When it comes to the United States legislative branch, there is no figure who looms larger than the Speaker of the House of Representatives. They are empowered to decide which legislation reaches the floor and which legislators get which committee appointments, alongside many other crucial powers. This also holds true in Texas. However, simply because both the Texas speaker and the U.S. speaker hold the same job and hold similar powers does not mean that their actions yield the same results. The sheer tonnage of differences in efficiency, content or centrism between the Texas House and U.S. House, at present, could stun a bull elephant.

Beginning with the election of the speakers themselves, the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and the Honorable Dade Phelan, R-21, were chosen to head the U.S. House and the Texas House, respectively. They were both elected by a first past the post system, in which whoever gets the most votes wins, which was open to all members of their respective Houses. But while Pelosi garnered not a single U.S. House Republican vote in her favor, Phelan garnered the votes of the all-female, all-Democratic “Equity Caucus” in the Texas House.

The Texas House is, by far, the more legislative body between the two in that it actually passes a reasonable number of laws — in the last legislative session, the Texas House passed 969 bills. Its national counterpart managed to pass 214 in all of 2020. The Texas House filed over 4700 bills last session. Its national counterpart managed to file a little over 7500 bills in roughly five times the amount of time. The Texas House has about one month to pass laws every year — the U.S. House has all year. Some of this, of course, is due to the fact that 55% of seats in the Texas House are held by Republicans. However, when the U.S. House has a similar proportion of party domination, as was the case with the 116th Congress in 2019-21, it only managed to pass 214 bills.

It is the constituents and their respective leaders within these bodies that make the difference. The centrism of those elected to the Texas House contrasts majorly with those elected to the U.S. House. TribTalk, a publication of the Texas Tribune, rates the party delegations to the Texas and U.S. House on a mean scale between 2 and -2, 2 meaning the most conservative and -2 meaning the most liberal. The Republican delegation in the Texas House garnered about a .1 on this scale, and the local Democratic delegation garnered about a -1. Overall, neither delegation at the Texas House was particularly partisan. However, this differs from the Texas delegation at the national level. On the same scale, the national Republican delegation garnered a 1, and the national Democratic delegation garnered a -1. The exact same populace votes for these representatives. Yet, somehow, one group is far less partisan than the other. And one group manages to pass hundreds more laws over the same period of time than the other.

We can clearly see the effects of the centrism of the Texas House as a whole. This is clearest in the spending priorities of the state. As per constitutional requirement, the budget is always balanced. Last session, the budget was focused on priorities like school finance reform, increased school funding, property tax reform and state infrastructure, especially after Hurricane Harvey. The House also passed other pragmatic reforms like raising the smoking age from 18 to 21, and extending the period to prosecute in sexual abuse lawsuits. Many proposed bills did not pass. Regressive tax increases, like that of the sales tax, were struck down. Culture war priorities, like efforts to keep Confederate monuments and laws directing the state attorney general to take legal action on suspicion of social media censorship, did not pass. 

Turning attention to the national stage, plenty of drastically partisan motions have taken place on Capitol Hill. From House Bill 1, the “For the People Act,” a massive expansion of voting rights for federal prisoners, to House Bill 1222, an act that allows states to use federal funds to acquire land for expanding or constructing a public target range, plenty of culture war priorities have made progress through the House. Most strikingly, the U.S. budget has not been balanced for over 20 years. Most U.S. spending isn’t even discretionary, making it almost impossible to divine how it is spent.

These houses were created by the founders of these United States. But the founders didn’t dictate how these houses might be run. They expected a certain level of decorum and expected a certain level of respect. George Washington, famously, in his second inaugural address, warned against political parties and partisanship in general. It is up to us, his successors, to make good on his warnings and keep our legislative bodies free and clear for our descendents. All of the founders expected that these houses would be filled with educated, moral and high-thinking citizens — on this, we have delivered. It is now up to us, past the ballot box, to hold our legislators to account, to use our vote to make sure that the priorities of the American people, the needs of the American people and the urgent cries of the American people are heard.

The speakers preside over the circus that these houses consist of. They are at least partially responsible for the results that these statistics cover. Between the two, the Texas House is the more moderate, more pragmatic, more efficient of the two, which can be largely credited to the speaker. The people delivered a partisan group to the U.S. House and a moderate one to the Texas House, and we see the results of their labors. One is a dynamic legislator of a growing, bullish area, and the other is the U.S. House of Representatives.