Dennis Bonnen Praising of Cain Viewed
as Reminder on Who's Running House

Capitol Inside
May 9, 2021

Texas House members on both sides of the aisle think they can see their former leader beating his chest with a vigorous public defense of State Rep. Briscoe Cain's handling of a controversial elections bill that cleared the lower chamber late last week.

The prevailing sentiment among House Republicans and Democrats alike is that Dennis Bonnen had been sending a message with the praise for Cain on the unprecedented amount of influence that he's appeared to be be wielding with GOP Speaker Dade Phelan and his leadership team during the regular session in 2021.

Bonnen unleashed a blistering barrage of criticism on unnamed state representatives who he claimed to have used Cain's affliction with Asperger's syndrome as a weapon to try to undermine his performance the House sponsor of the voter restrictions plan in Senate Bill 7.

A Deer Park Republican who Bonnen portrayed as a protégé in the Twitter review, Cain had a difficult time defending the bill amid a hurricane of opposition from Democrats who branded the measure a blatant attempt by the GOP to preserve majorities at the statehouse by making it harder for Blacks and Hispanics to vote in Texas.

Bonnen sought to make it appear that Cain's apparent struggles in his first role as a sponsor of major legislation was a direct effect of the neurological condition that the Houston-area lawmaker revealed in a speech on the House floor in 2019.

Bonnen, who's a resident of Longview now, said in the tweet that he'd encouraged Cain two years ago to go public with his story about overcoming the disorder as inspiration for others who've been diagnosed with Asperger's. The ex-speaker said at the time that he'd been able to relate as someone who'd been dyslectic as a child.

Bonnen's glowing appraisal on Cain as the so-called election integrity sponsor gave colleagues the impression that the former speaker was trying to take credit for the election legislation and make Democrats feel guilty for annihilating him so badly in the floor debate.

Cain had been remarkably unprepared to defend the bill. Cain pleaded ignorance several times when Democrats asked him if he knew the line "purity at the ballot box" had been a slogan that segregationists used to justify discrimination against minority voters in the past here. Cain appeared embarrassed, frustrated and confused at times in the role in which Phelan has cast him for one of the 2021 regular session's most critical roles despite a lack of experience and other credentials.

Many people who witnessed the spectacle of the SB 7 debate in the House weren't aware of Cain's condition that Bonnen trumpeted.

Bonnen didn't mention that he'd kept Cain at the end of the bench while serving as the speaker in 2019. Bonnen had been an enemy in the eyes of Texas Freedom Caucus conservatives like Cain before the stint as the chamber's top leader.

Bonnen's words raised the specter - unintentionally perhaps - that Phelan should have known that Cain wouldn't be a smart choice for the lead sponsor part on critical legislation that Democrats have been fighting tooth and nail with major Texas corporations in their corner.

 

 

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