Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is making his first fundraising trip since passing Ukraine aid over the objections of the majority of his party, traveling to Texas to campaign for one of House conservatives’ biggest nemeses.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), days after joining Democrats in promising to save Johnson’s job, will host Johnson for a series of fundraising events on Tuesday. The events are expected to rake in around $300,000 for Gonzales’s reelection bid.
Gonzales has played a significant role in House Republicans’ leftward swing, undermining conservatives and, at times, the House Republican Conference agenda despite Republicans ostensibly holding the majority.
In October 2023, Gonzales was one of 25 intransigent Republicans who blocked popular conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) from becoming speaker. Jordan had won the House Republican Conference’s nomination, but the 25 Republicans blocking their conference’s nominee on the House floor prolonged the House’s gridlock and enabled Johnson eventually to win the gavel.
RELATED — Kevin McCarthy: Jim Jordan No Longer Nominee for Speaker of the House After Vote
Johnson later broke common practice and granted clemency to the 25 who voted to block Jordan, as Breitbart News reported:
Technically, there is no formal rule in the House GOP conference requiring members to vote for the conference nominee for Speaker on the floor. However, doing so usually leads to actual and real consequences for members. When conservatives did it to former Speakers John Boehner or Paul Ryan, for instance, there were real consequences — members who did so did not get golden treatment, such as service on what are known as “A Committees” like Appropriations, Armed Services, or Ways and Means, never mind getting the gavels to chair those committees.
Johnson’s rush to aid Gonzales comes after the Texan has consistently clashed with his party on major policy issues, particularly border security.
The pro-migration Gonzales, who said the inflow “needs to be where anybody who wants to come and work can do so,” opposes Republicans’ marquee achievement on the border, H.R. 2, the strongest border security bill ever passed by a chamber of Congress.
Gonzales’s opposition to the Republican border security plans kneecapped then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who attempted to extract concessions from the Biden administration in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Gonzales called Republicans’ plan “unchristian” and “anti-immigrant.”
The debt ceiling deal McCarthy managed to broker later contributed to his downfall.
Gonzales seems to be more simpatico with Johnson on the issue of border security.
“I speak with Speaker Johnson literally weekly on this topic,” Gonzales told CNN in January while advocating for the Senate’s then-ongoing negotiations pairing a pro-migration immigration bill with tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid. “It was the first conversation we had when he was running for speaker.”
To tout his supposed bona fides on the border, Gonzales has loudly called for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. While the House eventually impeached Mayorkas, his impeachment predictably died in the Senate, and the Biden administration has continued unabated without the “anti-immigrant” provisions forced upon it that Gonzales opposes.
His voting record has caused widespread anger in his home state. In March, the Texas GOP’s Republican Executive Committee voted 57-5 to censure Gonzales “for lack of fidelity to Republican principals and priorities.”
The censure resolution followed Gonzales’s votes on a gun control package of bills limiting Second Amendment access and funding red flag laws and legislation to enshrine federal protection for same-sex marriages.
Gonzales, a CNN regular, took to the leftwing network on Sunday to support Johnson and make unsubstantiated claims about Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Bob Good (R-VA), who have endorsed Gonzales’s primary opponent, Second Amendment activist Brandon Herrera.
“Look, the House is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is gonna be just fine,” Gonzales said, calling Gaetz and Good “scumbags.”
He continued, “These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they’re walking around with white hoods in the daytime. Look, it didn’t surprise me that some of these folks voted against aid to Israel.”
While Good and Gaetz opposed Saturday’s vote for Israel aid, each voted in November on a House-passed bill that provided funding for Israel that was paid for. Saturday’s vote, which, as Breitbart News has reported, was part of a Johnson scheme to exploit the urgency of aiding Israel to unlock tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars in Ukraine aid, was not paid for.
Gonzales voted for Johnson’s package, which allowed for votes on several Biden priorities. The rule to allow a vote on the package was supported by more Democrats than Republicans.
Gonzales will face Herrera in a primary runoff on May 28 after failing to secure 50 percent of the vote in the primary.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.