The Republican Party of Texas will soon decide whether to punish a group of Republican lawmakers under a newly toughened party rule that could even keep them off the ballot.
At their October 11 meeting, members of the State Republican Executive Committee will take up censure resolutions advanced from county parties against ten House Republicans, including Speaker Dustin Burrows along with State Reps. Dade Phelan, Morgan Meyer, Angie Chen Button, Angelia Orr, Cody Harris, Jared Patterson, Stan Lambert, Jeff Leach, and Gary VanDeaver.
Under Rule 44, local party committees may censure a Republican officeholder who has taken three or more actions in opposition to the party’s principles or legislative priorities. If such a resolution is sent to the SREC, the state committee may, by a three-fifths vote, impose penalties.
Those penalties can include withholding party resources, publicly discouraging the officeholder from running, or, in the most severe case, refusing to allow them on the Republican primary ballot for two years.
Notably, Phelan and Lambert have already announced they will not be seeking re-election.
Rachel Hooper, the party’s general counsel, emphasized to the SREC during an August meeting that the new ballot-removal provision was intentionally added after the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, describing it as the political “death penalty.”
“Sometimes there are acts that are so bad that you need the death penalty,” Hooper said.
But she cautioned that Rule 44 is about facts, not personal feelings, and should not be misused for mere disagreements or personality conflicts.
“In presenting a case to a jury or a judge, it’s about facts. It’s not about ‘I don’t like them because of XYZ,’” said Hooper. “There is not one legislator who agrees 100% with what I agree with.”
To that end, the SREC created a legislative task force to evaluate how lawmakers acted on the party’s eight legislative priorities during the 89th Legislature.
The task force’s report, released last month, claimed 43 bills tied to those priorities became law but also singled out members it said voted against key measures, such as election integrity bills and the effort to ban taxpayer-funded lobbying.
The document was framed as a tool for local party officials considering censures, with the SREC noting that while the report was not exhaustive, it provided a factual record of votes and actions for grassroots Republicans to weigh when holding legislators accountable.
“The only people who decide what a censurable act is is the SREC,” Hooper told members.
She also pointed to the track record of past censures as evidence of their impact.
Former House Speaker Joe Straus and Rep. Byron Cook, both censured in 2018, left office soon after. Rep. Tony Gonzales, censured in 2023, survived—but barely. State Rep. Andrew Murr, also censured in 2023, did not run for re-election.
Now the SREC will have to decide whether to take the extraordinary step of concurring with county party resolutions and applying penalties against sitting legislators.
