TEXAS \u2014\u00a0The State Republican Executive Committee voted on censuring ten Republican lawmakers on Saturday. It\u2019s a formal reprimand that could have barred those who were censured from being on the 2026 Republican primary ballot.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The State Republican Executive Committee voted on censuring ten Republican lawmakers on Sunday
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Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, and former Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, were among those on the censure list
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Five lawmakers were censured as part of the effort
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Ballot penalties for the censure were dismissed<\/p>\n
The Texas GOP voting bloc heeded this warning from the Texas GOP general counsel, Rachel Hooper, and voted against barring\u00a0members from the 2026 primary ballot who were accused of violating parts of the party platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a death penalty,\u201d said Hooper.<\/p>\n
Party Chair Abraham George said the White House was closely watching Saturday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see that they didn\u2019t damage themselves unduly by internal fighting because the Republican Party is in a dominant position right now,\u201d said Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University.<\/p>\n
The State Republican Executive Committee decided to censure five members, two of whom are not running for reelection. SREC member Rolando Garcia didn\u2019t think the accusations justified ballot removal and says the\u00a0party\u00a0can\u2019t afford another lawsuit while it battles to close its primary elections in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we win that lawsuit, I think a lot of us did not think this was the right time to indulge in another expensive legal battle,\u201d said Garcia.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, was one of the 10 lawmakers who faced censure, but he managed to escape censure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were 17,297 Republicans who went out to vote in the Republican primary in his district,\u201d said Tori Trevino, a member of the committee from state Senate District 21. \u201cThey voted for him. He won with 68% of the vote. Fifteen people who voted to censure him in a county that he does not even represent. So, 15 people would remove the voice of 17,297 voters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The other nine Republican lawmakers who faced censure faced being banned from next year\u2019s primary.<\/p>\n
Reps. Angie Chen Button, R-Dallas, and Cody Harris, R-Palestine, were two of the lawmakers who were not censured by state Republicans.<\/p>\n
The effort to formally reprimand representatives for violating parts of the party platform follows a conservative legislative year. Still, grassroots Republicans found cause for censures based on electing Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who relied on Democratic support to win, and for approving the chamber\u2019s rules that allowed Democrats some means of committee influence. Beaumont SREC member Lydia Covey advocated for ballot removal punishment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have the right to ignore the rules that the delegates voted on at state convention last year. And I don\u2019t think we have the right to ignore the request of the counties,\u201d said Covey during the meeting.<\/p>\n
The resolutions that originated at the county level caused a rift in the party, which the Texas Republican County Chairman\u2019s Association describes as unnecessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody who has been involved in this for a long time knows that you have to get your grassroots base out. However, the major elections are decided by the middle. Which way does the middle swing? Which way do the independents go? Do Democrats, Democrats getting frustrated with their current leadership, seeing people crossing over? You\u2019re seeing this in the valley where people are beginning to run more as Republicans,\u201d said David Stein.<\/p>\n
Stein also warned against censure being used as a campaign strategy. Nevertheless, Republican state Rep. Angelia Orr\u2019s primary opponent, Kathaleen Wall, said in a campaign release\u00a0that Orr had \u201cbetrayed her district\u201d and respected the Republican Party of Texas\u2019 decision to censure her. Orr\u2019s response is that the number of her conservative wins \u201cwill speak louder than political stunts.\u201d Other censured representatives have declined multiple requests for comment on the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re probably just going to keep their head down and, and let, let concern about this dissipate because it\u2019s a long time before they have to run again,\u201d said Jillson.<\/p>\n
The more moderate Republican base won in the battle over ballot removal, but political scientists say grassroots activists aren\u2019t through calling for purity\u00a0in the party.<\/p>\n
The committee voted in favor of censuring Reps. Stan Lambert, R-Abilene; Angelia Orr, R-Hillsboro; Jared Patterson, R-Frisco; Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston; and former Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014\u00a0The State Republican Executive Committee voted on censuring ten Republican lawmakers on Saturday. It\u2019s a formal reprimand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6329,2160,132,134,133,6328,1570,102,138,6363,6364,1063,223,287,82,293,2053,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-6297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-app-capital-tonight","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-austin","11":"tag-austin-headlines","12":"tag-austin-news","13":"tag-capital-tonight","14":"tag-ctv","15":"tag-dallas","16":"tag-el-paso","17":"tag-erin-davis","18":"tag-geraldine-torrellas","19":"tag-local-politics","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-san-antonio","23":"tag-texas-legislature","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297","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=6297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}