Texas GOP moves to censure their own state House speaker over internal grievances

The Republican speaker of the Texas House of Representatives could soon face censure by the Texas Republican Party.

On Tuesday, the Texas GOP announced on X that the state party executive committee would be taking up proposed censure resolutions submitted by several county GOP chapters against ten Republican members of the House, including current House Speaker Dustin Burrows. Also up for censure is Dade Phelan, the previous state House speaker Burrows replaced.

One of the central grievances outlined in the censure resolution argues that Burrows, and several of the other GOP lawmakers up for censure, betrayed the Texas GOP by not voting for state Rep. David Cook for Speaker, because he was the vote of a majority of the House Republican Caucus.

Cook ran for Speaker explicitly on a platform of repealing the 50-year-old tradition of dividing up committee chair assignments between members of both parties.

Burrows, who did not explicitly pledge to support or oppose this measure, earned the overwhelming support of the Democratic caucus and a minority of the Republican caucus, which gave him enough votes to be elected.

Ultimately, Burrows did preside over an amendment to the House rules guaranteeing Republicans would control all committee chairs. However, the censure also faults him and some other GOP leaders for rushing the rule vote through with minimal debate or amendment, and further condemns Burrows for appointing Democratic lawmakers to chair subcommittees that sit under the main committees, a supposed violation of the party's stance.

This censure proposal — which follows a chaotic few months at the Texas Capitol which saw Gov. Greg Abbott call a special session to gerrymander out several Democrats and a laundry list of other right-wing priorities, and a subsequent temporary walkout of Democrats to protest and delay the vote — is the latest in years of turmoil as hardliners in the Texas GOP seek to purge the caucus and assert control.

Last year, Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton worked to knock off a number of GOP lawmakers in their primaries, respectively for not backing Abbott's school voucher policies, and voting to impeach Paxton.