After Empower Texans scandal, Texas House Speaker Bonnen admits he ‘screwed up’
This story has been updated to include comments from Rep. Drew Darby.
Nearly five months after a secret recording was released that detailed allegations against him, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen said Tuesday that he regretted his actions, but would not “roll over and die” for conservative activist and Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan.
In an interview with with radio show host Chad Hasty on KFYO radio in Lubbock, Bonnen said he “screwed up, badly,” but said he was not apologizing for working to get more conservatives in the Texas House.
“As speaker of the House, my goal wasn’t to bring negative attention on a single Republican member and I screwed up and I’m very sorry for that,” Bonnen said. “My goal was to get him to not go after anybody. I did it very poorly. But that was the goal.”
In October, Bonnen announced he would not seek re-election to the Texas House after a wave of calls for his resignation. The calls followed the release of a previously secret recording that largely supported allegations raised by Sullivan.
In July, Sullivan alleged that during a June 12 meeting Bonnen appeared to offer writers of the group’s news site long sought-after House press credentials in exchange for the group’s firepower in targeting 10 of his fellow Republican incumbents in their re-election bids. Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock who was the House Republican Caucus’ chairman at the time, was also in the meeting.
The allegations roiled the Texas House as Sullivan selectively shared the recording over the summer and more details emerged.
Bonnen said “at the request of some gentlemen” he had been asked to get Sullivan “to tone down his attacks on good conservatives.” After the end of the session, Bonnen said he ran into Sullivan at the William P. Hobby Airport in Houston, and the two discussed possibly meeting.
“I frankly just wanted to visit with him about stopping his continual attacks on conservative Republicans in the Texas House and seeing if he could slow his roll on that,” Bonnen said.
In the recording of the meeting, after a door closes and Bonnen seems to have left the room, Burrows says taxpayer-funded lobbying is “the benchmark” for next session, after it failed to pass. He goes through the names of lawmakers who voted against the proposal, assessing whether they could be swayed.
The eventual list of Republican targets included Reps. Tan Parker of Flower Mound, Steve Allison of San Antonio, Trent Ashby of Lufkin, Ernest Bailes of Shepard, Travis Clardy of Nacogdoches, Drew Darby of San Angelo, Kyle Kacal and John Raney of College Station, Stan Lambert of Abilene, and Phil Stephenson of Wharton.
Bonnen reiterated Tuesday that he has apologized to members, although some are unwilling to talk.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Darby said he had listened to the interview and that Bonnen “gravely misses the mark.”
What Bonnen and Burrows did, “is degrade decent members of the House of Representatives, target a small and select group of Republicans who voted in the best interest of their district rather than with the political desire of the Speaker, and belittle constituent groups who had confidence in them to lead,” Darby said. “Texans deserve better than backroom deals.”
Bonnen said he had pulled Burrows into the June meeting to be a witness, and that Burrows “has done absolutely nothing wrong.”
“He did what happens at the Capitol every day. He talked through a record vote on an issue he cares about as a conservative. And that’s it. And he’s been put through hell for doing so. And it’s my fault,” Bonnen said.
Following the Texas Rangers’ more than two-month investigation, the Brazoria County district attorney announced that there was not sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal prosecution, and a month later the House General Investigating Committee adopted a report that found Bonnen “likely violated” state law, but that on other grounds, the evidence did not warrant criminal prosecution of Bonnen or Burrows.
It was a point Bonnen stressed in Tuesday’s interview, although, the House committee’s report noted that while the Texas Constitution’s prohibition on bribery is broad enough to include Bonnen’s actions, the Legislature or a “a prosecuting arm of government” would have to take action for repercussions to occur.
“Mr. Sullivan came out and accused me of bribing him. That’s a serious offense. In my mind, that’s all that mattered. And that has been proven to be untrue,” Bonnen said, pointing to the investigations.
Bonnen also denied accusations that he had offered access. In the recording, Bonnen is heard saying, “If we can make this work, I’ll put your guys on the floor next session.”
Bonnen said he had made a mistake by assuming Sullivan understood he would have to “quit being politically active at all, because that was the only path he had available to get press credentials.”
Sullivan did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday, but Sullivan took to Twitter and asked why Bonnen had proposed “the scheme” in the first place.
“So then his unethical quid pro quo scheme is OK because he figured I was too ethical to go along with it...?” Sullivan wrote.
Ultimately, Bonnen said he doesn’t want to see outside groups continue to hold sway over the Texas House going forward.
“I don’t want these continued attacks, and these continued outside groups carrying such power over the next Speaker and members, because it’s wrong,” Bonnen said.
“The House deserves better. The people of Texas deserve better. And Texans need to understand what’s going on, so they can better support and encourage their representative to go to Austin, free to represent their district and do what they know is right,” he said.
In a column Sunday in The Facts of Brazoria County, Bonnen wrote it was time “to set the record straight with you once and for all.”
“Unfortunately, last year, my leadership style and direct approach put me in the crosshairs of a guy in Austin who has made a career out of spreading rumors, half-truths and outright lies about elected officials, hiding behind a slimy shield of self-righteousness and supposedly conservative values while doing the bidding of a Midland billionaire,” Bonnen wrote.
Sullivan had responded with a post of his own Monday on Empower Texans’ news site, Texas Scorecard, and asked, “Am I the bad guy here, or is he?”
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 11:53 AM.
