Harris Censure Resolution Includes Offenses
for White Lights on Bills that the Senate Killed
Capitol Inside
July 28, 2025
The governing board for the Navarro County GOP has given powerful Palestine State Rep. Cody Harris several weeks to squirm before a final vote in a move to censure him under the Texas party's Rule 44 in a 13-count resolution that's loaded with the potential to backfire in ways the activists who hatched it may not anticipate.
The local Republican Party party in the county that's anchored by Corsicana set a final reckoning for Harris on August 21 after the resolution emerged from the executive committee exactly one month earlier with two-thirds support from the members who were present and a majority of the precinct chairs who were there. The Henderson County GOP voted to censure the Palestine Republican last month in a resolution with some of the same party platform violations.
The activists in Navarro County accused Harris of breaking ranks with the party with his support for Speaker Dustin Burrows over the GOP Caucus nominee in the leadership election on opening day of the regular session in January. The Republicans in Navarro listed Harris' vote to cut off debate on the House rules as the second transgression. The resolution condemned Harris for votes for a $300 million film incentives measure, a record state budget and a campaign finance proposal that former Speaker Dade Phelan sponsored and passed in the House. The list of allegations in the quest for discipline under Rule 44 includes a bullet point that calls Harris out for being recorded as absent on a bill to repeal the state's unconstitutional ban on homosexual conduct.
But the Navarro County GOP board ventured into perilous waters with eight separate charges that revolve on votes that Harris cast when he was recorded as "present, not voting" while stepping in for Burrows in the dais. The House member in the chair rarely votes on legislation. Harris was one of two Republican representatives who replaced Burrows most often when the speaker left the stage while the House was in session.
But Harris' white-light votes from the chair did not stop or slow the progress of the bills in question that all cleared the House in the regular session. And six of those measures died in the Senate without hearings or votes.
Based on the Navarro party executive board's reasoning in the case of Harris, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick would appear to be more vulnerable than Harris to possible punishment from the party as the lawmaker who allowed the eight bills in question to fail without committee assignments or action by panels that he controls.
The activists in Navarro point out in the four-page censure treatise that they only needed three offenses to take action against the East Texan. The resolution lists a range of possible punishment from the suspension of neutrality in the next Harris campaign or an actual ban from the primary ballot under the platform provision in a move that would be unprecedented and may have little chance to survive in a court challenge.
But Harris' votes were insignificant on the outcomes on the eight measures from which he abstained while filling in for the speaker. Six of those same bills found their graves in the chamber that Patrick rules and micromanages in a way that makes the buck always stop with him. But there have been no calls among the activists for retaliation against the Texas Senate president for allowing those bills to die solely from neglect.
The Navarro County GOP resolution's list of offenses include Harris ' white-light vote from the chair on House Bill 1696 - a measure that would have created handgun license designations on drivers licenses for Texans who requested it. Harris was registered as present, not voting on HB 1696 on third-reading when he was in the chair. But Harris supported HB 1696 on the second-reading vote for tentative approval the day before it cleared the lower chamber.
The activists portrayed HB 1696 as a Second Amendment protection priority in the Harris censure resolution. But Patrick did not see it that way across the rotunda where it was bottled up without action in the Senate Transportation Committee after sailing through the House.
The Navarro resolution does not mention that GOP State Rep. David Lowe of Fort Worth was recorded as present, not voting on HB 1696 on second-reading when Harris voted aye. Lowe, a freshman lawmaker, has been considered one of the Legislature's most conservative member since he made his House debut in January. Lowe has escaped the party's wrath as well.
Harris has had a storm relationship with the state Republican Party since he clashed with the chairman Abraham George over the speaker's battle before Burrows' election. The Texas GOP claimed on Facebook that Harris was trying to have George jailed for his position on the leadership fight.
more to come ...
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