This morning Michael Quinn Sullivan the mouthpiece for the conservative oil billionaires who fund Empower Texas released after three months of teasing the secret tape he made of Speaker of the Texas House Dennis Bonnen (R-HD25-Houston) and former Republican Caucus Chairman Dustin Burrows (R-HD83-Lubbock). And boy is it chock full of corruption and dysfunction. Both Bonnen and Burrows try to conspire with Sullivan to attack Democrats and Republicans alike. Unlike with Donald Trump the quid pro quo is obvious for the world to see.
Listen to the full audio here. Read the full transcript here.
As the Texas Tribune reports:
Sullivan is CEO of Empower Texans, a group that's flooded with oil money and is a unique tangle of political lobbying firm, news outlet and deep-pocketed political action committee. The group is perhaps best known for playing heavily in Republican primary elections, targeting Republicans it considers "squishy" and backing more hardline conservatives. In the 2018 election cycle, candidates and PACs reported receiving about $4.7 million from the Empower Texans PAC.
The Washington Post’s take was:
President Donald Trump is “killing us” with urban and suburban voters in a secretly recorded meeting with a conservative activist.
The Dallas Observer noted:
"(L)et's not spend millions of dollars fighting in primaries, when we need to spend millions of dollars trying to win in November," Bonnen tells Sullivan. "I just wanted to see if we can try and figure that out, and I mean this in a polite way. If you need some primaries to fight in, I will leave and Dustin will tell you some that we would love it if you fought in them — not that you need our permission — but what I would love to be able to do, candidly, is kind of have — I don't want to say an agreement — but kind of an understanding, look, you want to go pop some guys, if you're asking us — which you don't have to — let me put it this way: Am I going to always make you happy? No. Am I perfect? No way."
In an editorial at Empower Texans’ mouthpiece Texas Scorecard Sullivan said:
I recorded the meeting not to capture the “locker room” talk or gossip that is typical of meetings in the Austin swamp, but to ensure Bonnen could not lie about the meeting or distort its purpose in the future. I had in mind the lies he told (publicly and without any consequence so far) about Chris McNutt of Texas Gun Rights, and I have heard stories of him doing the same to others, so I wasn’t going to let him do it to me.
The circular firing squad is delicious.
I’ve read the transcript and have indexed these items:
Quid Pro Quo: Don’t attack us and I’ll pull the press credentials of the Quorum Report’s Scott Braddock and credential Empower Texans instead. “So that’s why I’d like that toned back.” (pages 13, 25, 39)
Laughable: “When Craddick was speaker. We didn’t put names on a list against a sitting member” and yet here Bonnen is, putting names on a list. 🤦 (page 14)
Polling woes: “Angie Chen Button (R-HD112-Richardson) by polling, she’s even, [Trump]’s down 15 points.” (page 11)
The rules: “We’re talking about Trey Martinez Fischer (D-HD116-San Antonio), others making donations so when there was no speaker to enforce the unwritten rules of the house, these guys come back and you basically have to lop everybody’s freaking head off if they, you know, give pointable money quotes, the things that we all know you can’t cross the line with, and they all understand that. If they don’t, they will understand that.” (page 16)
Oh Dennis: “it’s kind of hard, when you’re busting your ass and you realize it’s the speaker who’s screwing you.” (page 38)
Projection: “It’s 5:00 p.m., I’m not in jail, it’s a good day.” (page 40)
Labor: “I would put ending funding for union dues. The government collection of union dues. Only because, you know, a good reading of Sun Tzu notes the first thing you do is cut off your enemy’s supply lines.” (page 45)
Local Control: “my goal is for this to be the worst session in the history of the legislature for cities and counties…if I had to make one fundamental difference to the state of Texas, stopping the practice of tax dollars being used to lobby might make the biggest economic difference…Why don’t we just take the two local pennies that are being used for economic development and put those into driving down property taxes? We don’t raise anything, it’s already a statewide average, it’s economic development dollars, we hate cities and counties. I’ll take a hard look at them in the interim on a review, to see whether or not they’ve outlived their usefulness.” (page 34, 45, 47)
Screwing our schools: “we’re always careful to talk about eliminating the school M&O because you’ve got a 20-year horizon before you can eliminate the I&S. So you can’t eliminate all school property taxes, just contractually we’re in bed with school I&S for 20 years.” (pages 21, 22, 27, 48, 51)
Politics: “most voters don’t get excited about voting on economic issues, they get excited on social issues. That’s what drives them out. And so to the—and so I think that there’s some life issues, there some gun issues which are kind of a weird middle area, that need to be addressed.” (page 50)
Wishful thinking: “I think Trump is going to win Texas, he’s going to win it back to normal levels.” (page 52)
Karma: “Our, the whole ‘should have’ thing, I think that we’re going to regret eliminating straight-ticket voting. I think we’re going to—I think we are all going to live to regret it. I was ambivalent on it…So it’s going to be really easy for that person just coming out for Trump to go, I’m done. That’s my fear.” (page 51, 52)
Democrats disparaged:
Michelle Beckley (D-HD65-Carrollton) pp 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 41
Trey Martinez Fischer (D-HD116-San Antonio): pp 14,16
Ana Marie Ramos (D-HD102-Richardson) pp 12, 41
Jon Rosenthal (D-HD135-Houston) pp 12, 18
Democrats mentioned:
Chris Turner (D-HD101-Grand Prairie) pp 16
John Turner (D-HD114-Crockett) pp 19
“10 moderate Republicans who don't want to help on anything”:
Steve Allison (R-HD121-San Antonio) pp 43, 44
Trent Ashby(R-HD57-Lufkin) pp 43, 44
Ernest Bailes (R-HD18-Shepherd) pp 43, 44
Travis Clardy (R-HD11-Nacogdoches) pp 32, 33, 34, 43, 44
Drew Darby (R-HD72-San Angelo) pp 44
Kyle Kacal (R-HD12-College Station) pp 44
Stan Lambert (R-HD71-Abilene) pp 44
Tan Parker (R-HD63-Flower Mound) pp 13, 44
John Raney (R-HD14-College Station) pp 44
Phil Stephenson (R-HD85-Wharton) pp 31, 34, 35, 44
Republican who is "just a dumb freshman":
Keith Bell (R-HD4-Forney) pp 43, 44
Republicans who will "come around":
Doc Anderson (R-HD56-Waco) pp 43
Angie Chen Button (R-HD112-Richardson) pp 11, 43
Todd Hunter (R-HD32-Corpus Christi) pp 44
Republicans mentioned:
Justin Holland (R-HD33-Rockwall) pp 13, 14
Mayes Middleton (R-HD23-Wallisville) pp 42
Jared Patterson (R-HD106-Frisco) pp 13
Dade Phelan (R-HD21-Beaumont) pp 22, 42
Matt Shaheen (R-HD66-Plano) pp 54
Valoree Swanson (R-HD150-Spring) pp 20
Jonathan Stickland (R-HD92-Fort Worth) pp 28