Texas Republican U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales was censured on Saturday in a rare move by his state party over votes that supported, among other things, new gun safety laws following his district’s Uvalde school shooting.

The Texas Republican Party voted 57 to 5 with one abstention, highlighting how the two-term congressman’s willingness to break with conservatives on important issues during his short tenure has caused GOP activists and some colleagues in the get confused.

That independent streak also includes opposing a sweeping immigration proposal from the House GOP over the U.S.-Mexico border, which encompasses much of his South Texas district. He also voted to defend same-sex marriage and was an outright “no” to a house rule package after Republican leader Kevin McCarthy

(R-Bakersfield)

became speaker.

Gonzales was defiant before the vote and did not attend the meeting of Texas GOP leaders and activists in Austin.

Let’s see how that goes, he told reporters in San Antonio on Thursday.

Gonzales spent the day working, according to Sarah Young, his spokesperson.

He spoke with veterans, visited Border Patrol agents and met with voters, Young said in a statement. The Texas Republican Party would be wise to follow his example and do some real work.”

The vote followed a one-hour closed-door executive session in which party members were allowed to debate the resolution.

There were no public comments from members before or after the board meeting, and the vote took place about a minute after the meeting resumed, followed by applause and cheers from committee members.

In practice, a censorship allows the state party to get off the sidelines if Gonzales rejoins in 2024 and spend money reminding primary voters of the reprimand. According to committee chair Matt Rinaldi, passing a censure required a three-fifths majority, or 39 votes, from the Republican State Executive Committee.

More than a dozen provincial GOP clubs in Gonzales’ district had already passed local disapproval resolutions.

Gonzales swept through his GOP primaries and easily won re-election last year in his heavily Hispanic congressional district. He won for the first time in 2020 to fill an open seat left by Republican Will Hurd, who also balked at breaking with the GOP, and whose aides say he is now considering running for president.

The censure illustrates the inter-party fighting that continues to flare up in America’s largest red state, even as Republicans celebrate 20 years of full control of the Texas Legislature and every state office.

Last year, former Texas GOP Chairman Allen West resigned from his job to face a weak primary challenge against the Republican governor. Greg Abbott. The state party also censored a former moderate Texas House speaker in 2018 who opposed bathroom restrictions on transgender people.

After the Uvalde school shooting, which killed 19 students and two teachers, Gonzales supported a sweeping and bipartisan gun violence bill signed by President Biden. He is also the only Texan Republican in the state House or Congress to call for the resignation of the state’s police chief over law enforcement’s clumsy response to the attack.

_____ Miller reported from Oklahoma City.