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The Texas GOP censured five members of the state House on Saturday, but stopped short of banning from from next year's primary ballot.
The State Republican Executive Committee considered ten potential censures against GOP lawmakers, ultimately rejecting half of them and declining to use the strictest penalty available under party rules: removal from the primary ballot.
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.
The five that were censured included former House Speaker Dade Phelan, who already said he was not running for another term next year.
Phelan had come under fire during the 2023 legislative session, which included the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was not removed from office.
At Saturday's meeting, Chairman Abraham George said, “Our legislative priorities are not written by some elites,” George told the committee. “They come from the greatest grassroots process in the world… our job is to listen to the grassroots from one convention until they tell us differently at the next convention.”