Botched backroom deal effort proves Bonnen is no Straus

It’s never been a secret that Joe Straus and Dennis Bonnen have contrasting styles.

Straus, the former San Antonio representative and Texas House speaker, is an old-school statesman who carries himself with a quiet assurance that suggests an utter disregard for pettiness.

Bonnen, Straus’ successor, is blunt and combative, a “bad news bear,” as San Antonio Democratic Rep. In a Minjarez semi affectionately referred to him in a July San Antonio Express-News interview.

When Straus announced in 2017 that he wouldn’t seek another term, tea party Republicans — who viewed Straus as a fakeconservative RINO (Republican in Name Only) — openly celebrated, while most other Texas political watchers fretted about what would happen without Straus to block bathroom bills, voucher proposals and various other grandstand ploys.

That’s why Bonnen’s performance during this year’s legislative session, on balance, was so gratifying. His first time around as House speaker, he took an old Straus goal — schoolfunding reform — across the finish line in true bipartisan fashion.

An obvious reason for the Legislature’s new sense of purpose was the fact that Democrats gained 12 House and two Senate seats last year and Republican lawmakers knew they needed to produce some real results at this year’s session. But there was also the sense that Bonnen’s tough school master approach paved the road for some legislative breakthroughs.

“He will put his foot down when he sees bad behavior, which I like,” Minjarez said in July. “It (the session) was very tempered because Speaker Bonnen wanted all of us to work together. He wanted us to be a united front. He said, ‘This is about the integrity of the House.’ ”

Over the past four weeks, we’ve learned that Bonnen differs from Straus in ways that go beyond style. We’ve learned that Bonnen lacks Straus’ judgment and maturity.

That’s because Bonnen, in a story that never stops being inexplicable no matter how many times you hear it, met on June 12 — only two weeks after the end of the legislative session — with his political nemesis, Michael Quinn Sullivan, the CEO of Empower Texans, the selfappointed, deep-pocketed, litmus-test-administering guardians of extreme conservatism in this state.

Bonnen not only met with Sullivan, he allegedly blurted out all kinds of offensive statements about his fellow lawmakers on the way to offering Sullivan a deal: Empower Texans would get long-sought media credentials for its Texas Scorecard blog, in exchange for aiming its political firepower at 10 Republican incumbents Bonnen wanted to see unseated.

On July 25, Sullivan went public about the meeting, prompting denials from Bonnen, followed by the embarrassing news that Sullivan secretly recorded the encounter. Sullivan played it for several lawmakers, who backed up his account. Bonnen subsequently apologized to his colleagues for saying “terrible things” during the meeting.

The story has only mushroomed since then, with the Texas Democratic Party suing Bonnen and Sullivan, the House General Investigating Committee calling on the Texas Rangers Public Integrity Unit to investigate the matter and one of the meeting’s attendees, state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, resigning his position as House Republican Caucus chairman.

Steve Allison, a San Antonian who filled Straus’ old District 121 seat, was one of the 10 Republicans apparently targeted by Bonnen for a primary challenge. In an Aug. 7 letter, Allison said he heard Sullivan’s recording and described the recorded statements by Bonnen and Burrows as “quite disturbing” and warranting “further investigation.”

Allison also cited Bonnen’s “persistent denials” about what was said at the meeting, calling it an “attempt to mislead” the public.

Bonnen’s botched backroom deal also is an insult to San Antonio’s only other Republican House member, Lyle Larson.

Larson has been a frequent target of Empower Texans’ wrath, largely because he was a Straus ally and pushed a 2017 ethics bill designed to prevent the governor from rewarding big donors with appointments. Empower Texans dumped $65,000 into the campaign of Larson’s 2018 GOP primary challenger, Chris Fails, but failed to defeat Larson.

Even as we wait for more details to unfold, this much is obvious: Straus would have known better than to meet with Sullivan. He wouldn’t have sold out his colleagues. And he wouldn’t have been caught in a public lie.

Bonnen preached unity this year to his fellow

House members, while apparently keeping a mental list of representatives he wanted to dislodge from their seats. He talked about the need to preserve the integrity of the House, then failed to tell the truth to his own colleagues.

Bonnen may yet survive this fiasco. But he’ll never be Joe Straus.