Texas Republicans In TOTAL Chaos, Censure FIVE Of Their Own

The far-right eats its own as the SREC censures five lawmakers, including the former Speaker.

Right now, we have the Texas military deployed on the streets of Chicago over the objections of the representatives of Illinois. Collectively, I think we’re under-reacting about this.

But at this very moment, if there’s nothing we can do, then there’s nothing better to take our mind off of it than our favorite blood sport. Republicans stabbing each other in the back.

Today, the Republican Party of Texas’ Executive Committee (SREC) met and decided that the following Republicans deserved to be censured:

• Gary VanDeaver (HD01)

• Angelina Orr (HD13)

• Dade Phelan (HD21)

• Stan Lambert (HD71)

• Jared Patterson (HD106)

Stan Lambert and Dade Phelan have both already announced their retirements, so I’m not sure they care. But it was about revenge at the end of the day. I watched the Republican Censure Meeting, so you don’t have to, and I got all the juicy deets.

It all started with an opening speech by RPT Chairman Abraham George.

Some of my favorite lines from his speech included:

• “We never shut out the minority” (and then minutes later talks about their push to close primaries and censure internal dissenters.)

• We spent about close to $50,000 against the Speaker as a party.” (It was a Republican speaker, lol.)

• “Follow procedures… so we can defend ourselves in court”

It’s so funny because the difference between a serious Democratic meeting and a Republican meeting is like night and day.

And that becomes really clear when the RPT lawyer, Rachel Hooper, lays out the case for censuring, using multiple Twitter screenshots as evidence.

Hooper called Pacton’s impeachment a “sham” and talked about how the RPT changed its rules after that. It really was a good reminder of how propagandized these people are. Anyone who saw the impeachment proceedings, which included the majority of House Republicans voting to impeach him, knows that Paxton was as guilty as a fox in a hen house. But they all read the Texas Scorecard and other iterations of Tim Dunn’s pink slime media.

She also pointed out that VanDeaver and Phelan didn’t vote for vouchers, yet they aren’t being censured for that. Instead, they’re being censured for not earning Trump’s endorsement. All of the Republicans who voted for vouchers got an endorsement from Trump. And you know, in the Republican world, that’s the only thing that matters.

When she talks about how they’ll be voting on whether to ban Republicans from the ballot, she calls it the “death penalty” and compares it to killing children.

In Rachel Hooper’s opinion, way more Republicans should have been censured. So many targets, so little time.

One of the reasons they censored Dade Phelan was for passing HB366, which was the bill that punished people for making ads with altered media (deepfakes). The Republican Party is totally for election integrity… unless it’s deepfakes. Because how else do they drive fear in the heart of their boomer base?

Several Republicans also took a penalty for voting for Ray Lopez’s (D) guest worker bill… You know, “Immigration the right way.” This only further shows it was never about documentation status to begin with.

They put penalization points on Republicans who voted in favor of the electric assistance bill. This is the modern Texas GOP in a nutshell, so allergic to helping poor and working people that they’ll punish their own members for supporting relief on a basic necessity. Keeping the lights on isn’t “woke.”

Then they got to the debate.

These are always my favorite parts of the Republican meetings because the best and brightest 😜 Republicans each take turns at the mic, sharing their thoughts and opinions. Not only do I get to learn a lot about what’s happening in those meetings, but I also gain valuable insights into the Republican Party of Texas itself. Like, did you know, some Republicans think Trump got SIX BILLION votes. Probably, they heard that on Fox News.

Other Republicans whom they talked about censuring, but ultimately didn’t:

• Cody Harris (HD08)

• Jeff Leach (HD67)

• Dustin Burrows (HD83)

• Morgan Meyers (HD108)

• Angie Chen Button (HD112)

Ultimately, the reason they decided against censuring Speaker Dustin Burrows is that they expect Republicans to remain in control of the Texas House next year, and they expect Speaker Burrows to be the Speaker again. If they censured Burrows and he became Speaker again, it would burn the bridge between him and the Republican Party, which is ultimately why they voted against it.

During the debate, Abraham George told the SREC that the White House was watching the meeting.

There was considerable concern over censuring Cody Harris, as it might backfire on them in court. They discussed in detail the lawsuits that would “kick their ass” if they censured Harris over the proposed infringements, which included voting for the wrong Speaker and for the wrong bills.

They also discussed the risk of lawsuits regarding Stan Lambert, but decided that his retirement was enough of a risk to make that choice. Although one member did bring up that Lambert could come out of retirement to sue them. Of course, Republicans would think that way, spiteful and vengeful, so of course, everyone else must be too.

I was shocked that they actually went through with censuring Angelia Orr, since she was the author of the “Pee Pee Police” bill, you know, the new law that says you have to only pee in the toilets that match your gender at birth. How do they plan on enforcing that? I’m sure they’ll come up with something sick and demented by the next legislative session.

Another thing that I thought was interesting that came up again and again was how often Mitch Little’s name was brought up as someone who was not being censured for voting for the same things that the people being censured voted for.

From the debate over censuring Jared Patterson, my biggest takeaway was that all the Republicans hate Jared Patterson. Which is funny, because all the Democrats hate him, too. I wonder how he keeps getting elected?

In the end, the whole spectacle was about petty vendettas, purity tests, and performative cruelty toward working people.

Republicans love to say “the grassroots spoke,” but today “the grassroots” meant five precinct chairs here, a Signal chat there, and a lawyer insisting the party keep the “death penalty” sharp even if it gets laughed out of court. The same crew wrung their hands about lawsuits and the White House watching while admitting they couldn’t censure the next likely Speaker because they need him later.

And for all the chest-thumping about election integrity and border toughness, their big wins were punishing colleagues for voting to help people keep the lights on and for trying to stop AI-driven disinformation. Cruelty is the point, and confusion is the plan.

While Texas deploys troops to another state and the House GOP turns its knives inward, everyday Texans are stuck paying higher bills and getting less honest government. If Democrats are smart, they’ll clip these debates for every district, remind voters who fought to ban deepfakes and lower bills, and who punished them for it, and then offer something wildly radical in 2025… competence.

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