Conservative Loyalists Demand Tony Gonzales Resign After Bombshell Texts With Dead Staffer Surface

Democrats lost Katie Hill in 2019 the moment her affair with a staffer became public – Nancy Pelosi accepted her resignation within days and called her conduct "untenable."

Now Republicans are watching their own version of that story unfold six days before a Texas primary – and the congressman at the center of it is refusing to go anywhere.

The text messages are explicit, the staffer is dead, and five GOP colleagues plus a former House Speaker are all saying the same thing: Tony Gonzales needs to resign immediately.

Tony Gonzales Text Messages to Regina Santos-Aviles

Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales spent months dodging questions from KSAT Investigates about his relationship with Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, a staffer in his Uvalde district office who died after setting herself on fire in September 2025.

Then her widower, Adrian Aviles, gave reporters the texts.

The exchange from May 2024 shows Gonzales asking Santos-Aviles to send him a "sexy pic" after midnight, asking about her "favorite position," and pressing for more explicit answers. Santos-Aviles pushed back twice – "this is too far, Tony" – and at another point wrote, "please tell me you didn't just hire me because I was hot."

The San Antonio Express-News had already reported that Santos-Aviles texted a colleague in April 2025 that she "had an affair with our boss and I'm fine."

She died five months later.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner ruled her death a suicide.

Boebert Mace and Massie Call for Gonzales to Resign

The calls came fast once those texts hit the internet.

https://twitter.com/allenanalysis/status/2026029124523872332

Rep. Lauren Boebert said Gonzales should resign immediately. Rep. Nancy Mace said he should be "held fully accountable" and that Texans deserved better than a congressman who behaved this way toward a subordinate. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna condemned the explicit photo requests and endorsed Ganzales’ GOP primary challenger Brandon Herrera.

https://twitter.com/realannapaulina/status/2027412617648570830

Rep. Brandon Gill called the situation "disgusting" and said Gonzales should end his campaign that same day. Rep. Thomas Massie called for Gonzales to resign on X and encouraged that Trump pull the endorsement.

https://twitter.com/TheAKGuy/status/2027446433461223865

Then former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy – the man who built the House Republican majority – told CBS News: "If this was in a business, he would've been fired."

Speaker Mike Johnson's response amounted to asking Gonzales to "address that in an appropriate way with his constituents" while insisting investigations needed to "play out" before anyone drew conclusions – a posture that satisfied essentially nobody demanding accountability.

The financial records add a layer that makes Gonzales' silence harder to defend. His office gave Santos-Aviles a 26% salary bump in 2024 – the same year the affair allegedly occurred – while three other staffers who held her same title never came close to her peak pay. After her husband discovered the relationship that May, the raises stopped entirely. Her quarterly salary sat frozen at $17,000 for the rest of her life.

House Ethics Committee Investigation Into Tony Gonzales

This did not start with the texts going viral.

The Office of Congressional Conduct opened an investigation into Gonzales months before any of this became public, according to Santos-Aviles' family attorney. That office has completed its preliminary findings and will forward them to the House Ethics Committee after the March 3 primary concludes.

The institution was already investigating this man before the public found out there was anything to investigate.

House rules have explicitly banned sexual relationships between members and their staff since 2018. Katie Hill resigned in 2019 the moment that investigation opened, before it even concluded.

Gonzales is not resigning. "I'm not gonna resign," he told CNN Tuesday. "I work every day for the people of Texas."

Primary day is March 3. Early voting is already underway. The San Antonio Express-News – Gonzales' own hometown paper – pulled its endorsement this week. His opponent Brandon Herrera came within 354 votes of defeating him in 2024. Trump has endorsed Gonzales, and as of this writing the White House has declined to say whether that endorsement still stands.

Gonzales says everything being reported is a "personal smear" from his primary opponent and that he will not be "blackmailed." Adrian Aviles told CBS News: "You ended a family because of your predatorial instincts." He added he is "not doing this for money."

Katie Hill resigned. Gonzales holds a press conference and blames his opponent. Voters in Texas' 23rd District get to decide which standard they want to live by on Tuesday.

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Sources:

• Associated Press, "Texas Rep. Gonzales Resists Calls to Resign Over Allegations of an Affair with an Ex-Staffer Who Died," PBS NewsHour, February 25, 2026.
• KSAT Investigates, "Timeline: Rep. Tony Gonzales' Relationship with Staffer Regina Santos-Aviles," KSAT, February 26, 2026.
• Fin Daniel Gómez and Joe Walsh, "Texts Show Rep. Tony Gonzales Sent Explicit Messages to Staffer Who Later Died by Suicide," CBS News, February 24, 2026.
• Joe Walsh, "Kevin McCarthy Says Rep. Gonzales Should Resign Over Alleged Affair with Late Staffer," CBS News, February 25, 2026.
• Hali Mecklin, "Santos-Aviles' Pay Spiked Same Year as Alleged Gonzales Affair," Uvalde Leader-News via News4 San Antonio, February 26, 2026.
• The Hill, "Lauren Boebert Calls on Tony Gonzales to Resign Over Alleged Affair," February 24, 2026.
• KSAT News, "Texas' 23rd Congressional District Heads Into a High-Stakes Primary as Tony Gonzales Faces Controversy," February 25, 2026.