Chisum Trail to the Speaker's Chair?

This just in from the "Have you read your own resume?" files: Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, has officially jumped into the Speaker's race to replace Speaker Joe Straus.

Chisum spent last session opposing health warnings on food, trying to defund family planning and getting people to forget his promotion of anti-evolution, anti-Semitic websites. However, in a letter to his fellow members, the former House Appropriations chair puts himself forward as both a consensus candidate and a partisan force.

The times demand a strong and decisive leader. The Texas House has enjoyed strong, experienced leadership under Speakers Laney and Craddick, who were fully supported by majorities of their respective political parties. Sadly, recent history has shown us that when a chamber's leadership does not enjoy majority support from his own party mixed with good support from the opposition party, his leadership is weak and ineffective.

Apparently his biggest problem with Straus is that he isn't old.

In earnest, we entered the 81st session with open minds, hoping for the brand of leadership Speaker Straus had pledged. However, his approach, guided by his inexperience, instead allowed the minority party to control much of the session's agenda, and the result was no leadership during the total breakdown in the most critical days of the session. Speaker Straus has never served on Appropriations, never served on Ways and Means, has never even faced a difficult budget cycle, much less served as a member during a redistricting session.

Straus announced in May 2009 that he was running for speaker again. Today he fired back (sort of) at Chisum with a temperately-worded response from on the campaign trail in Houston:

My style of respectful, inclusive leadership has earned the support of the vast majority of members of the Republican caucus and the Texas House. In these critical weeks before the election, I believe my fellow Republicans should be focused on building our Republican majority in the Texas House, as I am working hard to do.

Of course, there will almost undoubtedly be a cavalcade of reps throwing their hats in the ring, then either withdrawing them or getting stomped when the members actually cast their votes next session.

But Chisum's letter does raise an interesting point. Although Straus actually spent much of the session blatantly promoting the most contentious parts of the conservative agenda, like rejecting consensus voter ID language in favor of an unpassable "hard ID" version, he gets no credit from the conservatives. The problem was that he wasn't prepared to undertake a full-scale civil war in the chamber by breaking the delaying chub. In fact, if the GOP's plans for voter ID failed, it was really because caucus chair Larry Taylor, R-League City, couldn't get the votes together for their language.

Ah, who are we kidding? The good ol' boys of the lege never forgave Straus for replacing "Smilin' Tom" Craddick, and now he's in a precarious position. If the long shot happens, and the Dems take the House, he loses the gavel. If the Republicans re-enforce their majority, they won't need Democratic votes to install the speaker of their choosing.