Ohio GOP calls on Rep. Anthony Gonzalez to resign for impeaching ex-President Trump
COLUMBUS – The Ohio Republican Party’s leaders have called on Rep. Anthony Gonzalez to resign for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump, a stunning rebuke of one of their own.
On Friday, the party’s governing board called on Gonzalez, R-Rocky River, to resign in a divided vote. They also voted to censure Gonzalez and nine other members of Congress for “their votes to support the unconstitutional, politically motivated impeachment proceeding against President Donald J. Trump,” according to the resolution.
Gonzalez was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead. He is the third to be censured for the vote by his state party, following Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice.
none of the other 11 Ohio Republicans voted to impeach Trump.
That decision distanced Gonzalez from fellow Republicans in Ohio, where Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016 and 2020. He gained a primary challenger in former White House aide Max Miller, whom Trump endorsed.
Gonzalez also became an easy mark in the U.S. Senate race as candidates such as former state treasurer Josh Mandel and former GOP leader Jane Timken try to prove their Trump credentials.
Mandel has criticized Timken for not admonishing Gonzalez immediately after Trump’s impeachment.
“From day one, I have strongly supported efforts to censure and expel traitor Congressmen like Anthony Gonzalez who voted to impeach President Trump,” Mandel said in a statement.
Timken, in a Friday tweet, said she “fully agrees” with the censure. “The impeachment was a sham that betrayed the Constitution and went against Ohioans’ interests.”
Trump helped install Timken as leader of the Ohio Republican Party over Kasich’s pick Matt Borges. When Timken decided to run for U.S. Senate, the Ohio GOP selected former Trump Ohio campaign manager Bob Paduchik to replace her. Paduchik’s key pitch: Trump wants me to lead this party.
Ultimately, Friday’s vote was a test of allegiance for the state party’s leadership, which has increasingly become the party of Trump.
Paduchik said members of Congress have a right to vote how they choose, but “this committee also has a right to stand on principle and conviction as well.”
Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Matt Keyes called the votes “a small glimpse of the dysfunction and division” in the GOP.
“While GOP politicians are busy attacking one another to score cheap political points, Ohio Democrats are focused on listening to voters and fighting for their priorities,” he said in a statement.
Whom should Ohio GOP support?
The party initially planned to vote on censure, but Shannon Burns, president of the Strongsville GOP, offered a resolution to take the rebuke a step further. He called for the resignation of Gonzalez for betraying his constituents and holding a “hidden vendetta” against Trump.
Rep. Larry Householder, R-Glenford, who is accused of orchestrating a nearly $61 million bribery scheme to pass and defend a $1 billion nuclear bailout. Householder has pleaded not guilty. Borges was also charged in that case and has pleaded not guilty. Timken and other Republican officials called on him to resign from the Ohio House of Representatives. House Republicans removed Householder as their leader but have not expelled him from the chamber.