Texas congressman faces censure over gun control support

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Texas has a reputation throughout the nation. They’re going to be pretty conservative on a lot of issues, particularly gun control.

Oh, there are areas that don’t meet that stereotype, of course. Austin, for example, is a notable exception.

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But for the most part, Texas is much of what you’d expect Texas to be.

Yet despite this fact, some lawmakers from the state have supported some legislation that isn’t sitting well with the folks back home.

The Republican Party of Texas is set to vote this weekend on whether to censure Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) over complaints that Gonzales has failed to uphold party values in Congress by voting with Democrats on issues like same-sex marriage and gun control.

The expected state party vote would follow a censure resolution approved earlier this month by the Medina County Republicans in south-central Texas that accuses Gonzales of acting in ways that are antithetical to the party’s value system.

The Medina County Republicans’s censure resolution also accuses Gonzales of failing to uphold party values by breaking with Texas Republicans in the House to vote against the new GOP majority’s rules package and by voting in favor of a bipartisan gun control package during the last Congress that was introduced after a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, which is in Gonzales’s district.

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Now, if this goes through, it could be a problem for Gonzales. It means the loss of financial support from the state party. It could also mean that Gonzales would be “discouraged” from running for re-election in 2025 with the party potentially and actively working against his campaign.

To be fair, gun control isn’t the only issue these folks have with the Texas Republican, but it’s the only one we’re going to talk about here.

Regardless of that, though, it’s clear that Gonzales isn’t making people at home very happy, and his support of gun control is part of it.

That’s especially true when you look at the bipartisan gun control measure and recognize that absolutely none of the gun control measures in it have anything to do with what happened at Robb Elementary School. Instead, it’s just a grab bag of whatever they could get.

Gonzales and his support weren’t likely what allowed the measure to pass, though, so let’s not get too carried away holding him responsible for it–I’m curious where the attempt to censure Sen. John Cornyn is, as a matter of fact, since he spearheaded the anti-gun effort–yet the fact is that he does appear to be taking positions contrary to what Republicans in Texas say they stand for.

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So he’s going to have to answer for that sooner or later. If the censure doesn’t do it, then it’s entirely possible the voters in Texas will have something to say next election cycle.

Gonzales backed gun control. He wasn’t the only Republican to do so, but every single one who did needs to be held to account for their misdeeds–and yes, that’s exactly what we’re talking about here, actual misdeeds. If it’s through censure, so be it. If not, well, there are other ways to do it.

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