If the political climate remains the same in two years, however, the bathroom bill will be back. One of the bills the Freedom Caucus hoped to bring back from the dead was the Patrick-championed 'bathroom bill,' which would've required visitors to facilities owned by the state of Texas and the state's municipal governments to use the restrooms designated for use by the sex on their birth certificates.В Straus kept the bill from getting a vote on the House floor during both the regular and special sessions, keeping the potential impact the state would feel from lost tourism and convention dollars at bay for at least a couple of years. Dan Patrick, another chance at passing controversial legislation stymied by Straus. Greg Abbott would call a special session, giving Texas' hard right, led by Lt. As a result, more than 100 bills never got votes on the House floor, including a the crucial sunset bill, necessary to keeping state agencies such as the Texas Medical Board open for the two years between sessions.В The Freedom Caucus' stalling guaranteed that Texas Gov. Toward the end of the regular legislative session in May, the Texas Freedom Caucus threw a fit on the House floor, slowing debate to a crawl just before a crucial deadline. Joe Straus via Facebook The Freedom Caucus rises.

Without Straus, a battle over the speakership between Texas' growing number of archconservatives and a coalition of business-friendly moderates and Democrats shapes up to the biggest fight of 2019. While remaining staunchly conservative, Straus proved capable during his five terms as speaker of slowing down the agenda of the hard right, pushing back against school voucher programs and 2017's bathroom bill. 25 that he was not running for re-election. Seemingly out of nowhere, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus announced Oct. Texas voters elect a new Legislature in 2018, and it gets back to work in 2019, so here's a look back at the biggest events of this year's Legislature and how they'll shape the future. While the 85th Texas Legislature fell short of enacting many sweeping policy changes, it set the stage for increased partisanship and rancor in the next couple of years. The state's biggest cities openly warred with the state government in Austin, and many of those who'd built power bases in Austin over the last decade found themselves confused and frustrated by a new environment at the Capitol.

It's not hyperbole to say that 2017 has been a defining year for Texas politics.

2017 best of the best observer