Dade Phelan | |
---|---|
Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives | |
Assumed office January 12, 2021 | |
Preceded by | Dennis Bonnen |
Member of the TexasHouseofRepresentatives from the 21st district | |
Assumed office January 13,2015 | |
Preceded by | Allan Ritter |
Personal details | |
Born | Matthew McDade Phelan September 18,1975 Beaumont,Texas,U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | Kimberly Ware |
Children | 4 |
Education | University of Texas,Austin (BA) |
Matthew McDade Phelan (born September 18,1975) is an American real estate developer and Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 21,which includes most of Jefferson and all of Orange and Jasper counties in the southeast corner of the state. He has been Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives since January 2021. He has been censured by the Texas GOP. [1]
Phelan is a 1994 graduate of Monsignor Kelly Catholic High School in Beaumont and a 1998 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. [2]
As of 2023 [update] ,Phelan is Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. He was previously Chair of the House Committee on State Affairs,on the Natural Resources Committee as Vice-Chair,the Calendars Committee,the Appropriations Committee,Elections Committee as well as the Select Committee on Ports,Innovation and Infrastructure. He is also a founding member of the House Criminal Justice Reform Caucus. [3]
Texas Monthly recognized Phelan as one of the best legislators of 2019. [4]
On December 2,2020,Phelan was traveling in a private plane to meet Representative Trent Ashby when it crashed on landing during a rainstorm at Angelina County Airport near Lufkin,Texas. There were no serious injuries. [5]
On January 12,2021,Phelan was elected the 76th Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
On August 12,2021,Phelan signed arrest warrants for the 52 Democratic lawmakers who had left the state to deny a quorum. The lawmakers were attempting to block the passage of legislation considered by certain civil rights groups to restrict voting access to voters of color. [6] During the House debate on the bill,Phelan banned Texas representatives from using the word "racism". [7]
On May 19,2023,Phelan struggled to speak while executing his duties as speaker of the Texas House. Fellow Republican and attorney general Ken Paxton called upon Phelan to resign due to "apparent debilitating intoxication". Phelan "negatively impacted the legislative process and constitutes a failure to live up to his duty to the public" according to the statement. [8] [9] Phelan's office characterized Paxton's statement as "a last-ditch effort to save face" given the timing –that same day,a Republican-led House committee came public with an investigation into Paxton that had been ongoing since March of that year. [10] That investigation led to the House formally impeaching Paxton on May 27 by a vote of 121–23. [11] On September 16,2023,Ken Paxton was acquitted of all sixteen corruption charges brought at the "historic" impeachment trial. [12]
Phelan is Catholic;he and his wife,Kimberly ( née Ware) Phelan,have four children. [2]
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Senate Bill 7 is part of a broader package of proposals to constrain local initiatives widening voter access in urban areas, made up largely by people of color, that favor Democrats.
The bill is one of two major voting packages in Texas that mirrors a nationwide campaign by Republicans after former President Donald Trump made false claims about election fraud. Voting rights groups say the measures would disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minority voters.
Critics of the Senate bill said most of its provisions were less about making voting secure than about making it harder, particularly for urban voters and minority voters, two groups that tend to vote for Democrats.
[President of the Texas Civil Rights Project] said many of the bill's provisions would disproportionately affect voters of color. The extended voting hours in Harris County, for example, were mostly used by voters of color. Fifty-six percent of voters who cast ballots in late night hours were Black, Hispanic or Asian, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project.
Advocates say the changes would disproportionately affect minorities and people with disabilities.
While Senate Bill 7 would have wide-ranging effects on voters across the state, it includes specific language that critics say would disproportionately affect people of color — particularly those who live in under-resourced and urban communities.
Voting rights experts say the bills — which include measures that would apply only to the state's most populous counties, all of which are predominantly nonwhite — would discriminate against voters of color.
The Republican focus on diverse urban areas, voting activists say, evokes the state's history of racially discriminatory voting laws — including poll taxes and "white primary" laws during the Jim Crow era — that essentially excluded Black voters from the electoral process. Most of Harris County's early voters were white, according to a study by the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit group. But the majority of those who used drive-through or 24-hour voting — the early voting methods the Republican bills would prohibit — were people of color, the group found.
The effort is one of the clearest examples of how the GOP's nationwide campaign to tighten voting laws can target Democrats, even as they insist the measures are not partisan. With Americans increasingly sorted into liberal urban areas and conservative rural ones, geography can be an effective proxy for partisanship. Proposals tailored to cities or that take population into account are bound to have a greater impact on Democratic voters.; The county exemplifies the GOP's slipping grip on fast-changing Texas. In 2004, former President George W. Bush, who is from Texas, easily won Harris County and Republicans ran every major countywide office. But recent years have been routs for Democrats, whose wins now extend down the ballot to local judicial races.