Houston, though the municipal love of my life, sometimes feels like a friend who can't fit into the booth at a restaurant, yet doesn't quite comprehend his girth. He considers himself graceful as a danseur noble, while knocking over his iced tea twice.

The city can be a very insular, self-centered place, unconcerned with the goings-on of those not within the gravitational pull of Loop 610.

Fitting then, come January, Houston-area politicians will control the top three spots in state government, putting the next legislative session through a filter occluded with smog, humidity and traffic. That presents some danger that the direction of the state could fail to recognize issues of people in the pine trees out east, those in the mesquite "trees" out west and, oh, Dallas.

Dennis Bonnen, a two-decade state representative from Angleton (which counts as part of Houston, if you define that as "driving distance from a James Coney Island"), announced in mid-November that he had enough pledged votes to ascend to the speaker of the House role vacated by San Antonio's Joe Straus after the last round of legislative fisticuffs in 2017. Bonnen will join Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in a Southeast Texas leadership triad, absent late revolt.

Texans are used to a bit more geographic disparity among its leaders, even if they all seem to be a type that enjoys spending time in Austin. Often, such as with former Speaker Pete Laney (Hale Center) or legendary Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock (Hillsboro), they came from small-town Texas (also from the Democratic Party, which seems just as quaint a memory).

It seems especially odd that Houston and its close environs are trending against Republicans in each subsequent election, yet the three top dogs from the area all veer to the right.

Bonnen, by most accounts, is a calm, cool, considerate conservative, hopefully balancing out hothead Houstonian Dan Patrick. He was also reportedly a "key lieutenant" of Straus.

But he's also much more likely than Straus to prioritize measures like the business-antagonizing bathroom bill, which would force transgendered folks to use the bathroom corresponding with their birth gender. They aim to protect us from the small sliver of the 0.6 percent (probably less in, say, Eagle Pass) of the population identifying as transgender who also have to go to the bathroom while shopping.

It's not exactly a problem in the less-populated areas, other than emotionally.

Or perhaps Bonnen and Patrick will conspire to resuscitate a school voucher bill that died in chamber last session. School choice, as such measures are commonly known, is less important to people in a town with only one high school from which to choose.

Voters across most of the state have proven they like conservative leadership, but they may feel a bit ignored by the big-city boys setting the agenda. To many of those in our less-congested areas, Houston exists as a great lumbering cartoon rhinoceros, its size demanding full attention while naively wreaking havoc on the rest of the state.

Consider Hurricane Harvey, which tore up entire blocks of Rockport and leaves the venerable Redfish Lodge shuttered more than a year later (it took them eight months just to get the road to the place rebuilt). Yet associations of that storm are almost exclusively to the mammoth metropolis to the north.

Meanwhile, especially in comparisons to Dallas, Houstonians suffer from a deep inferiority complex. We're quick to tell someone Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, even when speaking to another Houstonian -- who likely already knows.

Dallas lost bids to become the site of new headquarters for Amazon and Boeing. Houston didn't make the first cut. Dallas got The TV Show, which chronicled the excesses of oil men (ahem!). Contemporaneously, Houston got Matt Houston, a show about a detective in California.

Houstonians see Dallas as uptight, snooty and overdressed. Though I did once have lunch there at a strip-mall Thai restaurant that had a posted dress code, so that tracks.

It's hard to imagine Abbott, Patrick or Bonnen working up much passion or vitriol about "that other city," but it's worth a pause to consider if they will see issues affecting North Texas with the correct perspective. What plays in Houston might not play in Dallas, Fort Worth or any of the vast suburbs of both.

Much more likely, however, is that their urban roots will keep them from seeing how their agenda impacts those living far away from metro areas.

The last two candidates to drop from the race to be the next speaker of the House were Drew Darby of San Angelo and Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches, both of whom were reportedly also Straus lieutenants. Politically, neither the West Texan nor the East Texan are probably much different from Bonnen.

Either would have broken the Houston bloc on the state's leadership, a convergence Texans -- even Houstonians -- may come to regret.

Roy R. Reynolds is a writer living in Houston. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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