House GOP Leadership Asks Embroiled Rep. Tony Gonzales to Drop Out
Gonzales finally admitted to the affair with the former staffer, who committed suicide last September.
House Republican leaders have urged Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) to drop out of his reelection bid after he admitted to having an affair with a staffer who later committed suicide.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (LA), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (MN), and House Republican Caucus Chair Lisa McClain (MI) said in a joint statement: “The Ethics Committee has announced an investigation into Congressman Tony Gonzales’s conduct, and we urge them to act expeditiously. Congressman Gonzales has said he will fully cooperate with the investigation. We have encouraged him to address these very serious allegations directly with his constituents and his colleagues. In the meantime, Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for re-election.”
Gonzales heads to a runoff on May 26 against Brandon Herrera for the Republican nomination to represent Texas’s 23rd Congressional District.
Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, Gonzales’s former regional director, died in September 2025 after she set herself on fire.
Gonzales avoided the controversy until the San Antonio Express-News reported text messages between Santos-Aviles and another staffer:
A former staffer in Gonzales’ district office who worked closely with the aide, Regina Ann “Regi” Santos-Aviles, said she told him they had an affair in 2024, and that she spiraled into a depression after her husband discovered the relationship and Gonzales abruptly cut her off. He also shared with the San Antonio Express-News a screenshot of a text message from Santos-Aviles in which she acknowledged having an “affair with our boss.”
The staffer, who asked not to be named, citing a fear of retaliation, faulted Gonzales’ office for failing to intervene, saying he warned the congressman’s district director months before Santos-Aviles’ death that he was concerned about her well-being. He described her as his “best friend” and said their families knew each other.
Gonzales finally admitted to the affair on Wednesday in an interview with Joe Pags: “I take full responsibility for those actions. Since then, I’ve reconciled with my wife, Angel. I’ve asked God to forgive me, which he has, and my faith is as strong as ever. When you make mistakes like this, you know it’s never easy. It humbles you, but it’s important to kind of work through it all.”
The House Ethics Committee also launched an investigation into Gonzales on Wednesday:
The panel said in a statement that it voted to establish an investigative subcommittee to examine whether Gonzales “violated the Code of Official Conduct or any law, rule, regulation, or other applicable standard of conduct in the performance of his duties or the discharge of his responsibilities, with respect to allegations that he may have: (1) engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his congressional office; and/or (2) discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”
The committee chose to start the investigation the day after the primary election because its rules prevents “certain actions within 60 days of a member’s election.”
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Lets go Brandon!
An AK for you… and you… and you and you.
7.62×39 reasons to vote in Nov
I strongly endorse Brandon Herrera. He’d be awesome in the house and a hot iron for 2A rights.
and now in 50 cal.
How does he know God has forgiven him?
He helped destroy this woman’s life
I say, may God have mercy on his soul
Well, if he’s a Christian, he probably does know that. But God also says you will likely have to undergo consequences in this world for your sin. Forgiveness does not wash those things away.
I am a Christian and I don’t believe you know God has forgiven you
It you will find out
He hasn’t done anything to earn God’s forgiveness. It’s not enough to ask. He lied about the affair then remained silent even after his staffer committed suicide. That indicates to me that he has performative religion and only brought this up after he got caught. His remaining in the race tells me he cares more about his money and Congressional perks than about his relationship with God.
The text exchanges between them were creepy AF. As sad as it is, she WAS a participant in this and could have smacked him back to the stone ages if she objected.
Her family and His family were not willing participants in it.
I said he “helped” destroy her life
Which he did
Hell yes, let’s go Brandon
How do you know? How can one ever know whether God has forgiven one? David never knew for sure, as he expressed in Psalm 51. “My sin is always before me.” He truly repented, but could never be sure that he was truly forgiven.
Some people have the same conversations with their God that Calvin has with Hobbes.
It would be great to get Brandon Herrera in Congress, but I wish it didn’t have to come about in this way.
Why not? At least nobody cheated him in.
Well, Gonzales will have.
I see nothing wrong with replacing a worthless loser with a much better man
When God sends you a guy in a boat, don’t hold out for a helicopter.
Why hasn’t Trump rescinded his endorsement of Gonzales? I think Brandon was on his way to defeating Gonzales after losing to him last time by 400 votes, this just seals it. I believe Johnson has offered Gonzales a deal. Drop out of the race, be removed from all committee assignments and serve out your term quietly or you will not be seated if you win.
If Gonzales wins beyond any doubt, then Johnson can’t not seat him. The House can only refuse to seat someone if it believes that he’s ineligible, or that he didn’t win. Not just because it doesn’t like him.
And there you have it. Gonzales has dropped out of the race as of late last night.
For Real This Time. Let’s Go Brandon!
BTW: he is serving out his term. Looks like Johnson and probably Trump leaned on him with the deal and he took it.
OK so every Congress person that has had an affair is gonna drop out?
Heh. Nancy Mace would like to see that happen, but her bill got nixed, fortunately.
No, just ones who are harming the party.
Iff one can believe the media…Gonzales doesn’t appear to be the kind of person who should be in Congress — that said, there are how many others like him are having affairs? There used to be a slush fund at one time to cover up those dalliances. The woman’s death is horrific and tragic which leads one to think that she may have had other emotional/mental problems in addition to having an affair. It is troubling that the suicide is so easily attributed to the end of the affair. No one will ever know the answer.
No, there wasn’t. There was and is a fund set aside from the House budget for settling lawsuits by all House employees for all sorts of reasons.
The House has thousands of employees, and any employer that large is inevitably going to have employee lawsuits over this, that, and the other. Anything from workplace accidents to alleged discrimination to, yes, sexual harassment. By anyone, including but far from limited to top management. The House is no different.
Some of the lawsuits settled out of that fund were for sexual harassment by Congressmen, but no one ever had any idea how much or how little of it went for that purpose. It was all pure speculation from the beginning to the end. And still is. But what’s certain is that those suits must be a small percentage of the total, just because with all the other cases that must inevitably be handled it’s impossible for that not to be the case.
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