WASHINGTON — The Texas Republican Party will vote Saturday a resolution that would censure Rep. Tony Gonzales due to a handful of actions he took in Congress by defecting from his fellow Republicans.
Officials of the 64-member Republican State Executive Committee will vote on the no-confidence resolution at their quarterly meeting in Austin, according to a party spokesperson. The resolution was first drafted by the Texas, Medina County branch of the state Republican Party, which approved it in February, the spokesperson said.
News of the upcoming vote was first reported by the San Antonio Report.
The resolution said that Gonzales, a moderate Republican, violated the fundamental tenets of the state Republican Party.
The party takes issue with its vote in favor of the bipartisan Secure Communities Act, landmark gun legislation that was written in response to the shootings in Uvalde, which is in the Gonzales district, and Buffalo, New York. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law last year.
Republicans also highlighted Gonzales’s vote in favor of legislation to protect same-sex marriage. They also noted that he was the only Republican to vote against the House Rules package for the current Congress.
The resolution says that Gonzales, whose district covers much of the Texas-Mexico border, has also not expressed support for the Border Security and Protection Act of 2023a bill that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to turn away non-US citizens without valid entry documents.
Gonzales’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Passage of the resolution requires a three-fifths vote of the executive committee, which can impose one or both of the following sanctions: It can waive rules and statutes that require party state neutrality in primary contests, which would mean that the state party will not offer any financial support beyond what is required by law to Gonzáles if he runs for re-election, and could also spend money that would allow him to share the no-confidence resolution with voters; it could also declare that Gonzales is discouraged from running in the upcoming GOP primary.
Party rules, however, do not allow Gonzales to be removed from office and cannot prevent him from running for re-election as a Republican.
Medina County Republicans passed the resolution last month and 15 other counties in the Gonzales district also passed concurrent resolutions, according to the state party.
Gonzales was elected in 2020 and has served in Congress since January 2021, replacing moderate Republican Will Hurd, who did not seek re-election that year.