Republican Congresswomen Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace are demanding that their colleague, Rep. Tony Gonzales, resign amid recent reports that allege the congressman sent provocative text messages to a former staffer with whom he had an affair before the staffer died by suicide.
For months, Gonzales, 45, has been embroiled in a scandal around the death of Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, his former staffer, who claimed to have an affair with the congressman. Santos-Aviles, 35, died by suicide in September 2025.
Gonzales has declined to comment on the affair allegations. But text messages, obtained and published by the San Antonio Express-News, renewed attention to the situation.
“The allegations against Congressman Tony Gonzales are deeply disturbing: a sitting Member of Congress accused of soliciting explicit photos from a staffer and subjecting her to graphic sexual texts. This is an abuse of power,” Mace wrote in a statement Monday.
The messages from May 2024 show the Texas Republican asked Santos-Aviles to “send me a sexy pic” and continued asking for one despite her apprehensiveness. In other messages, Gonzales asked Santos-Aviles provocative questions about sexual intercourse. Santos-Aviles texted Gonzales that he was taking things “too far” twice.
The Independent has asked Gonzales’s office for comment.
In a statement last week, Gonzales told the New York Times that Santos-Aviles was a “kind soul who devoted her life to making the community a better place.” However, he added that he would not comment on the affair allegations, calling them “personal smears.”
“RESIGN!” Boebert wrote to Gonzales on X.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Texas Rep. Brandon Gill also called on Gonzales to give up his seat.
“America deserves better. Tony should drop out of the race,” Gill wrote on X.
The new text messages, which were authenticated by the widower of Santos-Aviles to the San Antonio Express-News, are being circulated as Gonzales is preparing to fight for his seat in the House.
Gonzales is up against Brandon Herrera, a 30-year-old YouTuber and firearm manufacturer who narrowly lost to Gonzales in the 2024 Republican primaries. The race was expected to be close again.
But pressure is now mounting on Gonzales to step down.
Earlier this month, a former staffer to Gonzales shared text messages from April 2025 in which Santos-Aviles claimed to have had an affair with the Republican congressman the year prior.
At the time of the alleged affair, Gonzales was running for re-election in Texas’s 23rd district, which encompasses parts of San Antonio and El Paso near the U.S.-Mexico border. Gonzales is married and a father to six children.
Santos-Aviles, who was also married and the mother of a young boy, was serving as Gonzales’s director of his regional district in Uvalde.
The former staffer told the NYT that the affair between Gonzales and Santos-Aviles ended in mid-2024. Bobby Barrera, a lawyer for the windower of Santos-Aviles, corroborated to NYT that she admitted to her husband she had been having an affair with Gonazales for a month.
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. In the UK, people having mental health crises can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org
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