Texas Republican Party Officially Condemns Rep. Tony Gonzalez

TEXAS, USA — The Republican Party of Texas voted Saturday to condemn US Rep. Tony Gonzalez, a San Antonio Republican, for his recent votes that split with the party.

The State Republican Executive Committee issued a 57-5 censure resolution with one abstention. Majority support was required for its adoption.

The move allows the party, which would otherwise have to remain neutral in intraparty contests, to waive that rule for the next Gonzalez primary.

The last and only time a state party convicted one of its own was in 2018, when the perpetrator was then House Speaker Joe Strauss. He was also a moderate from San Antonio.

Gonzalez did not appear at the SREC meeting but raised the issue after an unrelated press conference Thursday in San Antonio. He specifically defended his vote for a bipartisan gun law that was passed last year after the Uvalde school shooting in his area. He said that if the vote were held again today, “I would vote for him twice if I could.”

“The reality is that I got almost 1,400 votes, and most of them were for the Republican Party,” Gonzalez said.

The González campaign responded to the censure with a statement that antagonized the state party.

“Today, as every day, Congressman Tony Gonzalez went to work on behalf of the residents of TX-23. He spoke to veterans, met with border guards, and met with voters in the district he changed from blue to red. The Texas Republican Party would be wise to follow his lead and do a real job,” campaign spokesman Evan Albertson said.

At the SREC quarterly meeting on Saturday in Austin, there was no public debate about the censure. The committee went into executive session for about an hour before returning to vote on the resolution immediately.

The SREC is the state party’s 64-member governing body and includes some of its most active activists, giving it a staunchly conservative character.

The original censure resolution came from Medina County, which is just west of San Antonio and is part of Gonzalez’s 23rd district. He cited his support for a bipartisan gun law passed last year, as well as his vote for a bill codifying protections for same-sex marriage. The resolution also pointed to his vote against the House rule package in January and his opposition to a border security bill promoted by fellow Texas GOP representative Chip Roy of Austin.

Gonzalez was one of 14 Republicans who voted for gun legislation and the only one from Texas. He was the only Republican Party to vote against the rule package, and he was the only one among Texas Republicans to strongly criticize Roy’s bill, saying it would effectively end asylum. Roy denied this.

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This story comes from Texas Tribunenon-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs and engages with Texans about public policy, politics, government, and state issues.