Texas Scorecard By Brandon Waltens November 17, 2019
After lawmakers asked Speaker Dennis Bonnen to remove Democrat Chairman Poncho Nevarez from his committees, he claims he doesn’t have the power.After a Democrat Chairman in the Texas House was charged with possession of cocaine, Speaker Dennis Bonnen claims he doesn’t have the power to remove him from his committee, despite interpretations to the contrary.
On September 6 a DPS affidavit affirmed two Texas Department of Transportation employees found an envelope filled with four plastic baggies of cocaine bearing the official state letterhead of Democrat State Rep. Poncho Nevarez (Eagle Pass) lying on the ground inside an area of Austin Bergstrom International Airport frequently used by state officials.
That story was broken last week by Direct Action Texas just days after Nevarez announced that he would not be seeking re-election to the legislature in 2020. And on Friday, months after the incident, Nevarez was charged with possession of a controlled substance.
On Friday, heading into the weekend, three Republican committee chairs—State Reps. Phil King (Weatherford), James White (Hillister), and Jeff Leach (Plano)—wrote a letter to Speaker Dennis Bonnen requesting that he be removed from his position as Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety (which oversees law enforcement agencies such as Texas DPS, who performed the initial investigation into the incident) and as Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Mass Violence Prevention and Community Safety.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/state/bonnen-refuses-to-replace-democrat-chairman-charged-with-felony/
