Rodríguez, who was first elected in 2010 to represent Senate District 29, said he will retire from the Senate at the end of this term in January 2021.

Abbott stopped short of saying the Legislature should make the background checks mandatory.

The message was left on the phone of a member of the Texas House soon after news of a meeting between Michael Quinn Sullivan and Dennis Bonnen surfaced.

The orders focus largely on improving reporting channels when members of the public or law enforcement agencies worry that a person might become violent.

"Words alone will not deliver the bold solutions Texas needs in order to defeat the violence that has become far too commonplace in our state," Bonnen said in a statement Wednesday announcing his charges for a select House committee.

Members of the House minority say they want to consider legislation “closing the background check loopholes” and “banning the sale of high-capacity magazines.”

Burrows said he hasn't been contacted by the Texas Rangers about his meeting with Sullivan and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, but said "there was nothing illegal done."

Democrats hoping to flip the Texas House are touting the controversy surrounding the meeting as a sign of Republican dysfunction.

Farrar, an attorney first elected to the lower chamber in 1994, represents House District 148, which covers parts of northern and western Houston.

Conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan has said he secretly recorded Burrows and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen asking him to challenge 10 House incumbents in the 2020 elections.

West will take on James Dickey, who has served as state Republican chair since 2017. Republican delegates will elect their next state party chair at the Texas GOP convention in May.

At issue is whether Bonnen, an Angleton Republican, and state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, offered hardline conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan media credentials for his organization in exchange for politically targeting a list of fellow GOP members in the 2020 primaries.

In their lawsuit, the Democrats contend Bonnen, Sullivan and state Rep. Dustin Burrows violated campaign finance laws and demanded that Sullivan produce a recording of the meeting that he has so far played only for select Republicans.

The House General Investigating Committee, which holds subpoena power, will review allegations that Bonnen offered media credentials to a conservative group if it targeted 10 GOP lawmakers in the upcoming election.

Bonnen once again requested that a secret recording the conservative firebrand Sullivan made of the meeting be made fully public.

"Complete transparency is paramount; allowing select political insiders to hear it in private isn’t going to cut it," said state Rep. Chris Turner, chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

Allegations that the House speaker politically targeted 10 GOP members have roiled the lower chamber, but some lawmakers say they need more evidence. “It’s a wait-and-see thing,” said one.

A conservative political activist accused Republican House Speaker Dennis Bonnen of making a deal at a June meeting to target 10 GOP lawmakers. Bonnen has denied the allegations, but several Texas House members who have heard a recording of the meeting in his office support the activist's account.

The recording of a meeting between Bonnen and hardline conservative Michael Quinn Sullivan has not been publicly released, but Sullivan has said that Bonnen offered Sullivan's activist group media credentials in return for politically targeting 10 House members.

Conservative firebrand Michael Quinn Sullivan made the allegation Thursday.