“Texas Values Action is proud to endorse David Covey for Texas House District 21 in the Republican Primary run-off election for this May. Faith, family and freedom supporters have made it clear that current House District 21 Representative and Speaker of the House, Dade Phelan, lacks the strong and clear leadership that is needed in East Texas and in the Texas House. David Covey has shown by his public statements and his past work in Texas that he will not delay, but instead champion and lead on issues like religious freedom, parental rights, pro-life and protect our children from harmful gender transition surgeries, procedures and other methods that cause irreversible damage to a child’s body. David Covey is the right leader, at the right time for House District 21,” said Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values Action.
David Covey is a former staff member of Texas Senator Bob Hall, and currently works in the private sector in the oil and gas industry, was born and raised in East Texas and recently served as the chairman of the Orange County Republican Party. David Covey received the most votes and highest percentage of support (46.28 % for Covey, 43.26% for Phelan) in the March primary election earlier this year. David Covey has notable endorsements such as President Donald Trump, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and many more. David Covey has also received support from the third place finisher from the March primary, Alicia Davis, who received 10.46% of the vote.
Rep. Dade Phelan as Texas Speaker of the House and Texas House of Representatives member has been criticized for the slow pace of the Texas House and his lack of public support for issues that grassroots Republicans have been working on for years.
Rep. Phelan used his power in the 2019 Texas Legislative session to advance the LGBT agenda. Not only that, but he then bragged about this legislative move on an interview with Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune. Representative Dade Phelan used his position on House State Affairs to create a loophole in the House committee substitute for SB 2485, and the loophole would have allowed local governments to create or keep sexual orientation and/or gender identity local laws, also known as Ban the Bible ordinances. This bill language would have allowed dangerous ordinances to punish Christian business owners for their beliefs on marriage and human sexuality. Phelan also spoke on the record about SB 2485 and his views on policies that advance the LGBTQ liberal agenda.
Rep. Phelan was one of only three House Republicans who received a positive rating from the state’s leading LGBT organization, Equality Texas (see page 4), in 2019. Phelan also received special praise on the Equality Texas scorecard for his “leadership” on this bill (see page 21). Equality Texas is a strong supporter of Ban The Bible bills and actively opposes nearly every religious freedom bill that is filed or considered for a vote in the Texas Legislature.
In 2021 the Save Women’s Sports bill (for K-12 grades only) died in the Texas House Public Education Committee in special session, after passing the Texas Senate during the regular session and failing to get a vote in the regular session in the Texas House. It’s strongly believed that this bill died in the second special session due to the opposition of Texas House Public Education Committee chairman, Harold Dutton, a House Democrat who was appointed to be the chairman by House Speaker Dade Phelan. The Save Women’s Sports (K-12) bill would need three special sessions to eventually pass the Texas House late in 2021, even though it passed the Texas Senate numerous times. More detail here.
In 2023, the bill to protect children from harmful gender transitions and puberty blockers procedures, SB 14, was bogged down in the Texas House under Speaker Phelan’s leadership for weeks, having to endure and overcome not one but two points of order that many believe Speaker Dade Phelan would have ruled in favor of, until finally surviving a third point of order and ultimately passing just before the deadline. In 2021, a version of this bill died on the House floor in the last moments of the legislative session, and many people believe this happened because that’s what Speaker Phelan wanted. A “point of order” is a procedural move and request made by a Texas House member on the House floor to ask the Speaker of the House to rule that there is some technical or procedural problem with a bill, but this maneuver is often used to simply delay a bill that has majority support.
Dade Phelan has also been strongly criticized for his leading and insisting on a vote to impeach Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton. Some people believe that Dade Phelan’s decision to impeach Ken Paxton was an effort to remove General Paxton because of General Paxton’s strong record and leadership on issues of religious freedom, parental rights, and protecting children and families from radical transgender, gender identity and sexual orientation ideology.
Dade Phelan has the following scores on the Texas Values Action Faith & Family Scorecard for previous Texas Legislative Sessions:
2023: No score, Speaker
2021: No score, Speaker
2019: 81
2017: 82
2015: 84
Click here for a link to the Texas Values Action Faith & Family Scorecard.
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