We will see what happens after November, but if House Government Organization Committee Chairman Brandon Steele wants to bump out House Speaker Roger Hanshaw from his podium, he’s going to have to sway incoming new Republican House of Delegates members.

Steele, R-Raleigh, announced over a week ago that he would challenge Hanshaw, R-Clay, in the Republican House caucus election for their nominee as Speaker of the House of Delegates, a position Hanshaw has held since 2018.

Speakers are elected for two-year terms that occur the first day of the 60-day legislative session, with the Republican and Democratic caucuses nominating a candidate, the majority party naturally winning that vote, and usually the Democrats making a motion to vote by acclamation for a unanimous vote – a very nice tradition.

But before all of that, the majority party must meet in caucus – usually in November or December – and pick a nominee. And usually whoever is already the House Speaker isn’t challenged. But Steele, an attorney in Beckley and a fairly recent internet news website pioneer, has made his challenge known.

One doesn’t make that kind of challenge unless they have some support among members. Seventy-eight Republicans are in the 100-member House, with a caucus split to some extent between your standard-issue small government conservative and the new crop of national conservatives who consider the other side of their caucus to be Republicans in Name Only.

Now, what the exact balance is I’ve not been able to figure out. It’s certainly not a 50/50 split. Hanshaw is a traditional conservative who is more focused on improving the economy, but has fairly boilerplate social conservative positions. He is largely respected for how he runs the House by both sides of the political aisle. He is a nationally renowned parliamentarian who runs the floor sessions like a Swiss clock.

Steele, I’d put on the nat-con side of the Republican caucus. He is known for his temper, which resulted in a public incident in 2020 with former controversial delegate Eric Porterfield when a committee vote didn’t go Steele’s way. Steele openly attacked former House Judiciary Committee chairman John Shott for Shott’s concerns over a bill to allow college students to carry firearms on campus.

At one point, Steele tried to completely re-write West Virginia’s entire criminal code in 2021. It passed the House, but the Senate referred it to the state Sentencing Commission because they didn’t have time to vet the 412-page bill. Earlier this year, Steele pushed an originating bill to take away the state Office of Miners’ Health Safety and Training’s ability to enforce mine safety regulations. That bill was put into legislative purgatory by the House to quell objections from Democrats.

House Minority Leader Doug Skaff, D-Kanawha, told me on the Mountain State Views podcast that came out Friday that Democrats would support Hanshaw over Steele. They only have 22 members as of now, but they believe they will have a few pickups in urban areas. I’d say it’s likely Hanshaw has a majority of the current Republican caucus.

That leaves Steele having to recruit Republican House candidates in the hopes many of them will win in November. I have a feeling the current crop of new candidates are probably more to the right than the bulk of the caucus. That’s the only hope Steele has and he had better hope he can secure those votes.

Ask current state Sen. Eric Nelson, R-Kanawha, what happened when he challenged Hanshaw for a full two-year term as Speaker. If one is going to go at the king, you’d better not miss.

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Ryan Frankenberry, who previously ran the WV Working Families Party (not an actual political party, but an active progressive political action committee), is the new executive director of the West Virginia Democratic Party.

In many ways, the Working Families Party has been more effective at electing state lawmakers than WV Can’t Wait which only managed to get two new House members elected in 2020 (and one of those is moving to Florida – with a Republican governor and legislature – because the West Virginia Legislature is too conservative).

The state Democratic Party seems to have given up on trying to put out the image that it is small-c conservative and embracing the progressive space as its national counterpart already has. Frankenberry has already cut his teeth organization a progressive movement in the state. He has the resources to give Republicans a run for their money.

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If you read my story earlier this week on whether a compromise is possible on a tax reform plan whenever the special session resumes, it sure doesn’t seem like it. But I’m told there are plans afoot to try to bridge the differences between the House/Gov. Justice and Senate positions.

As we often say during a normal legislative session: nothing is dead until sine die. Stay tuned.