Texas’ new Democratic leaders turn to Republicans to steer transitions, vowing bipartisan governance

Come January, all three of Texas’ top state officials — the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker — are poised to be Democrats for the first time since 1995.

But Republicans will still be on deck helping steer the ship.

In a signal that Democrats intend to govern in a bipartisan fashion even after a near-total takeover of Texas state government in last week’s midterms, the incoming “Big Three” each tapped Republicans to help guide their transitions.

Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa named a former Republican state representative to co-chair her transition team. Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin, who will preside over the state Senate, tapped two former Republican state senators to co-chair hers. And presumptive Texas House Speaker Senfronia Thompson of Houston announced a team of three Democratic and three GOP former speakers, including Republicans Joe Straus and Dade Phelan.

Several of those Republicans were top antagonists to outgoing Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“This is a transition for the whole state of Texas,” Hinojosa said in her first press conference as governor-elect last week. “We will have a bipartisan transition, and we will have a bipartisan administration and government in Texas.”

Taken together, the moves are a tacit recognition that Democrats snapped up their new political power during a generational, nationwide blue tsunami just two years after Texans elected President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points. U.S. Sen.-elect James Talarico, who defeated Republican Ken Paxton by 12 points, cautioned against “assuming that Texans all of a sudden became partisan Democrats,” saying that the state “voted for change last night — not necessarily for one party over the other.”

Talarico may keep some Republican staff, too. Outgoing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn told TMZ Tuesday that his incoming successor said he hoped to keep some of Cornyn’s caseworkers, who help manage constituent services, on board.

The incoming Democratic state leaders must also contend with a divided government. While Democrats swept every statewide office on the ballot and won a comfortable majority in the Texas House, Republicans still control the state Senate, meaning any bill will need Republican votes in next year’s legislative session to make it to Hinojosa’s desk.

“Democrats and Republicans working together, we can make a difference in the state of Texas and the lives of the people that we represent,” Thompson said last week in announcing that she had the votes to become speaker. “I don’t have a dictatorship that I’m going to tell people what to do.”

Thompson added that she would reinstate the longtime Texas House tradition of naming members of both parties to committee chairmanships and would not seek to “punish” the GOP minority. Republicans banned Democratic chairmanships for the 2025 session, then imposed harsher penalties for legislative walkouts after dozens of Democratic lawmakers fled the state to protest Trump’s push to redraw the state’s congressional maps mid-decade.

The balancing act Democrats are trying to pull off — building long-term power in state government by passing popular measures and recognizing the state’s enduring partisan lean, while also satisfying their liberal base — is a tricky one. Some Democratic activists were already chafing at the overtures incoming Democratic leaders were making to Republicans.

“Activists didn’t spend all of their hours organizing, donating, phonebanking and getting dragged out of the Capitol to hand back the keys to the people who broke it,” progressive Texas commentator Michelle Davis wrote in a Tuesday newsletter calling for Republicans to be locked out of House committee chairmanships. “Republicans already showed us what they do with power. They lock out the other side and then target harm at the least among us. That isn’t governing. Now isn’t the time to play footsie. Now is the time to fix everything they broke.”

For the Republicans who clashed with Abbott and Patrick, appointments to the new guard’s transition teams give them a foothold in shaping the incoming administrations just as the two longtime leaders are shown the exits.

Former GOP Rep. Ernest Bailes, the Hinojosa transition co-chair, was a strident opponent of Abbott’s push for school vouchers, a cause that put him on the same side as the governor-elect when they both served in the House. Bailes lost his 2024 primary after Abbott supported his opponent, now-state Rep. Janis Holt of Silsbee, and single-handedly funded over three-quarters of her campaign.

But neither Bailes nor Hinojosa raised that dynamic or mentioned vouchers when the governor-elect announced his role in her transition. Hinojosa simply referred to Bailes as a “champion for public schools, a small-business owner, a Republican — showing my commitment for this to be a transition that truly represents all of Texas.”

“I believe in Gina,” Bailes, who served in the Texas House from 2017 to 2025, said. “We will put partisanship aside. We will work together for what is best for the kids of the state of Texas. We will be able to take care of education, and we will support and listen to the people.”

Straus and Phelan will advise Thompson ahead of the vote for speaker in January. Both clashed with Patrick in particular and faced persistent criticism from the hard-right wing of the party, who accused them of bottling up conservative priorities.

Though Phelan oversaw the passage of many such measures during his two terms as speaker, including a near-total abortion ban and permitless carry of handguns, Patrick excoriated him over the House’s 2023 impeachment of Paxton, then openly sought to oust him by endorsing his top primary challenger in 2024. Abbott also spent millions of dollars unseating anti-voucher GOP incumbents whom Phelan was working to protect, ushering in a new insurgent class that ended Phelan’s speakership and marginalized House Democrats.

Phelan, who will leave office in January, was a vocal critic of Paxton and the Texas GOP’s increasing partisanship and ever-shrinking ideological tent ahead of and during this year’s election cycle. In an interview with Texas Monthly after the election, Phelan called the midterms “extinction-level” and said that in order for the GOP to rebuild, “MAGA needs to be dead.”

“The Texas House works best when its members put people before party: when we come together, work together and govern in a bipartisan way for the good of all Texans,” Phelan said in a statement. “I look forward to working alongside [Thompson] to restore those traditions and to make the 90th session one that Texans can be proud of.”

Tasked with leading a Republican-majority Senate, Goodwin tapped former GOP state Sens. Kel Seliger, a Patrick foe, and Tommy Williams, a former Abbott adviser, to help lead her transition team. Her advisers also include retired Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips, a Republican, and several former top aides to Straus and GOP state Sen.-elect Trent Ashby, R-Lufkin.

Seliger served in the Legislature’s upper chamber for 19 years, where he became a thorn in Patrick’s side as a rare Republican willing to oppose him. After the Amarillo Republican voted against a couple of Patrick’s priorities and suggested that one of the lieutenant governor’s senior aides kiss his “back end,” Patrick stripped him of his Agriculture Committee chairmanship. After opting against reelection in 2022, Seliger endorsed Patrick’s Democratic opponent that year, saying the GOP incumbent had created a culture of “vindictiveness” and “maliciousness” that forced Republicans to “kowtow” or be punished.

“It is no longer really a deliberative body and it is not collegial and cooperative. It is far more partisan and far more divisive,” Seliger said at the time. (A spokesperson for Patrick previously accused Seliger of “working against the interests of conservatives” throughout his time in office.)

Goodwin has said she hopes to govern differently and let Republican senators vote in the best interests of their districts.

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday alongside Goodwin, Seliger said that sort of approach will be imperative to getting bills through a divided Legislature.

“Starting on Jan. 19, 181 members of the Legislature, lieutenant governor and the governor all have issues of importance to them and agendas,” Seliger said. “If they’re going to be successful in any measure, they have to cooperate.”

The new “Big Three” are not the first to lean on members of the other team. Top Republicans who were new to holding power a generation ago similarly tapped Democratic peers for key posts.

After his election as lieutenant governor in 1998 — a first for Texas Republicans since Reconstruction — Rick Perry retained some Democratic staffers from Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock’s tenure. Four years later, incoming GOP Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst hired Bruce Gibson, a former Democratic lawmaker and aide to Bullock, as his chief of staff.

As governor, Perry also appointed Henry Cuellar, the Laredo Democrat who now serves in Congress, as Texas secretary of state.

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