BREAKING: Texas Speaker Bonnen Retires

I meant to do a post on the whole Bonnen/Sullivan tape release issue, but it looks like events have gotten ahead of me:

Republican Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen on Tuesday announced he will not seek reelection to the lower chamber in 2020 as calls for his resignation reached a near majority among members of his own caucus.

Bonnen, who for months was dogged by allegations that he planned to politically target sitting Republicans, offered a hardline conservative activist media access to his organization and said insulting things about Democrats in the lower chamber, said in a statement that he respected “the manner in which [House members] have handled this entire situation.”

“After much prayer, consultation, and thoughtful consideration with my family, it is clear that I can no longer seek re-election as State Representative of District 25, and subsequently, as Speaker of the House,” Bonnen, who is from Angleton, said in a statement.

Bonnen’s political future was called into question in late July, when Michael Quinn Sullivan, who heads Empower Texans, revealed the two, along with one of the speaker’s top allies, had met at the Texas Capitol the month before. At that meeting, Sullivan alleged, Bonnen and state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, suggested Empower Texans go after a list of 10 House Republicans and told Sullivan his group could have media access to the lower chamber in 2021. Bonnen also disparaged multiple Democrats, calling one “vile” and another “a piece of shit.”

Possibly more later…

Tags: , , , ,

3 Responses to “BREAKING: Texas Speaker Bonnen Retires”

  1. jabrwok says:

    Not a lot of actionable details in the linked story. How was he “targeting” other Republicans? Are they RINOs, or actual conservatives? Is he in trouble for calling Democrats names? Were the insults justified?

    Obviously I haven’t followed this at all. I really need to find a reliable (ie: non-Leftist) source of news about Texas.

  2. Lawrence Person says:

    This should provide some context.

  3. jabrwok says:

    Thanks, I’ll give it a read.

Leave a Reply