Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, said on Wednesday that she had filed a formal censure of Representative Tony Gonzales, the Texas Republican who is fighting to hold onto his seat amid allegations of having coerced a staff member into a sexual relationship.
The move came a day after the scandal helped force Mr. Gonzales into a runoff in his re-election race, and as the House Ethics Committee announced it was opening an investigation into his conduct.
“I hate to be the bad guy, but I think this is fighting for common decency,” Ms. Luna said as she left the House floor, describing herself as on the “warpath” and noting that she had reviewed fresh evidence that Mr. Gonzales had used his power to force a relationship upon an aide, who later died after setting herself on fire. Her death was ruled a suicide.
“I will just tell you that there’s a lot there,” Ms. Luna said, adding that she had no doubt the censure would have the votes to pass on the House floor.
The aggressive move from a woman in his own party came a day after Mr. Gonzales struggled to defeat Brandon Herrera, a hard-line conservative, YouTuber and gun rights activist known as the AK Guy, in his Republican primary. Speaker Mike Johnson and President Trump had stood by Mr. Gonzales, with the president offering him his “Complete and Total Endorsement.”
Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Herrera will now head to a runoff in May.
Mr. Gonzales has so far refused to comment on the affair allegations, though he has said he was the victim of blackmail attempts.
But on Wednesday, Republican women were eager to see some immediate retribution over behavior they described as appalling and inexcusable.
Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, had also been planning to file a formal rebuke of Mr. Gonzales, before Ms. Luna beat her to it.
“I’m on the warpath with her,” Ms. Mace said, noting that she would support her colleague’s censure if that was faster than doing her own.
Censure was once a rare form of congressional punishment — a public reprimand just short of expulsion that had been used against members only after a criminal conviction or finding of wrongdoing. In 2010, when Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, was censured after being found guilty of several ethics violations, it was the first time that any lawmaker had faced censure in nearly three decades.
Times have changed.
In recent years, censure has become a weapon that members routinely wield against a lawmaker in another party, often to condemn their speech. Since 2021, five House lawmakers have been censured and several more have faced censure attempts that failed.
Still, it is rare for a lawmaker to move to formally censure someone in his or her own party. And it is even rarer for multiple members of the same party to be clamoring to be the first to file a censure resolution against a colleague.
On Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee said it was launching its own investigation into whether Mr. Gonzales had “engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his congressional office,” and whether he had “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”
But for some Republican women, the inquiry fell far short.
Ms. Mace, who often notes that she is a survivor of sexual assault and rape, was one of three MAGA women who broke with her party and with Mr. Trump to force the Justice Department to release files related to its investigation into the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Ms. Luna was not among them.
But once again, in the case of Mr. Gonzales, it has been a group of hard-right women that has been most vocal in agitating for punitive action for conduct that was once routinely tolerated or kept under wraps in the male-dominated realm of Congress.
Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, was the first House Republican to call for Mr. Gonzales’s resignation last week, after the revelation of text messages in which Mr. Gonzales appeared to pressure the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, to send him explicit photographs. In the conversation, he also asked her to list her favorite sex positions, and inquired whether she enjoyed anal sex, while she told him he was taking the conversation “too far.”
Representative Brandon Gill, Republican of Texas, has also said that Mr. Gonzales should end his re-election campaign over the allegations.
Ms. Mace also on Wednesday forced a floor vote on a resolution to expose lawmakers accused of sexual harassment, directing the House Ethics Committee, which typically operates behind closed doors and says little about its findings, to release to the public allegations and violations of sexual harassment.
Ahead of the vote, the top Democrat and top Republican on the ethics panel a issued a statement opposing the move, arguing that forced disclosures “could chill victim cooperation and witness participation in ongoing and future investigations.”
The resolution on Wednesday was kicked back to committee, a move Ms. Mace said was a way for the establishment to protect itself.
“Both parties colluded today to protect predators,” she said.
Ms. Luna said it was “disgusting how this institution protects itself.”
She added: “We just had a member of Congress literally sexual harass a woman who then lit herself on fire, and you guys all protected him.”
Michael Gold contributed reporting.
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times.
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