Democrats the Big Winner with Selection of Joe Straus

I know it’s a little hard to take, but there were some of us out there who were not happy to see Tom Craddick go, and I’m not talking about the right wingers of the Republican Party either.

Democrats were sorry to see Craddick have his hat handed to him by moderate Republican Joe Straus.

The argument goes that Craddick created such bi-partisan angst in the 2007 session that it helped elect Democrats to the House in 2008.

Maybe so, maybe so. It’s an interesting point. I wonder, though, whether Texas could have withstood another legislative session like the one we all witnessed in 2007.

But more to the point, I think that the selection of Joe Straus will be a windfall for Democrats next year. No, not because he is going to let Democrats run him, although that is a nice thought. No, it’s because Joe Straus evokes such bitter bile from the right wing evangelical neoconservatives of the Republican Party that, it is hoped, a deep rift will form in the party of the Dark Side, marginalizing their ability to carry out their conservative agenda.

In short, it could create a new coalition of moderate conservatives and Democrats, a possibly bullet-proof veto-overriding new majority that could just possibly make this place a better place for your average everyday person to live and work.

Want proof? Witness the reaction of House District 26 State Rep. Charlie Howard to the news that he would be having Joe Straus as his Speaker in the next legislative session, as found in the Fort Bend Herald:

“If Mr. Straus is elected, he will be elected by Democrats and a very, very small number of Republicans. So what does that tell you? That tells you the agenda will be set by Democrats rather than the Republicans and that’s not something I support.”

See? According to the numbers, Craddick had somewhere between 53 and 58 supporters in the House, leaving somewhere between 18 and 23 Republicans in this “very, very small number” and a schism appears to be forming between the two factions, if you bank on Charlie Howard’s assessment of the situation.

And any time I see Charlie Howard upset over the state of things in the House that can only be a good thing.