Dennis Bonnen's decision to not only step down as speaker of the Texas House but to retire from politics altogether comes as a relief because it signals that character still matters in Texas politics, even if it seems to matter less and less in the nation at large.
Bonnen's position as speaker was at grave risk. But it's entirely possible he could have held on as a representative.
Doing so would have hurt his party and hurt the effort to build what must be a truly bipartisan legislature that works together towards common solutions for all Texans.
What happened to Bonnen, though, is a lesson that political parties must learn and relearn over and over at the cost of all of the people they represent. In the ashes of Bonnen's political career, we can sift out a fundamental problem that has chased American democracy since the founding.
On his peaceful surrender of the first presidency, George Washington warned the nascent country that the division of political factions would tear at the country.
Before he left office, in 1796, he wrote to Thomas Jefferson the following, "I was no party man myself...and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them."
Washington had no fear of letting the best of all ideas surface from any side to be considered in the light of what was best for the country.
Bonnen's problem as a legislative leader, and the thing that led to his downfall, was what he saw as the necessity of dealing with a person for whom party division is absolutely central to political life.
Michael Quinn Sullivan, an unelected blogger, could never be satisfied with compromise across the aisle. It was always all or nothing, driving ever farther to the right even as suburban districts pulled back to the left. Good conservative legislators got caught in between, and Sullivan helped ensure they lost their offices by supporting politicians for whom political battle, not policy agreement, was the first order of business.
The results have been predictable. A correction is afoot. The electorate is pulling away. Bonnen understood that. He was and is a smart political thinker, as well as a good policy leader.
He saw that if he didn't somehow convince Sullivan to stop running candidates well outside the mainstream in Republican primaries, the GOP would lose its House majority. That may yet happen.
Bonnen's error was in imagining that a person like Sullivan — or name any other unelected political media personality — was genuinely interested in a functioning majority.
When the fight is the point and when the factional division is what comes first, there is no sense in trying to trade.
Sullivan recorded Bonnen's comments and destroyed his career. Potential political disaster for Texas Republicans is the result.
It's a perfect outcome for Sullivan, and a terrible one for governance.
As for Bonnen, he is leaving. He demonstrated himself as untrustworthy to his party and to his constituents, whatever he might have been trying to accomplish.
At the very least, though, his decision suggests he is a person of depth, someone who can put something larger than himself above himself. And that is to his credit and to the benefit of Texas.
