3 April 16 - 22, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Mom, Republicans Are Fighting Again Dallas County GOP leader may be ousted, hints at party infighting. BY EMMA RUBY A llen West, the controversial Dallas County Republican Party chairman who has touted voter-fraud conspira- cies and scoffed at COVID-19 precautions, will call for a vote on his own removal from leadership this month amid disagreements over precinct-based voting. In a statement published last week, West signaled that his decision to return to joint elections in the May runoff has been unpop- ular among the party’s county executive committee. That committee will vote on West’s potential removal on April 20. If he is successfully removed, Vice Chair Tami Brown-Rodriguez will take over as the local party’s leader. Before now, West has been a staunch sup- porter of precinct-based voting, and even originally intended to pursue hand-counted ballots before dropping the idea due to cost, staffing and logistical issues. Precinct-based voting caused confusion and chaos during the March 3 primary because it limited the poll locations where voters could cast bal- lots on election day. The confusion resulted in thousands of voters either being turned away from a poll- ing location or having their ballots tossed because they were cast too late. To stand by that voting strategy again during the May 26 runoff election would be “exposing the Dallas County Republican Party to a most dangerous course of action,” West warned, including lawsuits that allege voter disenfranchisement. “The decision that I made was one rooted in years of understanding leadership and its responsibilities, namely, protecting your troops,” West said. “If there are those who do not see this as noble and honorable, that is fine with me. I have stated my position and under my watch as chairman of the Dal- las County Republican Party will not expose this organization to potential damaging legal efforts.” He added, “My removal will not be due to any nefarious, corrupt or scandalous actions on my part. It will be because a group of indi- viduals wishes to have their way, and expose the organization to potential harm. I will not be a signatory to such, as it would violate ev- ery leadership principle that I know.” The Observer’s email for clarification went unanswered by the Dallas County Re- publican Party, but West told The Dallas Morning News that his decision to step back from his post came after 35 party members signed a petition protesting his move away from precinct-based voting. West’s fear of litigation isn’t totally un- founded, said SMU Associate Professor Ben Voth, who has provided expert witness testi- mony in voter discrimination cases. While West’s statement accuses Democrats of be- ing “devious” enough to bring forward that type of lawsuit, Voth said both parties have been responsible for litigation on the state and federal levels. “I do think it’s plausible that there could be lawsuits,” said Voth, who added that he was surprised by West’s “abrupt” decision to open himself up to removal. He said he believes that West’s statement — which notes that the DCRP “does not have a strong ally” within the Texas secretary of state office — suggests broader infighting within the Texas Republican party. For months, Republicans have been divided over the Senate primary between incumbent John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, with more conservative party mem- bers pushing for the election of the latter candidate. West, whom Voth classifies as part of the “more conservative roster of Texas Republi- cans,” would likely have been expected to stick to scripture that advocates “stopping fraud through strict procedures,” such as precinct-based voting. (It is not clear that joint elections have contributed to wide- spread voter fraud.) A deviation from that plan, albeit a practical one, was likely to trig- ger backlash. “I think there is infighting as the Texas Republicans worry that they’re going to be caught up in a larger, national midterm blue wave. Could it go as far as losing the [Texas] Senate race?” Voth said. “That, then, is part of the big primary [voting] question.” West has served as the Dallas County GOP chairman since 2024. Before that, he served as the chairman of the state party and unsuc- cessfully challenged Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 gubernatorial election. He has advo- cated for Texas’ succession from the union and questioned the severity of COVID-19 even after being hospitalized with the virus. In many ways, West has been a consum- mate modern-day Texas Republican. Which is why Voth was “surprised” when West “decided to take on the Dallas County task” two years ago. There is not a Republican elected official in all of Dallas County (aside from Dallas Mayor Eric John- son, who was elected as a Democrat in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan office), and the Texas Republican Party has never in- vested much in the state’s overwhelmingly blue metros. “I think he was just a little too optimistic about what he could accomplish in Dallas,” said Voth. During a Dallas County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, Commissioner John Wiley Price said that he believed West was being punished for making “a once-in- a-lifetime … decent decision.” Elections Ad- ministrator Paul Adams told the court that with an election date just seven weeks away, it is “going to get to a point” where West’s amended, joint election contract cannot be reneged by West’s successor. ▼ DRUGS NOW THIS IS A TRIP TEXAS TO LEAD PSYCHEDELIC TRIALS AFTER DRUG INDUSTRY BALKS. BY AUSTIN WOOD T exas might be heading into the psy- chedelic business alone after failing to find a drug company to partner with on clinical trials. State lawmakers approved $50 million in funding for clinical trials with ibogaine, a psy- choactive drug derived from a shrub native to Central Africa, with the passage of Senate Bill 2308 in June. The bill’s text calls for the cre- ation of a “consortium to conduct United States Food and Drug Administration ’s drug development clinical trials.” While state funding was supposed to be matched by a drug company, no viable proposals have come forward, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas House of Representatives Speaker Dustin Burrows recently announced. Instead, the state will “fully fund” a two- year clinical trial, according to a joint state- ment from the two senior state Republicans. UTHealth Houston, in collaboration with The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, has been tapped by the state’s health and human services commission to lead the trials. Ibogaine is currently listed as a Sched- ule I drug by the Drug Enforcement Ad- ministration. Despite its federal status and the Texas GOP’s hardline stance on drug policy, Republican lawmakers have largely rallied to advocate for research into ibo- gaine’s therapeutic potential. The drug has been used with some success in treating opiate addiction, PTSD and traumatic brain injury. “Texas is home to more veterans than any other state,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a statement after SB 2308 was signed into law. “Many of those veterans suffer from in- juries both seen and unseen. A therapy that has shown great promise in treating those conditions is ibogaine. This law authorizes a Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical drug trial that will seek approval of ibogaine as a medication for the treatment of opioid use disorder and other behavioral health conditions.” U.S. citizens, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, have traveled to Mexico for years to take the drug in upscale clinics and off- the-beaten path sweat lodges. In an inter- view with The New York Times, Perry said ibogaine therapy helped treat his anxiety and insomnia, leaving him “happy as I’d been in memory.” Not a Short-Term Fix The road to getting the drug federally ap- proved for treatment and publicly available will be long, Katharine Neill Harris, a fellow at Rice University’s Drug Policy Research Institute, said. “I would say 10 years, really. Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but the drug development process takes a very long time,” Harris said. The latest publicly released figure from the FDA, dating back to 2015, puts the aver- age time to study a new drug and bring it to market at 8.5 years. Other groups, like the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, say the timeline is now closer to the decade mark. And that’s just the average; the approval pro- cess for an experimental psychedelic — es- pecially one potentially posing cardiac risks for users — could take even longer. Barring any new developments, re- searchers at state institutions will | UNFAIR PARK | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Dallas County GOP Chairman Allen West faces an uncertain future. >> p4
