Texas GOP Wants the President to Back Off
Endorsements He Vowed for Voucher Votes
Capitol Inside
June 30, 2025
The Texas Republican Party's governing board sought to alleviate growing paranoia in its ranks this month with a vote urging President Donald Trump to keep his powder dry for now on endorsements for state lawmakers who he's promised to support in the primary election in March.
The State Republican Executive Committee agreed to pursue the closing of the primary in 2026 to registered GOP voters at a meeting on June 14 when it also adopted a resolution that critics of the state party's current leadership portrayed as an attempt to strong arm the American president.
The resolution that the SREC approved in a vote of 54-10 implored Trump to hold off from endorsing Texas Republican legislators who he vowed to support if they backed a school vouchers bill during the regular session that ended earlier this month.
The SREC wants the president to wait until after local party organizations have an opportunity to censure House Republicans who spurned the party caucus nominee for the chamber's top leadership post in January and supported the eventual winner - Speaker Dustin Burrows - instead. The resolution calls on Trump to "withhold his endorsement of Texas Officeholders" until the filing deadline for primary candidates on November 8 has expired.
"This move by Texas Republican party bosses has been viewed as a declaration of war against President Trump by some grassroots leaders and supporters of the President," longtime GOP activist Mark McCaig said in an email on Monday.
The resolution revolves on the so-called Rule No. 44 - state party platform provision that gives county parties the green light to take punitive actions against lawmakers who take three or more positions that are deemed to be violations of "core principles" that are spelled out in the document's preamble.
Censures give the party the ability to oppose the re-election campaigns for elected officials who've been targeted and to cut off potential funding for their races. A censure was little more than a glorified slap on the wrist until delegates at the 2024 state convention in San Antonio expanded Rule 44 to give local parties the ability to deny applications for spots on the primary election ballot for any legislators who've been censured under it during their current terms.
The prevailing sentiment up to now has been that such a move would be thrown out by the courts as an unconstitutional affront to democracy in the Lone Star State.
The resolution that's aimed at Trump is loaded with the potential to backfire as an attempt to get the president to back off a promise that he made to House Republicans during the spring right before a vote on a school vouchers bill that cleared the lower chamber for the first time en route to Governor Greg Abbott's desk.
All but two GOP members - State Rep. Gary VanDeaver of New Boston and former Speaker Dade Phelan of Beaumont - voted for the school choice measure including a half-dozen colleagues who'd teamed up with Democrats to kill it in a special session in late 2023.
The SREC resolution could make a liar out of the president if he declines to give official endorsements to all of the Republican lawmakers who are seeking new terms after backing the vouchers bill in regular session this year.
Texas GOP Chairman Abraham George has appeared to be focused more on the move to restrict voting in the 2026 primary election to Texans who have certified that they're Republicans by registering for the first time with the party in exchange for the right to cast ballots in the primary and runoff elections next year.
George, the state party chair for the past 13 months, came up with an analogy in defense of the push for a closed primary vote.
"Open primaries are like letting Eagles players choose the Cowboys’ quarterback — it makes no sense," George said on Instagram and X on June 18. "So why on earth would Republicans let Democrats decide who represents us on the November ballot? This is our team, our values, our future. Let Republicans pick Republican nominees — period."
more to come ...
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