Texas Republicans

Retiring House Speaker Dennis Bonnen has started doling out campaign funds to fellow Republican members who face challenges in the upcoming March primary elections, clearing up a financial uncertainty that has been on political minds at the Texas Legislature for months.

An audible groan erupted in the lounge area of Houston’s Gulf Coast Distillers in late October when high-profile Trump campaign operative Mica Mosbacher invoked the idea of a Democratic presidency.

Mosbacher encouraged the audience of roughly 50 GOP women — a group that included a millionaire Texas congressional candidate, the owner of a gun store and a Gov. Greg Abbott political appointee — to turn their grumbling into action.

“It’s not the boy’s club anymore,” she said.

As far as falls from grace in Texas politics go, state Rep. Rick Miller’s was about as fast as they come.

On Monday night, the Sugar Land Republican was quoted in a story published by The Houston Chronicle saying his two primary challengers likely joined the race because they are Asian in a district with a considerable Asian population.

U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, was in Congress for over a decade before she narrowly won a bid to become the top Republican on the powerful House Appropriations Committee last year.

Retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, is spearheading a new group to elect a more diverse slate of Republicans across the country, the latest sign that he plans to remain politically involved as he leaves office.

Announced Thursday, the Hurd-backed Future Leaders Fund intends to spend millions next year — notably in primaries — to boost more Republicans who are young, female and people of color.

First-term Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen on Tuesday announced he will not seek reelection to the lower chamber in 2020 — completing a stunning fall for the Angleton Republican who enjoyed near unanimous support in the House just months earlier.

During a June conversation at the Texas Capitol, Republican House Speaker Dennis Bonnen urged hardline conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan to target members of their own party in the 2020 primaries and suggested he could get Sullivan’s group media access to the House floor, according to a secret recording of the conversation released Tuesday.