Welcome to the Tuesday, Jan. 7, Brew.
By: Lara Bonatesta
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Inside the battle to be Texas State House speaker
- The approval rate for constitutional amendments in 2024 was the lowest since 2005
- 2025 state legislative sessions have begun
Inside the battle to be Texas State House speaker
When new members of the Texas House of Representatives are sworn in on Jan. 14, they will elect their next speaker. Dustin Burrows (R) and David Cook (R) are running, and local political observers say the race is the latest example of a factional divide that has existed in the chamber’s Republican caucus for decades.
Incumbent Dade Phelan (R), who was first elected speaker in 2021, announced in December that he would not run for a third term. Republicans will have an 88-62 majority at the start of the 2025 legislative session. Seventy-six votes are needed to win the speakership. According to The Council of State Governments’ Book of the States, Texas is among 48 states in which all members of the state House elect or confirm their speaker.
In an interview with KDFW-TV’s Steven Dial, Southern Methodist University professor Matthew Wilson described the conflict between Cook and Burrow’s supporters respectively as “the ongoing division among Republicans in the Texas House between a conservative faction and a more establishment moderate faction,” with the former group supporting Cook and the latter supporting Burrows. According to The Texas Tribune’s Jasper Scherer, while Burrows claims to have bipartisan support, Cook’s supporters “call themselves ‘reformers,’ say any new speaker candidate must commit to ending the appointment of Democratic chairs, among other conservative priorities.”
While Republicans have had a majority in the chamber since 2003, the caucus has been divided on multiple votes in recent years. In 2023, 60 House Republicans joined 61 Democrats, voting 121-23 to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). Later that year, 21 Republicans joined 63 Democrats, voting 84-63 to remove a provision for school vouchers from an education funding bill. Both Cook and Burrows voted to impeach Paxton and in support of the voucher proposal.
Both candidates have released lists of members who they said have committed to supporting them. Of the members from 2023 who will remain in 2025, a majority of those on Burrows’ list voted to impeach Paxton, and a majority of those on Cook’s list voted against impeaching Paxton. Although the majority of both candidates’ supporters voted to keep the voucher proposal, all legislators who voted against the voucher proposal were on Burrows’ list.
This year’s election is not the first time the speakership has been an area of conflict within the House Republican caucus. In 2018, local media and political supporters said support or opposition to then-speaker Joe Straus (R) was a key issue in the chamber’s Republican primaries. Straus was first elected speaker by a coalition of Democratic and Republican House members in 2009.
Although the election will take place on Jan. 14, House Republican Caucus bylaws require Republican members to meet in advance to agree on a nominee. At the meeting on Dec. 7, Cook won the nomination 48-14. Neither candidate won in the first two rounds of voting, and Cook won in the third round after the requirement to win was lowered from two-thirds support to three-fifths. Twenty-six Burrows supporters walked out before the third vote took place. Afterward, Cook said he had won the support of the Republican majority, while Burrows said he had enough Democratic support to win without the support of the full Republican caucus.
After the vote, the state’s Republican party passed a resolution calling members to vote for Cook and stating that the State Republican Executive Committee would consider voting for another speaker “a censurable act.” At the party’s 2024 convention, delegates amended Rule 44 of the party’s rulebook on censure. The new rule requires state and county chairs to reject primary applicants the party has censured within the past two years. This would mean that censured members would be unable to run for re-election as Republicans in 2026. According to The Texas Tribune’s Robert Downen, “Political experts expect lawsuits if the Texas GOP follows through with its censures, resulting in a high-stakes legal drama that could upend the relationship between political parties, candidates and voters.”
According to the Tribune, the Idaho Republican Party passed a similar rule in 2024. Under the party’s current rules, members who are censured twice can lose party support and be prohibited from using Republican Party identifiers on campaign information and advertising for five years.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R), Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), and state party chairman Abraham George have all endorsed Cook. The House Democratic Caucus passed a resolution calling its members not to vote for Cook but did not offer direct support to Burrows.
The approval rate for constitutional amendments in 2024 was the lowest since 2005
In 2024, voters in 35 states decided on 96 constitutional amendments. Voters approved 60 (63%) and rejected 36 (38%). This was the lowest overall approval rate since 2005, when voters approved 14 (54%) of the 26 amendments appearing on statewide ballots.
From 2003 through 2024, odd years had a higher average approval rate for proposed constitutional amendments than even years. In 2007, 28 of the 31 proposed amendments were approved, a rate of 90%. In 2017, all 17 amendments on the ballot were approved, the highest approval rate since 1947. In 2006 and 2022, the even-numbered years with the highest approval rates, 74.5% and 73.8% of amendments were approved, respectively.
In 2024, state legislatures put 73 amendments on the ballot, and voters approved 68% of them. Twenty-three were citizen initiatives, and voters approved 43% of those.
In 2024, 14 of the 96 constitutional amendments concerned constitutional rights, either amending a state constitution’s Bill of Rights or adding explicit statements about rights in other sections.
- Ten amendments addressed abortion. Voters approved amendments to establish a right to or expand abortion access in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New York, and Nevada. Voters rejected such amendments in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. In Nebraska, voters approved an amendment to limit the timeframe for when an abortion can be performed.
- California voters approved an amendment to repeal Proposition 8 (2008), which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and declared that a “right to marry is a fundamental right” in the California Constitution. It was approved 62.6% to 37.4%
- Colorado voters defeated an amendment that would have established that each K-12 child had the right to school choice 51% to 49%. It needed a 55% supermajority vote to pass. Colorado voters approved an amendment to remove the right to bail in certain first-degree murder cases. It was approved 68.3% to 31.7%.
- Floridians approved an amendment to become the 24th state to establish a constitutional right to hunt and fish. It was approved 67.3% to 32.7%.
All of this data and more comes from Ballotpedia’s year-end analysis of statewide ballot measures. To read more about the types of measures, approval rates, campaign finance data, and historical context of statewide ballot measures in 2024, click here.
2025 State legislative sessions have begun
As state legislatures across the country are beginning to convene for their 2025 sessions, let’s take a look at their start dates and the trifecta changes that happened following the 2024 elections.
Start dates:
As of Jan. 7, 12 states have started their legislative sessions. Two legislatures—California and Maine—started in December. Massachusetts convened on Jan. 1. Four state legislatures – Idaho, Montana, Ohio, and Wisconsin – convened on Jan. 6. Five states are convening today: Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Thirty-two other states will convene for sessions in January. To see specific start dates, projected end dates, and session lengths for each state, click here.
Four states are not scheduled to convene until February. These include Nevada (Feb. 3), Oklahoma (Feb. 3), Alabama (Feb. 4), West Virginia (Feb. 12). Florida’s Legislature will convene on March 4 and Louisiana’s will convene on April 14.
Trifecta changes:
Democrats lost trifectas in two states in the 2024 elections. Republicans gained a majority in the Michigan House and at least a tie in the Minnesota House. Republicans neither gained nor lost trifectas. No governorships changed party hands in the 2024 elections. As a result, there are 23 Republican trifectas, 15 Democratic trifectas, and 12 divided governments.
The Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution declares that any power not already given to the federal government is reserved to the states and the people. State governments use this authority to hold legislative sessions where elected representatives meet to draft and vote on legislation and set state policies. All 50 state legislatures will meet in 2025. Forty-six state legislatures hold regular sessions annually, while the other four—Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas—meet in odd-numbered years. Nine state legislatures have full-time legislators, meaning they meet throughout the year. All other legislators are considered part-time because they only meet for a portion of the year.