{"id":248713,"date":"2026-04-14T05:17:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/248713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T05:17:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:17:35","slug":"republican-rep-tony-gonzales-of-texas-says-he-will-retire-after-admitting-to-affair-with-staffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/248713\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas says he will retire after admitting to affair with staffer"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas said Monday he will retire from Congress amid bipartisan calls to expel him.<\/p>\n

Gonzales had already said he would not seek reelection<\/a> after admitting to an affair with a staff member who later died by suicide. His announcement came just hours after Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California said he would be resigning from Congress as he also confronted allegations of sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n

House Republican leaders had already called on the three-term Gonzales to not seek reelection. And the House Ethics Committee had initiated an investigation. Under House ethics rules, lawmakers may not engage in a sexual relationship with any employee of the House under their supervision.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO: With Tony Gonzales out, Democrats sense an opening against new hardline GOP nominee Brandon Herrera<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a season for everything and God has a plan for us all,\u201d Gonzales said in a social media post. \u201cWhen Congress returns tomorrow, I will file my retirement from office.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it has been a privilege \u201cto serve the great people of Texas.\u201d He gave no further details on his plans to step down.<\/p>\n

Gonzales represents Texas\u2019 23rd Congressional District, which stretches from El Paso\u2019s Lower Valley across rural West Texas to San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Before announcing he would not seek reelection, Gonzales after the March primary was headed to a runoff against his GOP challenger Brandon Herrera, who now will face Democrat Katy Padilla Stout in November.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas said Monday he will retire from Congress amid bipartisan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,39794],"class_list":{"0":"post-248713","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-el-paso","9":"tag-el-paso-headlines","10":"tag-el-paso-news","11":"tag-election-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}