to his ranches from the Texas Parks and Wildlife department, and got lobbyists to pay for his numerous trips abroad. The blowback forced him to support ethics reform laws in 1991. He still got a plea deal and a fine for campaign violations and was forced to resign in 1993. The book also explains how these speakers, and all of them going back to Pat Neff in 1903, lived in the Speaker's apartments in the Capitol itself. Their kids had to deal with intruders and isolation, and wives had to deal with tourists just wandering in.
Although a few facts seem to contradict each other, and a few important issues are glanced over, this book does explain a bit about what the Texas Legislature has been doing for the past century and a half, and how important state legislatures have become in general.
Despite the title, the Texas speakership only had national implications in two major moments. First, Sam Rayburn's term as Texas state speaker in 1910 to 1912 prepared him for his eventual run as the longest Speaker in the US House of Representatives, from 1941 to 1960 (with two short breaks.) Second, after 2003, the first Republican House Speaker in 130 years, Midlands businessman Tom Craddick, who himself was the first Republican appointed to chair a House committee in a hundred years in 1975, engaged in a furious redistricting battle that twice lead Democratic legislators to escape the state and which eventually help hand the state's congressional delegations to Republicans. (It is worth mentioning that Craddick had won a state redistricting case in 1970 to keep his district and his county intact and in 2000, the Republicans had lost the state legislative races despite winning 55% of the vote.
The best part of the book are those dealing with the daily life and scandals of the Speakership. The 1971 "Sharpstown Affair" centered on Houston businessman Frank Sharp selling cheap stock to legislators and then manipulating the price, and then trying to get a bill to regulate his bank under the looser state laws. Speaker Gus Mutscher was indicted and removed from his position (he was later cleared on appeal). In 1979 Speaker William Clayton was indicted in an FBI bribery string (Brilab) but the jury later exonerated him. Speaker Gib Lewis of the 1980s and early '90s had deer and black bass transported to his ranches from the Texas Parks and Wildlife department, and got lobbyists to pay for his numerous trips abroad. The blowback forced him to support ethics reform laws in 1991. He still got a plea deal and a fine for campaign violations and was forced to resign in 1993. The book also explains how these speakers, and all of them going back to Pat Neff in 1903, lived in the Speaker's apartments in the Capitol itself. Their kids had to deal with intruders and isolation, and wives had to deal with tourists just wandering in.
Although a few facts seem to contradict each other, and a few important issues are glanced over, this book does explain a bit about what the Texas Legislature has been doing for the past century and a half, and how important state legislatures have become in general.
Displaying 1 of 1 review