Republican Senators Can Strip Vikki Goodwin of the Powers Dan Patrick Used. The Constitution Gives Her Far Less
Most lieutenant governor power comes from Senate rules, not the constitution. Republicans kept a 19-12 majority and can rewrite those rules in January.
Vikki Goodwin won the lieutenant governor's race Tuesday and becomes the first Democrat in that job since 1999. On paper she inherits one of the most powerful offices in Texas. In practice, Republican senators who kept a 19-12 majority can rewrite the chamber rules in January and leave her with the gavel and little else.
The Texas Tribune reported that most of the power Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick used for years did not come from the state constitution. It came from Senate rules that senators themselves approve at the start of each session. Those rules let Patrick pick committee chairs, decide which bills reach the floor, choose conference committees and create special panels. A simple majority can change them. Republicans have that majority.
Christians who care about ordered liberty should watch the rules fight closely. Voters chose Goodwin. Senators still write the playbook for how the upper chamber works. Both facts can be true at once.
What the constitution actually gives the lieutenant governor
The Texas Constitution says the lieutenant governor presides over the Senate and steps in as governor when the governor is away, disqualified or leaves office. That is real authority. It is not the full toolkit Patrick built.
Under chamber rules, Patrick assigned chairs, timed floor votes and steered bills into the committees he preferred. The Tribune noted that setup made him, in recent years, among the most powerful politicians in the state since Democratic Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock. Goodwin will still have a platform. She can hold news conferences and work with a Democratic House that can ignore Republican proposals from across the rotunda. Dock Line covered where Patrick and Goodwin differed before Election Day, and later how Republicans held the Senate as their last stronghold after the statewide sweep.
"There's a lot of things besides just running the Senate, and there may be some attempts to change the rules, but I don't know," Goodwin told the Tribune in an interview a few weeks before the election. "I think of myself as being fairly intelligent. I'll figure out ways to get things done."
Why Republican senators have every reason to rewrite the rules
Fifteen of the 31 Senate seats were on the ballot this year. When the next session opens, Republicans will hold 19 and Democrats 12. They need only a simple majority to strip authorities they once handed Patrick.
Sen. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown posted on social media Tuesday night, before his own tight race was called: "Texas stands as long as the Texas Senate Republican caucus holds the line. We will." The Tribune asked 14 Republican senators for interviews. None answered by early Wednesday evening.
Garrett W. Fulce, a Houston-area public-relations executive and former GOP operative, told the Tribune he expects a rewrite. "I can almost guarantee you they'll change the rules because one of the things that that power does is it prevents the Democratic lieutenant governor from putting things on the floor and forcing Republicans to take votes they don't want to have to take," he said. One model is the U.S. Senate, where a majority leader elected by the caucus controls the flow of legislation while the vice president holds a thinner constitutional role.
University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus told the Tribune any pullback would rank among the chamber's biggest institutional changes in recent memory. Republicans have rewritten tradition before. For years a bill needed two-thirds consent before a floor vote. In 2015, one vote short of that threshold, the GOP lowered the bar to three-fifths.
"Republicans want to minimize damage that came from the election," Rottinghaus said. "Republicans don't know how to be in the minority. They are going to have to learn on the fly. But the simplest thing to do for them is to exercise the majority powers in the senate and to do the best they can to leverage the numbers that they have."
What Texans should demand either way
Rule changes are not automatically wrong. A chamber has the right to organize itself. What would be wrong is pretending voters did not speak, or pretending process games are the same thing as governing. Parents who want schools that teach reading, writing and truth rather than fashion should press both parties for legislation that serves families, not for score-settling.
Goodwin will take office in January alongside Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa and a Democratic House majority. The Senate remains the brake. If Republican senators cut her floor powers, they will own the blockage of bills they bury. If they leave the Patrick-era rules intact, they will own the votes she forces. Either path requires courage and honesty. Scripture calls rulers to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly. Texans should ask for the same from both sides of the aisle when the rules come up for a vote.
Hero photo: The Texas Senate chamber in the State Capitol. Republicans kept a 19-12 majority. File photo. Photo: Niagara / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
