Texas politics: See the gifts power players got in 2025

As the holiday season arrives, it’s worth looking back at some of the political presents — both wanted and otherwise — that landed in the laps of Texas leaders over the past year.

Texas House Democrats handed out one of the biggest gifts of 2025, and it went to a Republican. On the first day of the legislative session in January, 49 of the chamber’s 62 Democrats joined 36 Republicans to elect Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock as speaker.

Burrow's rise followed one of the most publicly contentious speaker races in recent memory and came at the expense of Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield. GOP leaders had hoped to unite their 88 members behind a single candidate and shut Democrats out of the process. When Cook failed to secure enough Republican support, the outnumbered Democrats suddenly found themselves with outsized leverage.

House Speaker Dustin Burrows tries to keep order as Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, speaks in favor of a congressional redistricting plan at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025.
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman

What did the Democrats get in return? If not an empty box, it was something pretty close.

Under House rules adopted at the start of the session, the longstanding tradition of awarding Democratic lawmakers some committee chairmanships was scrapped. Republicans also passed legislation allowing providers of so-called abortion pills to be sued and approved a measure requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public schools, which Democrats warned would further blur the separation of church and state.

For Burrows, the gift of the gavel appears to be one that will keep on giving. Despite early complaints from Republicans that he lacked caucus backing, Burrows now looks well positioned to retain the speakership if the GOP holds the House after the 2026 midterms. And for Republicans who backed him over Cook, Burrows does not appear to be an electoral albatross heading into primary season.

Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, delivered a lump of coal to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in June when he vetoed his fellow Republican's signature legislation — a near-total ban on intoxicating hemp-derived products that would have wiped out much of a multibillion-dollar industry that has boomed in the state.

Democratic state Rep. James Talarico received a different kind of gift when conservative podcaster Joe Rogan invited him on for a 2½-hour conversation in July, introducing the Austin lawmaker to a national audience of millions and burnishing his bipartisan credentials.

When Talarico officially launched his U.S. Senate campaign weeks later, he looked every bit like Texas Democrats’ chosen candidate for 2026, raising $6 million in a matter of days. But that shine dimmed somewhat in December, when U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, entered the race.

Crockett's big gift came from the pollsters. An October University of Houston–Texas Southern University poll showed her leading Talarico and 2024 nominee Colin Allred, prompting speculation that she might jump in. After commissioning her own survey, and not sharing the results, Crockett said she liked what she saw and on Dec. 8 launched her campaign for U.S. Senate. Less than a week later, another Texas Southern University poll showed her with an 8-point lead over Talarico.

Republicans also got a boost from the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed Texas to move forward with a redistricting plan that Democrats had successfully challenged in lower court. But Democrats got a gift of their own from California voters, who embraced a redistricting overhaul that could cost Republicans as many as five congressional seats.

Perhaps the year's biggest one-sided gift on the Texas political front went to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and it came from an unlikely source: Republican President Donald Trump.

Trump announced this month that he had pardoned Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, on federal bribery charges dating back to the Biden administration. Trump said the Cuellars were unfairly targeted for criticizing Biden’s border policies, a claim they have echoed while maintaining their innocence.

So what did Trump receive in return for his generosity? Not a darn thing, unless you count the fact that Cuellar, the Democrats' most conservative member of Congress, upended speculation that he was planning to switch parties and seek reelection as a Republican. Instead, the newly absolved Cuellar filed to run for his 12th term as a Democrat.

Trump was not amused. “Such a lack of LOYALTY," he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social — a reaction suggesting that, in this holiday tale, Trump played Santa and Cuellar the Grinch.