What Was Motive for Texas House Speaker's Secret Meeting? ‘Target List’ Or Effort to Keep GOP Majority

AUSTIN -- Days before a now infamous meeting in which he is accused of asking a political group to target 10 fellow Republicans, Lubbock Rep. Dustin Burrows was selling the House’s conservative efforts to a group of influential activists who set the party’s agenda. Despite a legislative session top Republicans declared a success, the leader of the political group Empower Texans said not enough conservative bills had passed and that some GOP House members could face primary challenges from the right.At the second quarterly meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee on June 8, Burrows listed four bills that showed the chamber’s efforts to deliver on conservative priorities: a bill limiting the growth of property tax revenue for cities and counties, a proposal to constitutionally ban a state income tax, a bill to end the flow of property taxes for maintenance and operation of schools, and a ban on the ability of governments and cities to spend public funds on lobbying. He called the House’s failure to pass the last of those bills “one of the biggest regrets of the session” and promised that the bill would return in the future. “We’ve got a little work to do but it’ll come back,” he said. “I’m not done with that issue and I don’t think the House or the Senate is done with that issue.”Four days later, in a meeting with House Speaker Dennis Bonnen and Empower Texans CEO and conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan, Burrows used the public list of lawmakers who voted “no” on that bill to tell Sullivan which Republicans he could target in the 2020 primaries without repercussion.  Continue reading...