Bryan Lee Slaton (born February 2, 1978)
is a former
pastor
A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...
and American politician. Slaton represented the
2nd district in the
Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abou ...
from 2021 to 2023. A member of the
Republican Party, Slaton also works for his family business, Slaton Financial Services.
In May 2023 the Texas House Committee on General Investigating recommended Slaton be expelled after an investigation found that on March 31 or April 1, 2023, Slaton provided alcohol to, and had sex with, a 19-year-old female legislative aide under his employ who was "unable to give effective consent."
The committee also concluded that Slaton later showed a threatening email to the aide, and told her not to discuss the incident, and asked another lawmaker not to discuss the incident.
On May 8, 2023, Slaton resigned his House membership. On May 9, 2023, the Texas House voted unanimously to expel him, as failing to do so would have allowed him to draw his salary and other benefits until a successor could be elected.
Early life, education, and career
Slaton was born in
Mineola, Texas
Mineola is a city in the U.S. state of Texas in Wood County. It lies 26 miles north of Tyler. Its population was 4,823 at the 2020 census.
The town was incorporated as the railroads arrived in 1873. A railroad official, Ira H. Evans, combined t ...
.
He attended
Ouachita Baptist University
Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) is a private Baptist university in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. The university's name is taken from the Ouachita (pronounced WAH-shi-tah) River, which forms the eastern campus boundary. It is affiliated with the Arka ...
, where he received a
BA in youth ministry and speech communication. He then attended
University of North Texas
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal School," ...
and earned a degree in accounting.
Slaton later earned a
Master of Divinity
For graduate-level theological institutions, the Master of Divinity (MDiv, ''magister divinitatis'' in Latin) is the first professional degree of the pastoral profession in North America. It is the most common academic degree in seminaries and divi ...
from
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is a Baptist theological institute in Fort Worth, Texas. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. It was established in 1908 and is one of the largest seminaries in the world. It i ...
.
He served in the ministry as a youth and family minister for 13 years, for three of those years at River Hills Baptist Church in
Corpus Christi, Texas
Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: "'' Body of Christ"'') is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patrici ...
.
Bryan works for his brother's small business, Slaton Financial Services.
Career
In
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
, Slaton filed to run against incumbent state representative
Dan Flynn. On March 1, 2016, Slaton narrowly lost to the incumbent in the Republican primary. Flynn polled 14,917 votes (51 percent) to Slaton's 14,336 (49 percent). In
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...
, Slaton decided to take on the incumbent again. In the 2018 primary election, Flynn defeated Slaton again, 11,803 (51.7 percent) to 11,013 (48.3 percent).
However, on July 14, 2020, Slaton defeated Flynn by a 22-point margin in the Republican primary runoff, forcing the incumbent into a runoff election. Slaton positioned himself as ostensibly more conservative than Flynn, but later in office revealed extremist views when Slaton introduced a bill to discuss secession. Slaton criticized Flynn for unnecessary and superfluous spending.
He sent out mail which pointed out Flynn's campaign-funded lifestyle expenses such as nearly $14,000 in spending on cookies and using his campaign fund to pay for a Netflix subscription.
Slaton campaigned on abolishing property taxes, ending overly broad laws that give government excess power during emergencies, and pledging to oppose any tax increase.
In March 2021, Slaton introduced a bill that would abolish
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
and make it a criminal act, whereby women and physicians who received and performed abortions, respectively, could receive the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. The bill made no exceptions for
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
or
incest
Incest ( ) is human sexual activity between family members or close relatives. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by affinity (marriage or stepfamily), adoption ...
; it did provide exemptions for
ectopic pregnancies
Ectopic pregnancy is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the uterus. Signs and symptoms classically include abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding, but fewer than 50 percent of affected women have both of these symptoms. ...
that threaten the life of the woman "when a reasonable alternative to save the lives of both the mother and the unborn child is unavailable."
In June 2022, Slaton said in a social media post that he planned to introduce legislation in the 2023 legislative session that would ban minors from
drag show
A drag show is a form of entertainment performed by drag artists impersonating men or women.
Typically, a drag show involves performers singing or lip-synching to songs while performing a pre-planned pantomime or dancing. There might also be so ...
s in Texas. Slaton declared in an interview that year: "Children don't need to be focused on sex and sexualization, and we need to let them just grow up to be children and let them do that as they’re getting closer to being an adult".
Slaton supports a ban on Democrats being given committee chairmanships as long as the Republicans hold the majority of seats in the Texas House. On December 6, 2022, Slaton proposed a rule change to the Texas House Administration Committee that would end Democrats receiving committee chairmanships. On February 27, 2023, Slaton introduced HB 2889, which would allow a tax credit for married residents of Texas that would increase as the number of children increases, either by procreation or adoption.
On March 6, 2023, Slaton introduced HB 3596, the "Texas Independence Referendum Act" (TEXIT), which would allow for a referendum to investigate the
secession of Texas from the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court case ''
Texas v. White
''Texas v. White'', 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 700 (1869), was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1869. The case involved a claim by the Reconstruction government of Texas that United States bonds owned by Texas since 1850 had been ill ...
'' ruled in 1869 that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States.
On May 10, 2023, Slaton was expelled by a unanimous vote, 147–0, based on an investigation that determined the Royse City Republican had sex with a 19-year-old aide after getting her drunk.
Personal life
Slaton married his second and current wife in 2017; she filed for divorce in April 2022 then withdrew it in November 2022.
Sexual misconduct controversy, expulsion and resignation
On April 10, 2023, a complaint surfaced alleging Slaton had been in an "inappropriate relationship" with an intern who worked for his office, over the previous month, culminating in a late-night incident involving alcohol.
[ Reportedly, multiple House colleagues encouraged Slaton to resign when the incident became public.
The incident was investigated by the House Committee on General Investigating, which published a report in May 2023 unanimously recommending Slaton's expulsion from the House, and detailing that he had committed the crimes of providing alcohol to a minor, abuse of official capacity, and official oppression.] The committee's report stated that Slaton had invited a 19-year-old aide to his home at around 10 p.m. on March 30, 2023, telling her that he "did not want to drink by himself." Friends of the aide accompanied her as a "protective measure," with their presence surprising Slaton.[ At his home, Slaton provided alcohol to all of them. The staff member testified that she drank a "lot of alcohol," felt "pretty rough" and "really dizzy."][ When the friends left Slaton's home and she attempted to get up to leave as well, Slaton told her in front of the others that she "did not have to leave if she did not want to," and she stayed.][ The aide later testified that this was "an inappropriate situation ... because I had too much to drink."][
A co-worker of the aide testified that the aide later confided that she had unprotected sex with Slaton. The committee report further details that the aide bought the Plan B emergency contraceptive the next day.][
The General Investigating Committee report stated that, according to testimony, Slaton had showed the aide an email that said, "I know you’re sleeping with a staffer. Can you really trust those 20-year-old girls? She owns you now."][ The aide testified that this incident made her "really fearful that I would potentially lose my job," and that in response, Slaton told her, " erything would be fine. Everyone involved just has to stay quiet."][ The aide reported her suspicion to the committee that the threatening email she had been shown appeared to come from Slaton's business email account.][
The committee reported that Slaton did not deny the allegation of having sex with the aide, and that neither Slaton nor his attorney provided any evidence to contradict the allegations. Instead, Slaton's attorney advocated that the complaints against the representative should be rejected because the alleged incident with the intern occurred in Slaton's home, not in their workplace.]
Included in the committee report was the note that another representative had called Slaton to ask if he "invited a young staffer to your condo and you guys had sex," to which Slaton replied, "Yes, that's true." The report revealed that Slaton later requested that the other legislator keep the details of their call "between us."[
House Resolution 1542 to expel Slaton was scheduled for a vote on May 9, 2023. However, on May 8, 2023, Slaton resigned his seat.] A memo issued by the General Investigating Committee to the Texas House noted that, despite the timing of Slaton's act of resignation, Texas law and court opinions still considered Slaton a full member of the state house, entitled to all benefits of the office "until his successor is duly qualified," arguing that expulsion was therefore necessary regardless of Slaton resigning. The House voted 147–0 to expel him.
References
Notes
External links
Campaign website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slaton, Bryan
1978 births
Living people
Republican Party members of the Texas House of Representatives
21st-century American politicians
People from Royse City, Texas
21st-century Baptist ministers from the United States
University of North Texas alumni
Ouachita Baptist University alumni
People expelled from United States state legislatures
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary alumni
Southern Baptist ministers
Baptists from Texas
State and local political sex scandals in the United States