The embattled chairman of the Republican Party of Florida was censured and stripped of his duties and salary on Sunday, decisions that all but ousted him from the party’s top post as he faces a criminal investigation into an accusation that he sexually assaulted a woman.
In an emergency meeting in Orlando, Fla., the party’s executive committee stopped short of immediately forcing out Christian Ziegler, the chairman. But the votes to declare him unfit for office, remove almost all of his authority and reduce his salary to $1 were seen among many party members as the final steps before his potential removal from office.
Mr. Ziegler, 40, has been under criminal investigation in Sarasota, Fla., where he lives, since October, when a woman told the police that he had sexually assaulted her. He has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing. He has also refused to resign since the investigation became public last month, despite sustained pressure from Republicans, ranging from the governor to county-level chairs, for him to step down.
Mr. Ziegler attended the private meeting of the party’s 40 executive committee members, apologizing to them for the situation but arguing that holding Sunday’s meeting was improper. The votes against him, however, were unanimous.
“This is about the black eye that it’s put on the party,” State Representative Michelle Salzman said after the meeting.
Mr. Ziegler did not speak to reporters waiting outside the conference room.
Evan Power, the state party’s vice chairman, who for now will carry out most of the chairman’s duties, said that members considered the criminal investigation against Mr. Ziegler serious and a distraction that would make it untenable for him to raise funds and rally the party going into an important presidential election year.
“You cannot morally lead the Republican Party forward,” he said after the meeting.
The entire state party will hold an emergency meeting on Jan. 8 in Tallahassee to remove Mr. Ziegler if he has not resigned by then and to elect a new chairman, Mr. Power said.
In the days before the meeting, some party members trying to broker a deal for Mr. Ziegler’s departure told other members that he might be persuaded to leave with a buyout of up to $2 million. But that notion did not appear to receive much support.
Mr. Ziegler told the police that he had consensual sex on Oct. 2 with the woman who accused him of sexual assault, according to a search warrant affidavit. Her name has been redacted from public records. The woman told the police that she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Ziegler and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, more than a year ago, but that she declined to have sex with Mr. Ziegler on Oct. 2 after realizing that his wife would not be joining them. Mr. Ziegler then went to the woman’s apartment uninvited and sexually assaulted her, she told the police.
“We are confident that once the police investigation is concluded that no charges will be filed and Mr. Ziegler will be completely exonerated,” Mr. Ziegler’s lawyer, Derek Byrd, has said in a previous statement.
Ms. Ziegler is a Sarasota County School Board member and co-founder of the right-wing activist group Moms for Liberty, which has pushed for anti-L.G.B.T.Q. policies in schools. She has faced calls for her own resignation, with critics seizing on the fact that she confirmed to the police that she had taken part in the previous sexual encounter with the woman as an example of hypocrisy.
Ms. Ziegler has also refused to resign, even after the school board voted 4-to-1 last week urging her to do so. (She cast the lone no vote.)
Mr. Ziegler told members of Moms for Liberty in a media training session during its national conference in Philadelphia this summer to resist asking for forgiveness, after the group faced public outrage over a local chapter in Indiana quoting Hitler in a newsletter.
“Never apologize. Ever,” Mr. Ziegler said, according to NBC News. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.” (The chapter eventually apologized.)
The Zieglers’ political stars had been rising in Florida before the scandal, especially in Sarasota, a hotbed of right-wing activism in the state. Ms. Ziegler campaigned last year with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who later appointed her to a state board overseeing Disney World.
Mr. Ziegler, a political consultant and former Sarasota County commissioner, was elected to lead the state Republican Party in February. He was seen as the candidate aligned with former President Donald J. Trump, rather than Mr. DeSantis.
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.