#TXLEGE: Legacy media start buttering up Phelan (to kill GOP legislative priorities)

Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”
1 Corinthians 15:33

Houston Chronicle this morning:

Dade Phelan's rep as a hard-working, straight-shooting coalition builder made him a shoo-in as Texas' next House speaker

Tommy Williams was preparing to run for the Texas Senate in 2001 after two terms in the House when a young Dade Phelan strode into his office.

Phelan handed Williams a list of almost two dozen people in his hometown of Beaumont who he thought Williams needed to win over to cinch the election. Phelan told him he could help him do it. Williams, a Republican from The Woodlands, hired him on the spot.

“Beaumont was the largest city in my Senate district,” Williams recalled. “But I wasn’t from Beaumont. I didn’t ever live there. So I told him real quickly, ‘You know what? You’re my Jefferson County campaign manager.’”

It paid off: Williams won, and Phelan became the legislative aide the senator depended on for the next five years.

Now, almost two decades later, the 45-year-old Phelan is the presumptive House Speaker, and he has hired the former state senator to lead his transition team.

A similarly bold, self-starting move, exhibiting the same networking skills, propelled Phelan to the speakership earlier this month.

DMN:

As results started rolling in on Election Day and dashing the Texas Democrats' hopes of flipping the Texas House, Rep. Dade Phelan, a three-term Republican from Beaumont, started working the phones to lock in his bid to become the next leader of the chamber.

The next morning, Phelan announced at a Capitol press conference that he had enough votes to become the next speaker of the House. He put out a list of 83 lawmakers from both parties that included most of his rivals for the speaker’s gavel, as well as a coalition of a majority of the Republican Caucus and prominent Black and Latino Democrats.

By Thursday, his final GOP rival, Rep. Geanie Morrison of Victoria, folded her campaign and left Phelan a clear path to becoming speaker.

Within three days, the 45-year-old Phelan had maneuvered his way into one of the most powerful jobs in Texas.

To be fair to the DMN, their piece isn't as revoltingly sycophantic as the Houston Chronicle piece. It's more of a straight news piece about the session. But it's still very "friendly."

The play here is obvious. The legacy media knows Phelan's going to kill the RPT legislative priorities. So they're going to give him glowing coverage.

(Obviously, this is a re-run of the playbook they used with Joe Straus.)

None of this is surprising.

But, seriously, get a room Houston Chronicle.

Bottom Line:  The specific identity of the speaker may be "new," but the playbook never changes.