WASHINGTON, March 5 (Reuters) - Top Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives called on Representative Tony Gonzales on Thursday to drop his reelection bid, a day after a congressional ethics panel announced it would investigate allegations he had an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide.
"Leadership has asked Congressman Gonzales to withdraw from his race for reelection," said House Speaker Mike Johnson and three members of his leadership team, in a joint statement.
Gonzales
has agreed to cooperate fully with the House Ethics Committee probe into what they described as "very serious allegations," said the group statement, co-signed by Majority Leader Steve Scalise, No. 3 Republican Tom Emmer and House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain.
Gonzales' office was not immediately available for comment.
The Texas Republican, who has acknowledged a "mistake" and "lapse in judgment," is also facing possible legislative action from fellow Republican Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, who filed two measures on Wednesday to censure him and strip him of his committee assignments.
Leadership's statement comes two days after the 45-year-old three-term congressman was forced into a primary runoff in May against Republican challenger Brandon Herrera, a gun rights advocate endorsed by the hardline House Freedom Caucus.
The ethics committee said on Wednesday that it would investigate Gonzales to determine whether he "engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employee in his congressional office and/or discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges."
Several other House Republicans have called for Gonzales to resign or drop out of the campaign after the San Antonio Express-News published explicit text messages from him to his then-staff member Regina Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide last September.
Gonzales trailed Herrera by less than 1,000 votes after Tuesday's primary, with neither candidate receiving the 50% needed to avoid a runoff. He defeated Herrera, a YouTube influencer known as "the AK Guy," in the 2024 primary by only a few hundred votes.
(Reporting by David Morgan and Daphne Psaledakis)
