St. Rep. Dustin Burrows (R, Lubbock), representing establishment Republicans, won an inter-party battle to become the Speaker of the House for the 89th Texas Legislature on Tuesday. Burrows challenged St. Rep. David Cook (R, Mansfield), who is from a district south of Arlington in the DFW area. It took two votes to elect Burrows, who finished first in the first round of voting, but short of the margin necessary to win the leadership role.

Burrow entered the race in December after Cook announced he had already collected enough pledged votes to win the role. Traditionally, the Texas house allows members of the minority party to chair some committees and influence legislation. Since 2003, Texas has been led by by Republicans with Democrats in the minority. But previous Republican House speakers, including Dade Phelan and, before him, Joe Strauss, let Democrats chair some committees. Cook vowed to stop that tradition and give leadership of all committees to Republicans. That spurred Burrow to enter the race in lobby for keeping tradition. Burrow actually served on Speaker Phelan’s leadership team during the 88th legislature.

See more, including the vote totals, at the Texas Tribune.