There are now 12 House members who have stepped forward as declared candidates against incumbent Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland). That’s seven Republicans and five Democrats. We’ve put together an updated list of how they scored voting with Texas’ taxpayers, as measured by our Fiscal Responsibility Index.

They are ordered here by score, which reflects how often they voted with taxpayers (the higher the number, the better):

NAME SCORE   Byron Cook (R-Corsicana) 80%   Dan Gattis (R-Georgetown) 66.67%   Edmund Kuempel (R-Seguin) 64.29%   Allan Ritter (D-Nederland) 64.29%   Burt Solomons (R-Carrollton) 64.29%   Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) 62.5%   Below House Average of 53.4%     Delwin Jones (R-Lubbock) 46.15%   Tommy Merritt (R-Longview) 38.46%   Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) 35.71%   Pete Gallego (D-Alpine) 30.77%   Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) 28.57%   Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston)  26.67%             Tom Craddick (R-Midland)  Speaker*    * By tradition, the House Speaker generally doesn’t cast votes, so Craddick does not have a rating.

The average House score was 53.4%, with Republicans scoring a 75.01% and Democrats 31.74%.

So what does the Speaker of the House do?