Good morning –

Do you know a grassroots activist who should be honored for their work in the cause of liberty? Learn more at the end of today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Wednesday, August 14, 2019
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• Members of the Texas House continue to sound off about the meeting to which I was invited by House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, in which he made a quid pro quo offer of House media credentials in exchange for political activity. Bonnen’s proposal is now the subject of an investigation by the Texas Rangers, at the behest of the House General Investigating Committee. 
      
• Brandon Waltens reports State Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) is the latest to speak out after listening to the recording of the meeting. Schaefer, an attorney, wrote that “the offer made by Speaker Bonnen to Michael Quinn Sullivan regarding media credentials for the Texas House floor appears to be unethical.”
      
• Schaefer, the former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, also noted that parts of Bonnen’s various statements about the meeting have been “misleading, while other parts were blatantly false.”
      
• Meanwhile other lawmakers, including State Rep. Kyle Biedermann (R–Fredericksburg), are calling for Bonnen’s resignation altogether.
      
• Just hours after a Texas Ranger investigation into House Speaker Dennis Bonnen was officially announced, the speaker’s press secretary shared on social media an op-ed entitled “Hardball politics isn’t a crime.” That piece was written by the former chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission, Ross Fischer, who now serves as general counsel to the State Bar of Texas’ board of directors.
      
• As the old joke goes, 95 percent of lawyers give the rest of them a bad name. 
       
• With Texas’ primary elections seven months away, Sam Samson looks at what statewide polling shows about where Texas Democrats stand in the war between the party’s establishment and their extreme left.

• Keller Independent School District taxpayers will be asked this November to increase their debt burden by over $300 million, thanks to a unanimous vote of the school board. Robert Montoya reports that if voters approve the bond in November, it would be added to the more than $1 billion already owed.
      

• Austin’s city manager has announced a tax increase for the city’s 2020 budget, recommending council members take 8 percent more money from citizens than they did this year. Jacob Asmussen reports that compared to just 11 years ago, city council is now taking 100 percent more cash from the median homeowner.

     
• For a city that claims to be concerned with affordability, the leftists on the Austin City Council sure work hard to make it less and less affordable.