Rep. Matt Shea in 2015, leading a group of protesting gun owners to invade the state House chambers in Olympia, WA.

Washington state Republicans are being faced with a tough choice: keep supporting a veteran lawmaker who has held top leadership positions in the state House, or boot him out of their caucus for his increasingly open embrace of the violent politics of far-right extremism.

Rep. Matt Shea, a representative from the Spokane Valley, has come under fire once again this week after reporter Jason Wilson of the Guardian revealed that Shea had been exchanging messages with other far-right activists that discussed violent retribution against their critics, along with surveillance and “psyops.”

Remarkably, in responding to Wilson’s report, Shea posted an attack on Wilson on Facebook claiming he is linked to “violent Marxist revolutionaries”—while including a link to an insane Australian white-nationalist site renowned for posting vile anti-Semitic articles.

Shea has a long record of both espousing extremist “Patriot” movement ideas as well as multiple dalliances with far-right extremists, notably participating in a press conference at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge standoff supporting the radicals at the federal center there. More recently, he was revealed to have authored a document favoring creation of a 51st state that suggested a “Holy War” against nonbelievers in the new state, including an edict: “If they do not yield – kill all males.”

Shea, who is the third-most senior Republican in the state House, was stripped of his leadership positions as head of the House GOP caucus in November after the document became public. He is, however, enduringly popular in his district, winning his most recent election with 58 percent of the vote.

The most recent revelations involve conversations between Shea and other “Patriot” activists—notably militiaman Anthony Bosworth, who has a long track record of armed protests and confrontations—in November 2017 related to right-wing hysteria over a supposed “civil war” outbreak being planned by antifascists.

Already, House Republicans are voicing concern about allowing Shea to remain within the caucus.