Texas House Republicans face possible censure following Speaker vote

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — It is no secret most in the Texas Republican Party and state Republican leaders did not want Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, to win the election for Speaker of the House on Tuesday. In the month run-up to the Speaker vote, relationships were tested within the Republican party.

Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Texas Republican Party Chair Abraham George were vocal on social media that House Republicans should vote for the House GOP Caucus nominee, Rep. David Cook, R-Mansfield. Cook won the nomination during a closed-door meeting of the caucus on Dec. 7. On the same day, Burrows declared victory after he and other Republican members walked out of the meeting.

Burrows ended up winning the Speaker race after getting 85 votes to Cook's 55. Burrows only needed 36 votes from his own party and was able to secure the win by getting a majority of votes from the Democratic House members.

George, the Texas Republican Chair, said it is not the result the party was hoping for, but they hope Burrows will work to pass conservative legislation and fulfill the party's top priorities. However, George did say he would not be surprised if some of the county Republican parties decide to censure members who voted for Burrows.

"I believe we need to hold them accountable personally, and I also believe the party will do that," George said. There had always been a threat of censure in the lead-up to the vote. The Republican party of Texas had actually run attack ads in Burrows' district, and Attorney General Paxton and George did a two-day, four-city tour to talk about the Speaker race in districts of Republicans who had not come out in support of Cook.

The Texas GOP website also ran a banner at the top of its page that is linked to a list of House Republicans who were not in support of Cook.

The rules of the party say a member can be censured if they violate Republican principles at least three times in a two-year span. If a member is penalized by a county party, then the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) will review the censure and recommend penalties to George. One of those penalties would remove the member from the ballot and not allow them to run as a Republican in the next cycle, George said.

But is that legal? Can a political party decide to not allow someone to run as a Republican or Democrat in a primary election? It is a question that became more prevalent as the Speaker race started heating up with threats of censuring members.

David Luther is the president of the Texas Republican County Chairmen's Association and it is his job to provide education and training to County Party chairs across the state. As soon as someone becomes a chair of the County Party they automatically become a member of the association, Luther explained.

He said he knew the legality of the party rules could possibly come up depending on how the Speaker race ended. He reached out to a Texas law firm, Scanes, Yelverton, and Talbert, to ask them about the legality of removing someone from the ballot.

Luther said the law firm had already been studying case law on the subject and was able to send him a memo of its findings and analysis. The front page of the memo says, "The Texas Election Code does not permit political parties to restrict ballot access with additional obligations like Rule 44(e); instead, a party chair has a mandatory duty to accept and certify ballot applications complying with the Election Code."

The memo went on to say, "to insist that the party’s own procedures must prevail over election law, the party would have to argue that the Texas Election Code’s provision violates the party’s
First Amendment freedom of association rights. Such a challenge is unlikely to succeed. Under existing law, the better answer is that Rule 44(e) cannot override Texas election law."

Luther took the memo and posted it to his X account and shared it with the county chairs in case they had questions about the legality of party rules.

George said he expects there to be a legal battle if the party decides to impose that sort of penalty. The SREC is expected to meet sometime in the next two weeks, but George said there is no resolution on the table currently to censure anyone.

"We're going to keep our word. If that means spending millions of dollars in court, we're going to do that," George said.

The last member to be censured was former Speaker of the House Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont. The censure resolution against Phelan listed five actions as grounds for censure. Part of the reasons listed included the impeachment of Paxton and appointing House Democratic members to chair committees.

One of the penalties listed in Phelan's censure resolution said Phelan is "discouraged" from participating in the 2024 Republican primary. Phelan did participate and won a close run-off election.