GOP Texas Speaker Facing Resignation Calls Amid Intoxication Allegations

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, is facing calls to resign over accusations that he was intoxicated while presiding over the chamber.

Video emerged on social media over the weekend appearing to show Phelan, 47, slurring his words during a speech on the floor of the Texas legislature, prompting accusations that he was intoxicated while on the job. Calls for his resignation have grown in recent days, including from state Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The video shows Phelan, who has represented parts of Beaumont since 2015, slurring his words during remarks on the House floor on Friday, following a 14-hour session. Video showing his speech spread across social media, being viewed millions of times. Critics have accused him of being intoxicated during the speech, but others have questioned whether he may have been suffering from a stroke or some other medical condition.

Paxton became the latest Republican to call on Phelan’s resignation Tuesday afternoon.

“After much consideration, it is with profound disappointment that I call on Speaker Dade Phelan to resign at the end of this legislative session,” Paxton wrote in a statement. “Texans were dismayed to witness his performance presiding over the Texas House in a state of apparent debilitating intoxication.”

Paxton continued to write that Phelan’s conduct “negatively impacted the legislative process and constitutes a failure to live up to his duty to the public.” He said it created a “credibility crisis” for the entire GOP in the Lone Star State.

Cait Wittman, Phelan’s communications director, said in a statement to Newsweek that Paxton’s resignation call is a “last ditch effort to save face” after a Texas House committee revealed Tuesday an investigation into the firing of whistleblowers and other “alleged illegal conduct” by the attorney general. That investigation has been going on since March, according to the statement.

“The motives for and timing behind Paxton’s statement today couldn’t be more evident,” she wrote.

The Texas House General Investigating Committee unanimously voted to issue subpoenas in “Matter A” on Tuesday. The investigation has surrounded a $3.3 million settlement with four ex-deputies who said they were fired for reporting alleged misconduct in the attorney general’s office, according to The Texas Tribune.

Texas GOP State Representative Jonathan Strickland has also criticized Phelan over the clip, alleging that other members of the state legislature are also “regularly intoxicated.”

“Anyone who watches the #txlege House knows many of the members are regularly intoxicated. Watching the Speaker be this wasted is absolutely unacceptable. These Representatives are making laws that impact 30 million Texans. It must stop,” he tweeted.

Others, however, have dismissed the claims that Phelan was intoxicated.

State Representative Christian Manuel, a Democrat, told Beaumont-based television news station KFDM that Phelan “wasn’t drunk.”

“That’s crazy,” he said. “The speaker was tired. He was drinking water. He went into the members’ lounge and got water. People with common sense can understand that. People are being mean-spirited. Absolutely. Within seconds, he was speaking normally. We all get tired. This is a fringe group that wants to make political hate out of this. Anyone with common sense can look and see he went from being tired to gaveling out the session. We’d been going every day, 12 to 16 hours. It’s exhausting.”