Are Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez Transitioning Into Republicans?

Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez identify as Democrats, and Americans generally respect how people identify. Their party affiliation says Democrat, and nobody needs to deadname either congressman a Republican.

Their congressional voting records, unfortunately, keep complicating their promise to democracy.

Three neighboring congressional districts in South Texas share similar political terrain. Their populations are overwhelmingly Hispanic, their communities live with the realities of the border, and their constituents face many of the same economic pressures. Republican Monica De La Cruz represents the 15th Congressional District. Gonzalez represents the 34th as a Democrat, while Cuellar represents the 28th under the same party banner.

De La Cruz, at least, saves everyone the confusion. She puts an R next to her name and generally votes like someone with an R next to her name. The packaging matches the product. Cuellar and Gonzalez come with more deceptive labeling. The wrapper says Democrat, but opening the congressional record sometimes reveals something considerably more Republican than advertised.

Both remain members of the Democratic Party, and both have been designated 2026 “Frontline” Democrats by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a program designed to protect vulnerable Democratic incumbents in competitive districts. The designation makes electoral sense. South Texas has become increasingly competitive, Republicans have made significant gains across the region, and Democrats have every reason to protect two congressional seats they already hold.

Bipartisanship hardly constitutes a political crime. Members of Congress represent districts rather than serve as decorative furniture for party headquarters. South Texas Democrats have no obligation to mirror progressives from New York or California.

Frequent trips across the aisle eventually start looking less like visits and more like forwarding the mail.

The latest example came July 22, when the House passed the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The $1.15 trillion package cleared the chamber 216-212, with only six Democrats joining Republicans.

Cuellar and Gonzalez were two of them. De La Cruz also voted yes.

The legislation included military pay increases, housing investments and other benefits for service members, but members voted on a much larger package. Section 219 established the U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, expanding cooperation in defense research, development, testing and related technologies. Republican Thomas Massie opposed Section 219 and wrote that the nation’s founders “would be appalled at what Congress is doing now.”

The legislation also included the SAVE America Act, with documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements related to voter registration and photo-identification requirements for federal elections, subject to specified exceptions and provisional-ballot procedures. Republicans promote those measures as election safeguards, while critics argue the documentation requirements create barriers for eligible citizens who lack easy access to qualifying records.

Cuellar and Gonzalez supported the package.

When Thomas Massie lands to the ideological left of two South Texas Democrats on part of a defense bill, the traditional political compass starts behaving strangely.

Perhaps South Texas has entered a new category of congressional politics. Call it politically transpartisan: assigned Democrat at election, Republican-presenting on selected roll calls, Democrat-identifying again by campaign season.

Cuellar’s political biography makes the classification even harder to squeeze into the traditional red-and-blue boxes.

Federal prosecutors indicted Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, in 2024 on bribery, conspiracy and money-laundering-related charges involving approximately $600,000 in alleged payments connected to Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company and a Mexico City bank. Prosecutors alleged the payments were made in exchange for Cuellar using his office to influence policy, legislation and executive-branch officials.

Cuellar pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence. The case never reached a jury because President Donald Trump pardoned Henry and Imelda Cuellar in December 2025.

A Republican president pardoned a Democratic congressman who then filed for reelection as a Democrat.

South Texas politics had officially moved beyond the binary.

Gonzalez has his own record of ideological fluidity. In June, the House passed the fiscal year 2027 Agriculture appropriations bill. House Appropriations Committee Democrats said the legislation provided $200 million less for WIC than fiscal year 2026. Separately, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that changes to the fruit and vegetable benefit would reduce those benefits by more than $141 million for nearly 5.4 million participants.

Only four Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill. Gonzalez was one of them. De La Cruz also voted yes, while Cuellar voted no.

One vote does not turn a Democrat into a Republican, and reducing an entire congressional career to a handful of roll calls would be intellectually lazy. Cuellar and Gonzalez vote with Democrats on plenty of legislation, and conservative Democrats have existed for generations, particularly in Texas.

Their South Texas districts have also grown increasingly competitive as Republicans gain ground in communities Democrats once considered reliably blue. Those political realities help explain their calculations. They do not erase what a party label communicates to voters.

Political parties sell more than candidates. They sell an expectation. A voter selecting a Democrat reasonably assumes some broad alignment with Democratic priorities, just as someone voting Republican expects some recognizable relationship with Republican ones. Nobody expects perfect obedience, but the letter beside a candidate’s name should offer more information than the color of the campaign signs.

The irony is politically fascinating, indeed. Cuellar and Gonzalez represent districts in a region that voted Democratic for generations. South Texas was blue because South Texas had always been blue, until Republicans began demonstrating that political loyalty inherited from grandparents does not automatically survive changing economies, cultural battles and dissatisfaction with Washington.

Now Democrats are fiercely fighting to hold territory they once barely had to defend. How did we get here? And more importantly, who got us here?

Cuellar and Gonzalez identify as Democrats, campaign as Democrats and appear on the ballot as Democrats, while selected consequential votes cross into distinctly Republican territory. Their votes introduce a newer category into South Texas politics, the trans-politician. The term fits a peculiar kind of political transition in which the party label stays the same while the congressional record moves freely across partisan lines.

Something more fluid is happening. They are politically trans. No disrespect intended toward the trans community.

Assigned Democrat at the ballot box, Republican-presenting on enough consequential roll calls to keep constituents checking the congressional record, then returning home still identifying as Democrats.

They are free to identify politically however they please. But voters in South Texas know better: "Lo que se ve no se pregunta."

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

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