Some Republicans in Austin have not learned anything from recent election outcomes, as evidenced by the circus surrounding the race for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.

While many of us were celebrating a long New Year’s weekend, politicians in the Texas legislature were already getting ready for the rough-and-tumble of the upcoming legislative session. An early salvo was fired by Tom Craddick, who announced that he will not seek a fourth term as Speaker. His announcement spurred previously undecided legislators to line up in two primary camps: those who supported Rep. Joe Straus (R-San Antonio) and those who supported Rep. John Smithee (R-Amarillo). Straus quickly solidified his pledges from Democratic legislators and a handful of more liberal Republicans. Despite the fact that a majority of Republicans supported his candidacy, Smithee saw the handwriting on the wall and bowed out.

There are so many things wrong with this scenario that it is hard to know where to begin. And this situation wouldn’t exist if the average Republican legislator understood the many mistakes of the party during the course of the past several years. Republicans in Congress have not been the only ones headed down a misguided big government, big spending path. Republicans at the state level have been just as disastrous.

First, a majority Republican Texas House should not elect a speaker who will be indebted to the Democratic Party for his victory. The Republican Party has suffered in recent years because it has too willingly abandoned its core principles, instead mimicking the big government, big spending principles that typically characterize the Democratic Party. Republicans can’t hope to regain traction unless they make a break with this trend. It is hard to see how they can do so if they elect a Speaker who earned his position because it was handed to him by the Democrats in the House.

But the dissident Republicans don’t care about that. They are pledged to vote for Straus for one of two reasons: They either are not dedicated to the small government, pro-family principles that they claim to value or they value their own ambition for power more. Does anyone really believe that Straus obtained the votes of all but one Democrat (as listed at end of business Monday) without making promises in return? If you believe that, I have a few bridges that I’d like to sell to you. It is only a matter of time before we hear which issues were impacted by this backroom deal-making. Will it be abortion, school choice, illegal immigration, or voter ID issues that will fall to the wayside in the upcoming session because Straus told Democrats that he would guarantee it? And which Republicans supported Straus, knowing that he had cut such deals?

The Republican base should be outraged. They needed their representatives to work together and agree on one candidate—a person capable of leading the Republican Party in Texas back to its roots: an emphasis on smaller government, reduced spending, lower taxes, and pro-life and pro-family issues. They did not need their representatives bogged down in self-serving deal-making with Democrats. Smithee probably was not that person. But Straus is even worse.

Straus’s record on fiscal issues has been too liberal. He’s voted to raise taxes on Texans multiple times. In 2006, he supported the Republican ruse to raise taxes behind voters’ backs, even as legislators claimed it was merely a "tax swap" that would provide "property tax relief." Yeah, right. Except the new franchise tax is very hard on Texas companies—even those businesses that don’t make any money can owe taxes under its provisions. Some companies will be pushed out of business at a time when unemployment is soaring. Others will simply pass on their increased costs to consumers who are already suffering from the effects of a national recession.

But Straus’s support of the new franchise tax was not his only fiscally irresponsible vote. He’s voted to expand welfare programs, to issue up to $3 billion in bonds funding cancer research, and to raise cigarette and tobacco taxes. He has voted against private property rights, as when he supported a law making it a criminal offense for businesses to deny use of their restrooms to those claiming a medical need for it. (Without, by the way, so much as providing a penalty for those who falsely claim a medical need.)

Straus’s voting record is similarly problematic when it comes to social issues. He has voted against vouchers that would provide families with choice in the education of their children. He has been too sympathetic toward the pro-abortion position, even earning a 100 percent rating from NARAL after the 2007 session (albeit only a 45 percent rating in 2005). This libertarian-leaning author is less concerned with such matters as Straus’s pro-gambling votes, yet those votes provide yet another example of how he would be out-of-step with his party’s base in Texas.

Indeed, perhaps that is the best way in which to sum up Straus’s candidacy for Speaker: Straus is out-of-step with the Republican base. He can’t lead his party back to the principles that it claims to support when he does not respect those principles himself—and when it appears that he values his own ambition most of all.

Texas is often described as a "safe red" state. If this trend continues, this is one state that will be turning solidly purple. Or even blue.