Texas GOP Officials: Controversial Travis County Chairman is Out

The controversial chairman of the Travis County Republican Party has given up his post by running for president as a write-in candidate, Texas GOP officials said Thursday, signaling the end of the Robert Morrow era in the state's fifth-largest county.

Morrow, an Austin resident who got the job in a surprise election earlier this year, appears to have forced his own resignation by filing to run — and successfully getting on the ballot — as a write-in choice. Under state law, the county chair of a political party is not allowed to also be a candidate for federal, state or county office, or even apply to be a candidate.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, state GOP Chairman Tom Mechler said Morrow "became ineligible to hold the office of Travis County Republican Chair" upon filing Friday to be a write-in candidate. Morrow told The Texas Tribune earlier Thursday he could not be ousted.

"They don’t have the grounds to do that, and anybody who says so is probably lying," Morrow said. "The case law on this is probably extremely thin."

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/08/25/travis-county-gop-set-try-oust-morrow/