Upon being elected as Texas House Speaker, Rep. Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) made the following remarks:
Speaker Dade Phelan
- Affordable healthcare for families and businesses, will be giving patients greater control over healthcare and increased access
- Heard desire for safe streets, showed it was possible to protect rights and increase safety; will continue to be tough on violent offenders while also making justice system work better for nonviolent offenders
- Time to reign in rogue district attorneys
- Constituents want roads that move them in a timely manner
- Texans want reliable water supply, resiliency from flooding, high speed internet, exceptional schools, etc., time to do these things with historic surplus
- Threats to children’s safety are real, incl. child trafficking, violence in schools, bad actors seeking to exploit innocence, and social media leading to sexualization; will stand up for children
- Texans want safer schools, need to make sensible, meaningful change
- Uvalde families & report have informed decisions, confident House will be able to handle the conversation
- Important to ensure economy continues to create quality jobs and meaningful wages; ability to manage needs while raising kids is difficult
- Tax-free diapers, wipes & other supplies are great start, ensuring yearlong coverage for new moms is as well
- Mothers in rural areas face hourlong drives for basic services, need firm commitment this session to reversing this trend; pro-life includes ensuring access for affordable healthcare for all
- Offering additional resources to guarantee 12 full weeks of paid maternal and paternal leave for those working in the House this Session
- Need to help retain staffers by increasing salaries
- Border towns have been bearing brunt of Washington’s failed policies, need to ensure strategies fit realities on the ground and are measurably effective