Now that Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen won’t return, what happens to his $3 million PAC?

AUSTIN — With House Speaker Dennis Bonnen announcing Tuesday that he will not seek reelection in 2020, Texas Republicans felt a weight lifted off their shoulders as the scandal-ridden leader tried to make the party’s elections next year a little easier by removing himself from the equation.

But Bonnen didn’t resign, so he’ll be in office until a new state representative is inaugurated in his district in January 2021, 14 months from now. With Bonnen essentially a lame-duck speaker, his decision to step away but not immediately could be a double-edged sword, sparing Republicans difficult and politically fraught questions about his actions but also starving them of his organizing and fundraising strength.

Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said Bonnen’s departure was the best possible outcome for Republicans.

“Republicans no longer have to deal with the internal conflict over whether or not Bonnen will return as speaker, and Democrats can’t use his potential return as a cudgel to beat Republican candidates in the 2020 elections," Jones said. “It’s much less effective when he’s not a potential speaker in 2021.”

“It removes a potentially fantastic weapon for Democrats in 2020, which is to query their rival on whether they intend to vote for Dennis Bonnen for speaker,” he added.

But Bonnen’s departure will also cut the other way, depriving incumbent Republicans of valuable financial and organizational resources heading into a crucial election year.

“That’s the biggest damage Bonnen has done to the Republican Party’s reelection efforts,” Jones said. “They no longer have a captain guiding the entire effort, both to choose the best candidate to achieve victory in November as well as raise funds for those Republicans.”

Traditionally, the House speaker uses his fundraising prowess to dole out money to incumbents in need. A speaker’s presence at campaign events generally results in bigger fundraisers and crowds.

But with scandal plaguing Bonnen, it could be politically dangerous for lawmakers to take money from the $3 million political action committee he set up in July to keep a Republican majority in the House.

“The last thing you want as a candidate is for Dennis Bonnen to give you $50,000 and for your Democratic rival to make that an issue in the campaign or make you give it back,” Jones said.

It’s unclear what Bonnen will do with the money he’s placed in his Texas Leads PAC. His spokeswoman did not return questions about it Tuesday.

But if the fundraising and organizing benefits are negated, some Republicans say, what good is it to let Bonnen remain speaker?

“We’re effectively conceding or neutralizing the most powerful position in the Texas House. From a fundraising, party-building and organizing position, we’re not going to get a lot from him," said Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based GOP consultant. “I’m not sure his current position is sustainable. Why would we give up the office of the speaker while we have a majority? That’s basically what we’re doing with this arrangement.”

Some Republicans say the House GOP caucus should develop a plan to select a new speaker who can take the helm on reelection efforts.

“It helps to have someone in mind as a replacement and to publicly say, ‘This is who the person is,’ because you can say, ‘We’ve closed that chapter and this is our future,’” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant. “The caucus can do that. They should do that. That’s what the party is calling on them to do, what activists are calling on them to do and what I think they will do.”

But since lawmakers can’t officially select a new speaker until the next legislative session in 2021, Steinhauser said Bonnen should turn over the management of his PAC to someone else. That way, the money can be used to protect a Republican majority in the House without carrying the stigma of being associated with him.

Still, the GOP consultants said that Bonnen’s announcement is a net positive for the party and that other statewide lawmakers with more name recognition — namely Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sen. John Cornyn and Land Commissioner George P. Bush — could step in to lead the House’s reelection campaigns.

For their part, Democrats see opportunity in the power vacuum. Rep. Celia Israel of Austin, who leads the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee, said Bonnen’s departure changes her ability to raise money.

“This means we have a lame-duck leader in the speaker’s office and they are without a commander, and where there’s chaos, there’s opportunity," she said.

She also hinted that Bonnen’s rule prohibiting campaigning against incumbents would not stop her from supporting Democratic candidates. It’s the very rule he was caught on tape violating when he suggested a conservative activist target fellow Republicans in the primaries.

“Mr. Bonnen had a new rule about not going after incumbents, and he certainly didn’t ask my opinion on that rule,” she said. “I’m going to follow the political energy of 2020 and that political energy is indicating to me that Democrats will take over the House of Representatives.”

She said Democrats were planning to remind voters, as well as the city and county officials Bonnen disparaged in the meeting with the activist, that her party would fight for them and needs only nine more seats to take a majority in the House.

“I’m a woman on a mission," she said. "This incident only serves to fuel my desire for change even more.”