Kyle Biedermann Stands Up for His Values

Former State Rep. Kyle Biedermann is running to return to the House on an innovative platform: it’s okay to get your 19-year-old intern drunk and sex her up.

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Friday, February 2, 2024, 5:00 p.m.

         Kyle Biedermann is a nice guy, and he wants you to know it. He smiles, shakes your hand. He’s happy to meet you. Good-looking, broad smile.

         And then he opens his mouth and shatters the illusion.

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         He was narrowly elected to the House in 2016, after a bruising primary that featured a photo of him as “Gay Hitler” – a costume he’d worn to a party that was – get this – raising money for charity.

(What, you’re offended?!?)

         He was, of course,  offended that anyone was offended, although he conceded that “people are going to take it out of context.”

         During three terms in the House (2017-2021), he was a member of the increasingly irrelevant House Freedom Caucus, arrayed against such modern conveniences as public education, immigration and voting. He was photographed among the insurrectionist mob at the Capitol on January 6, grinning like a happy traitor to his country.

(“Someday, I’ll tell you I was just a tourist that day.”)

         Two weeks after that, he filed a bill calling for Texas to secede from the Union. Those two things were enough to get him on Texas Monthly’s Ten Worst List for the 2021 session.

            After he decided not to seek re-election in 2022, Biedermann was replaced in the House by Rep. Ellen Troxclair, whose main claim to fame is an undistinguished tenure as an Austin City Councilmember.

         Now Biedermann wants back in, and he’s picked a perfect wedge issue to run on.

Kyle Biedermann, a former Texas state representative running to unseat a fellow Republican in the March primary, blasted the House for expelling former Rep. Bryan Slaton, who had sex with a 19-year old intern after plying her with alcohol.

“Was he convicted? What was his crime? Is it a crime to have sex with a 19-year-old woman?” Biedermann said in a video captured from a Kendall County Tea Party meeting this week. “In your house, not at the Capitol.”

         The “in your house, not at the Capitol” clarification was probably helpful, since it technically may be illegal to have sex with a 19-year-old inside the Capitol Building, particularly if you deface or destroy State Preservation Board property.

         But I digress. Biedermann’s point, besides excusing sex with barely-legal teenagers, was that Slaton’s defenestration happened because he was one of the most conservative members of the House:

Biedermann stressed that it’s not illegal to have sex with someone who is 19 — which is past the age of consent, but beneath the legal age to drink alcohol.

“Let me tell you how many people have done that in the Capitol and nothing happens to them,” he added, without naming names.

Biedermann stressed that Slaton had not been convicted of anything and his actions represent behavior that is pervasive throughout the Capitol with no repercussions for most.

“Unless you’re one of the most conservative reps in the House. Then no trial, no conviction, no nothing. You’re gone in 24 hours,” Biedermann said.

         To be honest, I’m not sure this is a winning issue for Biedermann. But he doubled down on his position today, releasing a statement, as reposted by the Quorum Report’s Scott Braddock:

"As a State Representative my wife was with me all the time and I avoided being alone with women simply to protect any appearance of impropriety," Biedermann said. (Ed. Note: this is known as the “Pence Defense.”)

"Affairs run rampant in the Austin swamp, and Ellen Troxclair knows this,” he said. “"She gladly associated with Representatives _______ and ________ following their extramarital sexual relationship," he said.  (Ed. Note: Names redacted because their identities are irrelevant to his point.)

"These members were rewarded with powerful committee assignments and close friendships with members like Troxclair,” Biedermann said. “They (the House) selectively punish impropriety, and that was the point I was making."

         It may sound like he’s just jealous that his opponent is in with the In Crowd among the adulterers and he’s not, but it’s more serious than that. Biedermann’s statement reveals both his atrophied reasoning ability and his moral vacuity. It’s hard to tell which one is worse.

         Look, folks: Slaton wasn’t expelled because he had consensual sex with another adult with whom he shared an equal power dynamic. He wasn’t even expelled for having sex with a 19-year-old. He was expelled for taking a 19-year-old (a) who was his intern (b) getting her drunk and then (c) having sex with her in her impaired condition, after which he (d) threatened her (and her friends) to keep their liaison secret. Whatever one thinks of the merits of sex with 19-year-olds, it was inarguably inappropriate (and likely illegal) under these circumstances.

         He can draw a contrast with Troxclair – she voted to expel Slaton, it’s true – but public sentiment seems to have been for giving Slaton the heave-ho.

         Troxclair admittedly does not have much of a record or run on. If possible, Biedermann’s record is even more dismal: voting against public schools, women’s rights and children every chance he got.

         The good Republicans of House District 19 have an important job ahead of them on March 5, but it’s an easy call: vote for the one who does not condone sexing up drunken interns.

Your weekend reading:

         … The Atlantic’s superb Ron Brownstein has this scary essay on the jihad Donald Trump and his allies plan to unleash on immigrants if he is returned to the White House.

         … Texas Monthly’s Forrest Wilder surveys some of the GOP candidates in next month’s primaries and asks the vital question, Where do they find these people? 

         … Michelle Davis, who writes the Lone Star Left newsletter, has written an essaycalled “Why Should I Vote In The Primary Election?” It’s a great reminder of why primaries are so important, especially in Texas when the outcomes of general elections seem foreordained. I highly recommend the essay and encourage you to subscribe to her newsletter.