The chairman of the Texas Republican Party has filed an ethics complaint over the speaker’s race

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A Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives is demanding an investigation into the state party’s chairman, alleging that he illegally threatened and intimidated legislators who do not support the party’s chosen candidate for the position of speaker of the House of Representatives.

In a complaint filed with the Texas Ethics Commission on Wednesday, Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, alleges that Texas Republican Party Chairman Abraham George violated numerous ethics rules, including those related to bribery, by threatening to send letters or condemn the legislators who support Representative Dustin Burroughs for Speaker of the House.

Barrows, of Lubbock, and his main challenger in the race, Republican House Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, have been locked in an increasingly bitter feud. political confrontation since late last year, when a majority of House Republicans voted to support Cook’s nomination for speaker. That same day, Burroughs announced that he had enough bipartisan support in the 150-member House to win a majority and become speaker.

Burroughs’s defiance of House caucuses as he continued his campaign for Speaker with support from Democrats soon sparked a campaign of pressure from the Texas Republican Party. The party and George have since promised to send negative mailings about Burroughs supporters in their districts, and condemning any Republican who does not vote for Cook is a move that, according to the recently adopted charter of the partywould bar those lawmakers from primary voting for two years.

Harris recalled these two steps in his complaint. He argued that George’s threats to “spend money on the mail” constituted an “economic benefit” to a primary candidate who might run against Harris, and thus constituted a bribe. Harris also objected to the party’s new Rule 44, which was passed last year and bars Republican senators from appearing in primary elections for two years.

“While the constitutionality of the amended Rule 44 is questionable,” Harris wrote, “this rule, combined with respondent’s threatening rhetoric, constitutes a violation” of the bribery section of the Texas statutory code.

George criticized the complaint in a statement released by the party on Wednesday, accusing Harris of seeking to imprison George and calling it a “baseless complaint.”

“The delegates to the 2024 Texas Republican Convention have adopted our rules and legislative priorities, and I will continue to serve as a strong defender of our party and the rule of law,” George said.

Harris’ complaint is the latest sign of intense infighting among Republicans. For years, tensions have simmered between the party’s far right wing and its more moderate but still deeply conservative faction. The sharpness exploded total war after 2023 Attorney General Ken Paxton impeachment and acquittal by the Texas Senate and led to the ousting of dozens of House Republican incumbents by far-right challengers in the 2024 midterm elections.