Republican state Representative Bryan Hughes’ bid to oust House Speaker Joe Straus back in 2012 was hampered by a glaring flaw. He was a trial lawyer. With a lot of campaign money from other wealthy trial lawyers.
Even for the East Texas conservative, who ascended to the state Senate in 2016, that occupational hazard put enough stink on him to help undermine his bid to oust the supposedly moderate speaker.
Hughes tried to defend himself at the time by pointing out that he’d also received $3,000 from Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), the powerful business group that took on the Democratic-aligned trial attorneys in the ’90s and early aughts, helping pave Republicans’ path to one-party rule by severely limiting ordinary Texans’ access to civil redress.
