I’m just sittin’ here watching the wheels go round and round…
Found on the Twitters
After a week of denying that he asked an arch-conservative to target 10 fellow Republicans in the next primary election, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen challenged Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan to release a secretly-recorded audio of their meeting.
But three House members who have reportedly listened to the recording said the speaker is not being truthful about the alleged list of GOP targets, rocking the Texas Republican party as it prepares for its most challenging election cycle in decades.
“It’s pretty shocking. I’ll be honest with you. It is,” said Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford. “There’s just frankly vomiting of the mouth, if you will, by these individuals and you can’t help but just kinda cringe by some of the stuff I heard … It’s beneath the office, for sure.”
Stickland, a darling of Empower Texans who is not running for re-election, said Bonnen offered media credentials to Sullivan during their June 12 conversation. Stickland said he heard on the audio that Bonnen then sweetened the deal by offering to deny media credentials to political reporter Scott Braddock of the Quorum Report. The credentials give journalists access to the floor of the Texas House when the Legislature is in session, and provide better access to lawmakers for interviews and follow-up questions.
[…]
Two other Republican lawmakers who have heard the audio have offered fewer details about what they heard, although Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, confirmed the audio reveals that Burrows gave Sullivan the names of members who could be challenged in their primary elections without repercussion.
Clardy, who is on the list, said there are things on the recording that will be hurtful to some members, but each representative will have to determine for themselves “what it means and how to take it and whether they will be able to move past it.”
For his part, Clardy said he has already moved past it and wants to talk to Bonnen and Burrows, who he has yet to speak with to since news of the meeting broke last week.
See here, here, and here for the background. Let’s hear from Scott Braddock about this:
Braddock’s response on @ChadHastyRadio — “Given what was said on KFYO this morning … I am not going to comment on that until I hear the tape myself.” #txlege
— Cassi Pollock (@cassi_pollock) 10:12 AM – 1 August 2019
Fully agree with @RepDennisBonnen on this point – in fact I called for MQ Sullivan to prove his claims last week when he first made them. Playing a tape in his office only for officeholders isn’t the proof the public needs. Release the tape #TxLege
— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 11:27 PM – 31 July 2019
The only Texas House member to speak out against the Speaker after hearing the tape so far is someone whose campaigns have been bankrolled by @EmpowerTexans. Gonna need more than that #TxLege
— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 11:24 PM – 31 July 2019
Here’s Ross Ramsey:
Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen isn’t cooked, yet — but the water is boiling.
The compact between a speaker and the members of the Texas House who elect him goes like this: Protect the members from the outside world (and from fratricidal colleagues), and in return, you get the title, the fancy corner office, the apartment in the state Capitol, and the gavel and the dais when the Legislature is in session.
Protection for power. It’s not a complicated transaction.
And the threat to that compact is why Bonnen is facing a crisis seven months after winning the job. Accused of selling out 10 of his fellow Republicans to a political operative, he’s now pitting his word with that activist threatening to make public a recording of their conversation.
[…]
As more members hear the recording — assuming they’re hearing a clean and complete rendition — they’ll compare that to what Bonnen has been telling them for the last week. If the stories don’t match, the speaker — this is the gentlest way of putting it — will have to explain the discrepancies.
In a trust-based relationship between a leader and the followers who elected him, that’s perilous.
A speaker who doesn’t have the trust of his own members isn’t in a secure spot. And one caught working directly against those members is cooked.
Plus two more Trib stories. Never let it be said that MQS doesn’t know how to get his name in the papers.
It is certainly possible that Bonnen, normally a pretty astute fellow, was dumb enough to talk to MQS and say these things he supposedly said. I don’t know why he’d do that, I don’t see what was in it for him, but maybe he was just saying the quiet parts out loud and forgot that he was dealing with a fundamentally dishonest broker. That’s the real key here, that no one with any integrity of their own should ever believe a word MQS says. If he’s got the goods on Bonnen, then put that recording out on the Internet for all of us to hear. I don’t care one way or the other what happens to Bonnen, but to me this is analogous to all of those “sting” tapes that grifters like James O’Keefe have put out over the years, supposedly showing people they don’t like saying or doing horrible things. Except that at a closer look, the whole thing falls apart, as the tape in question was heavily and dishonestly edited to make the sting subject look bad. I wouldn’t put that past MQS at all, but again, the answer here is simple. He says he’s got the goods. Let the rest of us hear it for ourselves. If MQS himself doesn’t also want that, we should wonder why.