Just like he promised he would when he was boosted to power, rookie Republican Speaker Joe Straus has let the House rule itself for the last five months. Now, the 150-member chamber is coming unraveled.
The House has been stuck in partisan gridlock for three days, and with just a week left in the legislative session, bills are dying by the minute.
"Somebody has to steer. Somebody has to get this thing moving in the right direction," said Rep. Kino Flores, a Democrat from Mission who is angry that his effort to give tax relief to disabled veterans is in danger of succumbing to the partisan turmoil. "Somebody has to step up and say this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it."
Straus has been largely absent from the House speaker's rostrum as Democrats have seized control of the agenda. They've done it with a maneuver known as chubbing, which uses the rules to run out the clock.
Their strategy is to block a divisive voter ID bill. So far, it's working.
"It's really unfortunate that (Democrats) have taken these measures," said Rep. Larry Taylor, chairman of the House Republican Caucus. "There are a lot of contentious bills that we deal with, but we never go to this extreme ... It's unfathomable to me the level of effort they've taken to avoid this issue. They've stopped the whole process."
But, the Democrats are playing by the rules, Taylor said, making Straus powerless to end the gridlock.
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As the Democrats prattled on over a tedious list of local and uncontested bills, they pushed weightier legislation like college tuition relief and insurance reform closer to demise with a Tuesday deadline. The rules could be suspended to take up any legislation out of order, but it would require a two-thirds majority. Republicans have rejected the offer to take up any bill out of order and Straus has refused to facilitate any efforts to do so.
Flores, who has avoided involvement in the political hijinks, has twice requested a rules suspension to bring up his veterans bill.
"Can I ask you Mr. Speaker to join with me and help me to put everything aside that is before this House so we can honor our disabled veterans? Can I ask you to put everything aside to help me, help this body honor our disabled veterans?" Flores asked Sunday.
Straus again denied his request.
By law, the session must end June 1, though Gov. Rick Perry can call an unlimited number of 30-day special sessions.
That was emerging as a possibility as the weekend wore on.
The speaker, who began his job in January, made it clear that he is taking a hands-off approach to leading the House. It presents a stark contrast to the long shadow cast by his predecessor, Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, whose iron-fisted approach eventually led to his ouster a few months ago.
Straus "was hired not to cast a long shadow and I don't think he's got any political capital to spend," said Harvey Kronberg, editor of the state politics Web site Quorum Report.
But, with the House narrowly split in a 76-74 Republican majority, Kronberg said it would be difficult for any speaker to avoid such partisan meltdown over the effort to require voters to furnish more identification before being allowed to cast a ballot at election time.
"I don't think anybody ... could have bulled his way through this," Kronberg said. "I don't think anybody can, it was inevitable."
