County Parties Need Immediate Censure Guidance From the SREC
February 26, 2025 | Media Inquiries: press@mctxgop.org
The 89th Legislative Session of the Texas House is well underway and State Party Chair Abraham George has stated unequivocally that at least some of the actions of Speaker Dustin Burrows and his supporters are censurable acts. But instead of providing clear guidance to the county parties as to which actions violate the core principles of the Republican Party of Texas as defined in the Preamble of the Party Platform or the Legislative Priorities, the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) is leaving it up to the county parties to figure all of that out. For the County Republican Parties across Texas, this is sure to turn into the least fun guessing game ever where it will seem like all of the answers are wrong for one reason or another.
Now is the time when the SREC should clearly identify exactly which violations have occurred and then issue statements to the county parties to use when putting together their censure resolutions. Those statements should focus on each specific action and then provide a determination as to whether the House Representative participating in each action has committed a censurable act or not.
A number of topics/incidents could be covered, such as:
The members of the Republican Caucus who pledged to vote for the Republican Caucus nominee and then betrayed the caucus and their voters by not doing so.
The Republican Representatives who met with Democrats prior to the Speaker vote in the House Republican Caucus in an effort to subvert the process.
The walkout by Burrows and his supporters during the House Republican Caucus Speaker vote.
The collusion with Democrats after the walkout to undermine the Republican Caucus and their nominee.
The Reps who participated in hiring a Democrat Activist Lawyer, Hugh Brady, to write the House Rules, which give Democrats much more power.
Appointing only Democrat Vice Chairs and appointing Democrats to chair subcommittees under rules which greatly empower Democrats in those positions.
Shutting down debate on the House Rules to ensure that the rules written by the Democrats were not challenged or amended.
Unilaterally giving Democrat Vice Chairs $5,000 a month to hire more staff, resulting in a total budget increase of $3.6 million over the biennium to the Democrats.
A simple statement from the SREC on each item would be appropriate and might read something like this:
“The SREC has reviewed the actions of the State Reps who participated in the walkout during the Republican Caucus Speaker Nominations and have determined that this is a censurable act in accordance with RPT Rule 44.”
Having this type of clear guidance from the SREC would make this process a lot easier for everyone involved and would also take the guesswork out of this process since the determination would have already been made regarding which acts are censurable under Rule 44 and which acts are not.
As it stands right now, the SREC is receiving censures from parties across the state and each of those censure resolutions will have to be reviewed in detail. Once those reviews are complete, the SREC will then have to let each county party know if their censures are acceptable or not for a Rule 44 Censure.
As you can imagine, this is going to create a logistical nightmare for the SREC who will have to review censures as they trickle in from every county across the state to determine if those censures are substantively and structurally accurate. When censures are rejected by the SREC for whatever reason, it will most certainly demoralize the parties that had their censure resolutions rejected.
This is a very important issue at a very crucial time for the Republican Party of Texas. If the SREC gets this wrong, it will damage the credibility of the party with Republican voters and erode the trust and confidence that the county parties have in the state party leadership. And that would be a disaster.