As I wrote in my last column, Texas’s reputation for being a beacon of conservatism is very much contrived and completely undeserved. I would add that it’s fading fast, thanks in part to the actions of three Texas Republicans in Congress.
Reps. Kay Granger, Tony Gonzales, and Jake Ellzey joined more than 20 other Republicans in opposing Ohio’s Jim Jordan for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives before Mike Johnson of Louisiana was finally elected to the position this week. Popular among conservatives for his hardline views and confrontational tactics, Jordan was unable to unite Republicans around his leadership, and he was booted as the nominee after three rounds of voting.
The Republican opposition to Jordan elicited a flood of calls to the 25 holdouts’ offices from constituents and activists across the country, but all three Texas members of the anti-Jordan contingent were relatively muted on their reasons for refusing to back him until he was removed as the the GOP’s nominee for speaker.
Interestingly, each of them is a member of the House Appropriations committee. As experts at spending other people’s money, it’s understandable they wouldn’t look too kindly on Jordan’s history of pushing for cuts to federal spending using the threat of a government shutdown as a negotiating tactic.
Gonzales did not make any statements regarding his vote against Jordan, but he was a vocal advocate for Steve Scalise after McCarthy was ousted as speaker, and he congratulated Johnson after he was elected to the role. Since being elected in 2020 to represent San Antonio and a large swath of Southwest Texas, Gonzales has shown he’s not unwilling to buck Republican priorities. Earlier this year, he was censured by the Republican Party of Texas for voting with Democrats on a host of issues, including:
- Supporting the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act, which codified the 2015 Supreme Court decision that forced same-sex marriage on the entire country.
- Being the only Republican to vote against the rules package negotiated between Kevin McCarthy and the GOP members who opposed him for the job of speaker until they extracted enough concessions from him.
- Not supporting fellow Texas Republican Chip Roy’s bill that would prohibit the release of illegal immigrants seeking asylum until their cases can be adjudicated. He publicly derided Roy’s bill as “anti-American” and “not Christian.”
- Voting for the sweeping gun control bill (which Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas took a lead role in negotiating) passed in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, TX last year.
Gonzales has also worked with Democrat-turned-independent Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema on immigration reform (read: amnesty) legislation, but that wasn’t mentioned in the censure resolution.
A retired master chief petty officer, the highest enlisted rank in the U.S. Navy, Gonzales has said “I don’t take any sh*t from anybody.”
Judging from the reactions to his Twitter/X posts expressing his support for Scalise and later Johnson, his constituents might make him eat those words.
Gonzalez surprised some observers by winning the seat vacated in 2020 by liberal Republican Will Hurd—who laughably tried to run for president this summer before dropping out and endorsing Nikki Haley—defeating his Democrat opponent 50.6% to 46.6%. However, during the same election, voters in the majority-Hispanic district backed Trump over Biden 53.0% to 45.7%.
Three Republican candidates have already jumped into the race to challenge Gonzales for his seat. Gonzales’s Heritage Action lifetime legislator score is 90%, and his district is rated R+5 by the Cook Partisan Voting Index.
Like Gonzales, Granger kept fairly quiet about her reasons for opposing Jordan.
The glaring exception was a post on Twitter/X in which she stated she was backing Scalise (who voted for Jordan each time he was nominated for speaker) because he “is an honorable man,” adding she would not be deterred by “intimidation and threats.”
Steve Scalise is an honorable man and has earned my vote for Speaker. This was a vote of conscience and I stayed true to my principles. Intimidation and threats will not change my position.
— Rep. Kay Granger (@RepKayGranger) October 18, 2023
Her statement echoed those of other Jordan detractors, who characterized him as a “bully” and claimed they received death threats from his supporters.
I’m sure a few people left messages saying things they shouldn’t have, but in case you haven’t noticed, politicians have a propensity for stretching the truth.
In response to Granger’s aforementioned post, Texas-based Newsmax TV host Chris Salcedo admonished her to “take your focus off feathering your nest and serve your voters.”
Yes Kay…YOUR principles…such as they are…YOUR worldview…Sadly, it's not the view of a majority of your VOTERS. Remember them? With the Dems running wild, you should take your focus off feathering your nest and serve your voters. Real politicians of conscience do that!
— The Chris Salcedo Show (@CSalcedoShow) October 18, 2023
At 80 years old, Granger is the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and has represented Fort Worth since 1997. Her district is home to defense contractor Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and she has consistently voted in favor of aid for Ukraine.
Granger’s Heritage Action lifetime legislator score is 68%, and her district is rated R+12 by the Cook PVI.
She supported the “right” to an abortion when she was first elected, but she was one of more than 200 congressional Republicans to sign a 2020 amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In 2015, she said Trump “definitely should not be considered to speak for our nation as our president,” and she urged him to drop out of the race after the Access Hollywood recording was leaked just weeks before the election. However, Trump endorsed Granger in 2020 over a conservative challenger whose spokesman criticized her for “recklessly vot[ing] for out-of-control deficit spending, backroom bloated budget deals, and debt limit increases.”
Granger is responsible for securing over $400 million in federal funding for a flood control and economic development project called Panther Island in downtown Fort Worth. Between 2006 and 2022, her son, J.D. Granger, managed the project as executive director of the Trinity River Vision Authority.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
So far, there are two candidates challenging Granger for her seat in next year’s Republican primary.
Jake Ellzey was the biggest surprise of the three holdouts, as he represents a solidly Republican district south of DFW and has generally kept his head down since winning the seat in a 2021 special election to replace the deceased Rep. Ron Wright.
A retired Navy helicopter and fighter pilot, Ellzey came in second to Wright’s wife Susan in a 23-candidate jungle election held on May 1, 2021, narrowly edging out one of the ten Democrats in the field. In a runoff election nearly three months later, he defeated Wright with 53.3% of the vote, overcoming Trump’s endorsement for his opponent by appealing to Democrats.
Interestingly, Ellzey lost to Ron Wright in the Republican primary to represent Texas’s 6th congressional district in 2018.
Ellzey was tight-lipped about his opposition to Jordan until he was no longer the GOP nominee for speaker. On Monday of this past week, he spoke with local radio talk show host Mark Davis about his reasons for refusing to back the former wrestling coach and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
Ellzey told Davis “it’s important to get the right man, not a man right now,” saying he doesn’t think Jordan has the leadership qualifications to be speaker of the House.
When pressed on what qualifications he was looking at, Ellzey said the speaker’s most important responsibilities are to “take care of your people” and to “broaden that majority,” which requires “a background in teamwork, leadership, legislative accomplishment, effective governing, and unfortunately but necessarily, outstanding fundraising capabilities.”
Ellzey said he “didn’t see that sustained superior performance in Jordan.”
I guess having the right convictions and being willing to fight for them don’t count for much to some people.
In addition, Ellzey complained that Jordan “violated his own doctrine” by going to the House floor for a vote when it was apparent he didn’t have the required support to become the speaker. Ellzey claimed Jordan previously urged Scalise to remove his name from consideration after becoming the nominee when a number of Republican members expressed they wouldn’t vote for him.
Ellzey insisted that none of the GOP members who opposed Jordan spoke to each other about their votes, and he said if only five or six members had not supported him in the first round of voting, he would not have blocked Jordan from being elected speaker in the subsequent rounds.
He suggested Jordan wanted a floor vote to “smoke people like us out.”
Ellzey acknowledged he would “pay the price in some way, shape, or form down the road as determined by the voters of the district,” but he said he was “doing what I believe is right.”
Those voters certainly let him know how they feel, as Ellzey reported around 300 people from the district called his office. He tried to downplay that number as “not that many,” but from my own experience as an intern for a U.S. senator and a staffer for a state representative, 300 calls about an issue in the course of a week is a lot.
Ellzey’s Heritage Action lifetime legislator score is 87%. His district is rated R+15 by the Cook PVI and backed Trump over Biden by 23.9% in 2020.
Three candidates have announced they are challenging Ellzey in next year’s Republican primary.
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