House speaker ensnared in story of GOP hit
AUSTIN — It was the promise of unity that drew Republicans and Democrats to elect House Speaker Dennis Bonnen this year, anointing him one of the most powerful men in Texas politics. But after a six-month honeymoon, that harmony is threatened as the new speaker struggles to explain why he met with a foe who alleges Bonnen ordered a political hit on 10 fellow Republicans ahead of one of the most contentious election cycles in decades.
Michael Quinn Sullivan, the CEO of tea party-aligned Empower Texans, alleges Bonnen called for a meeting with him and offered him a favor if his group would attack those 10 lawmakers in upcoming elections. Bonnen says Sullivan is lying and that he agreed to the meeting to smooth relations ahead of the primary season with Sullivan, a harsh critic of the Republican caucus.
Sullivan on Wednesday threatened to release secretly recorded audio of the meeting if Bonnen refuses to recant. Bonnen responded on Wednesday night: “Mr. Sullivan, release your recording. Release it in its entirety.”
The bizarre episode spotlights the pressure on Texas Republicans over the direction of the party. Some are determined to pull the Texas GOP in a conservative direction after a decidedly moderate legislative session. Others insist unity — and tamping down primary challenges to Republican incumbents — can help them
weather the storm in the presidential election, when Democratic turnout typically peaks.
Bonnen had previously called for unity, threatening retribution against House members who campaign against each other in 2020. Now some are questioning his sincerity.
“It creates shaky relationships for Bonnen going into a very volatile election cycle,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “Whether it’s true or not is likely irrelevant because the perception will be there is not unity in the party despite the efforts of leadership to try to make that happen …I think a lot of members still sleep with one eye open. They have fear that leadership won’t back them fully and they're not as welcome in the party as they used to be.”
The most critical elections for Texas Republicans are in the House. Should Democrats flip nine Republican seats, the GOP would close control of the House for the first time in nearly 20 years. Those 10 listed Republicans could find themselves with valuable leverage in the next legislative session — should they win reelection and Democrats fall short of flipping the House, disgruntled Republicans could use this episode to justify making a deal with Democrats in electing the next speaker.
‘Not worth responding to’
Sullivan constantly jabbed at Bonnen during the legislative session, charging that he did not go far enough to reduce property taxes, shirked away from ending taxpayer-funded lobbying and sidelined social issues such as curtailing abortion and strengthening Second Amendment rights. Empower Texans is known for pouring millions of dollars into campaigns, namely primary contests, to favor more conservative candidates.
Bonnen, a conservative, has said attacks from the party’s arch conservatives are not worth stressing about. At the end of the Legislative session he specifically denounced Sullivan’s organization as a loser.
“They aren’t worth responding to,” Bonnen told reporters. “If we passed every pro-life bill filed in the history of the state, they would say we had not done enough. You will never please or appease those folks and I’m sure as hell not going to waste my time trying.”
But Bonnen did try. He met with Sullivan on June 12.
Sullivan contends Bonnen wanted Empower Texans to spend money going after the 10 Republicans, many of them moderates: Steve Allison of San Antonio, Trent Ashby of Lufkin, Ernest Bailes of Shepherd, Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches, Drew Darby of San Angelo, Kyle Kacal of College Station, Stan Lambert of Abilene, Tan Parker of Flower Mound, John Raney of College Station and Phil Stephenson of Wharton.
In exchange, he said Bonnen would ensure reporters with Texas Scorecard, an online news outfit affiliated with Sullivan’s group, would receive press credentials to the House floor, Sullivan wrote in a blog post published last week. Sullivan said Bonnen then left the room and Burrows read him a full list of names.
“With all my years around politics, it is difficult to surprise me. But I admit Bonnen’s offer was something I was not prepared for; it was outside of my experiences,” Sullivan wrote.
Such an offer could be illegal depending on what was actually said, according to longtime ethics attorney Buck Wood who helped write the state’s legislative bribery law and is skeptical of the allegations.
“It depends on the details. It’s the, ‘I’ll get you your press credentials if you do something like that,’” said Wood. “It qualifies as offering something of value, even if he says later he doesn’t play a role.”
Bonnen has repeatedly said Sullivan’s account is false, saying Sullivan is trying to “divide and destroy” Texas House Republicans.
“While I regret taking the meeting, I do not regret what I hoped to accomplish — helping to preserve a Republican majority in the House. I was very frustrated and agitated that he refused to understand that what he’s been doing in previous elections and throughout session puts our majority in jeopardy,” Bonnen said in an email to Republican members Friday.
“At no point in our conversation was Sullivan provided with a list of target members,” Bonnen clarified in a statement Monday. He said his goal was to explain to Sullivan why Empower Texans should “not engage” in Republican primaries in the next election cycle, noting the stakes of winning elections against Democrats in November.
Late Wednesday, Sullivan threatened to release a partial or full audio recording of the meeting.
“Each time I listen to the recording and reflect upon it, I’m struck by how easily Bonnen made his pitch and how insistent he was that I listen to it,” Sullivan wrote in a blog post.
He did not give a timeline for when he would release the purported recording, but offered to allow affected Republican legislators, party officials and leaders in the conservative movement to listen to the audio in the presence of his lawyer. Sullivan warned the audio would be damning to Republicans and fodder for Democrats to use in this election cycle.
After Bonnen’s response at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, it’s Sullivan’s move.
Baffled at the meeting
Several House members were baffled that Bonnen would meet with Sullivan in the first place. Bonnen also has confirmed that at one point he stepped out of the room, leaving Sullivan with Burrows.
That’s when Sullivan says Burrows listed off the targets. Burrows has not responded to requests for comment.
“The deft silence only solidifies truth within the allegation,” one member of the list, Rep. Ernest Bailes, R-Shepherd, wrote in an email to the House Republican Caucus’ executive director.
Some members of the party don’t know who to believe.
“The list itself seems fishy,” said Matt Mackowiak, a political consultant and chairman of the Travis County Republican Party.
Still, Mackowiak said he doubts the flap over the meeting will affect legislative races in 2020. More telling, he said, will be whether Republican primary voters see the recently-ended legislative session as a success for passing a school funding overhaul and property tax reform, or a failure for not pushing further on social issues such as anti-abortion measures and gun rights.
“I think there was a calculation early in the session that pursuing conservative reforms was not going to be a priority because it would threaten the momentum needed to pass the two major issues,” said Mackowiak. “That’s obviously a decision that disappointed the grass roots and Michael Quinn Sullivan and his group and other groups. It will either cost some members their primaries or it won’t. We’ll have to see next March how that all plays out.”
Republican Party of Texas Chairman James Dickey declined to comment on the affair. “We at the Republican Party of Texas are 100 percent focused on making sure we win in 2020. … We would encourage everyone to do the same.”