East Texas State Reps facing censure from Republican Party
Posted/updated on: October 1, 2025 at 3:42 pm
TYLER – The Republican Party of Texas is currently threatening to censure East Texas State Representatives Cody Harris of Palestine and Gary VanDeaver of New Boston, because of some of their votes this year. Republican Party of Texas Rule 44 allows county Republican Party executive committees to adopt resolutions censuring their representatives. According to our news partner KETK, since Harris and VanDeaver have both been censured by local county Republican Parties, the state party is now taking up their own versions of the county party censure resolutions.
Harris and VanDeaver are just two of ten Texas State Representatives who are facing censure resolutions from the Republican Party of Texas. The resolutions each list several actions that the representatives made that are “in opposition to the core principles of the Republican Party of Texas.”
The members are being encouraged to attend an Oct. 11 meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee, which will decide whether or not they’ll agree with the county censure resolutions and whether they’ll issue any penalties.
Henderson County Republican Party vice chair and parliamentarian Clint Stutts spoke to our news partner KETK News about their June 30 resolution to censure Harris.
Stutts explained that one of their priorities for this year was to have no Democratic chairs on state house committees. According to Stutts, Harris violated that priority by voting for State Rep. Dustin Burrows to be Speaker of the House and by voting to close debate on the 2025 House Rules in HR 4.
The censure resolution also lists the following votes Harris on legislation that the Henderson County Party disagreed with:
“Voting in favor of HB 34, a bill allowing state investments in foreign entities.”
“Voting in favor of HB 366, a bill regulating AI-generated political memes.”
“Voting in favor of an amendment #4 to SB 17, an amendment that undermined efforts to eliminate foreign entities from purchasing Texas land.”
“Voting in favor of SB 22, a bill that allocates up to $2.5 billion to Texas film and television production incentives.”
“Voting in favor of SB 1, a bill that expanded state spending by over 40%.”
“Voting in favor of amendment #4 to SB 3070, an amendment that preserved and restructured the Texas Lottery Commission rather than allowing it to sunset.”
“If you view it as like a football team, you don’t want your quarterback to throw the ball to a receiver and have that receiver go the wrong way,” Stutts said. “So when we see that happen on the field a lot it’s bothersome. We have to have our teammates going in the right direction. We have to be in unison on these few things and that’s all we’re asking for. It’s a low bar. We’re asking you to either support or do no harm. So catch the ball or drop the ball and down it or something.”
KETK News spoke with VanDeaver about the censure resolutions that the Red River County, Lamar County and Morris County Republican parties have passed against him.
“I think it’s unfortunate. I think it’s absolutely not good for the Republican Party and as I said when we should be focused on on solving real problems, we’re dealing with this kind of thing,” VanDeaver said. “It’s just unfortunate, but that’s where we are, and we’ll deal with it.”
The censure resolution for VanDeaver that the State Republican Executive Committee will vote on in their Oct. 11 meeting lists the following votes and actions in contention:
“VanDeaver did not vote for the elected Republican Caucus nominee David Cook for Speaker of the Texas House, but instead voted for Representative Dustin Burrows.”
“VanDeaver voted in favor of the Previous Question motion, enabling the so-called ‘nuclear option,’ wherein debate was cut off to exclude Republican perfecting amendments to the Rules of the 89th House Legislative Session.”
“The last action on HB 1304 was a referral to the House Public Health Committee, through which Committee Chairman VanDeaver ended the bill’s progress.”
“VanDeaver voted in favor of HB 805 (relating to a study by the Public Utility Commission of Texas on the interconnection of electric transmission service facilities with the United Mexican States.”
“VanDeaver voted in favor of HB 366, a bill that ‘creates a criminal offense on certain political advertising that contains altered media’.”
“VanDeaver voted in favor of HB 1359 (relating to the creation of a program to provide income-based assistance for certain retail electric customers).”
VanDeaver defended his record by pointing out that they had a very conservative session this year since the State Legislature was able to take action on 41 Republican priorities.
“We had a very conservative session, of the 41 Republican priorities that were taken up in some form in bills I voted 100% for those. It’s unfortunate that we’re held to a standard of you’re either 100% or you’re zero and that seems to be where we are right now with the state party,” VanDeaver said. “I stand by my record, I stand by the votes I took. I don’t think anyone could argue that we did not have a good strong conservative session and so again, I stand behind my record.”
On the local county parties who voted to censure him, VanDeaver said he believes there’s a disconnect between the county parties and the local Republican voters.
“There’s a difference between talking to the local county Republican committee and talking to my constituents who consider themselves Republicans,” VanDeaver said. “Most of my constituents couldn’t tell you who the Republican Committee is made up of and so, there’s a difference there and I believe a real disconnect. I think that’s what we’re seeing here is, the disconnect between the local county executive committee and the actual people in the county who consider themselves to be Republican.”
If the State Republican Executive Committee decides to, VanDeaver and Harris could face three penalties related to their censure. The penalties include:
The Republican Party of Texas spending up to 12% of it’s budget running campaign materials against Harris and VanDeaver in Republican primaries.
Officially discouraging them from participating in any Republican primary elections.
Directing the State Chairman and any county chairmen to not accept their applications to run in a Republican primary for 2 years.
VanDeaver said he doesn’t plan on attending the Oct. 11 meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee as he had prior commitments.
“I have a lot going on in the district,” VanDeaver said. “I’m trying to take care of my constituents.”
