Charlie Geren is NOT trustworthy.
Charlie Geren frequently posts on Facebook taking credit for things he does not deserve. He will often exaggerate his accomplishments, tell half-truths, or omit details important for context. Below are three recent examples. (Click on each image for a larger view.)
Lie #1: Charlie Geren Defeated the Woke Agenda
The problem with Charlie Geren saying he "defeated the woke agenda" is that he is a member of the Board of Trustees at Texas Christian University. As someone who worked as an adjunct professor at TCU for two years, I can assure you that it is one of the wokest institutions in Texas. Here are are a few of the many examples:
- The TCU Diversity and Inclusion Office held a “Microaggressions Workshop” to encourage progressive and “anti-racist” practices in the workplace.
- TCU offers a course on the “art of drag,” an elective that requires students to create their own “drag persona” and explores how such performances contribute to “queer world making.” Students must choose a name and “drag greeting” for their “drag persona,” as well as develop a “lip-sync portfolio” and produce a performance video for the TCU Annual Night of Drag. The course also delves into the history of drag in “challenging dominant norms and systems of oppression."
- TCU erected a pillar next to the TCU founders’ statue in the academic section of campus as part of the Race and Reconciliation Initiative at TCU. The school felt the need to “study TCU’s prior relationship with slavery, racism and the Confederacy."
- TCU began referring to freshmen as "first-year students" to reflect "the university's use of inclusive language."
- More than 200 TCU faculty signed a petition demanding the private university declare its “unequivocal” support for LGBTQ students and employees, as well as for the study of LGBTQ history, culture and theory as a “vital component of our academic mission.”
Charlie Geren did NOT "defeated the woke agenda," he has enabled and encouraged its growth as a Trustee of TCU.
Sorry, Charlie. No.
Lie #2: Keep Landfills Away From Silver Creek
The problem with Charlie Geren's claim that he is fighting to keep a waste facility from creating a landfill in Silver Creek is that he is the one likely responsible for this in the first place. In 2015, Geren filed HB 1794, which capped the amount that cities and counties can collect from companies that contaminate the environment.
If you want to know why a waste facility can build a landfill in a residential area near water sources, look no further than Geren's own bill. It modified the Water Code in such a way that it limits the civil penalty amount which may be assessed to between $50 and $25,000 total per day. It includes a provision that any civil penalty sought must be brought to the attention of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The special counsel with the Harris County attorney's office at the time, Terry O'Rourke, described the bill as "a polluter protection bill."
The suggestion that Charlie Geren is fighting to prevent this landfill after he submitted a bill that would limit the civil penalties of those that contaminate families' water supply is hypocritical, to say the least.
Sorry, Charlie. No.
Lie #3: Charlie Geren is Protecting Texas' Children
In this most recent legislative session, the house passed HB 1898, "a grant program to fund the provision by children's hospitals of mental and behavior health services to children" in Texas. Before the House voted on it, Representative Tony Tinderholt (HD94) offered an amendment that would prevent awarding a grant "to a children's hospital that provides services, medications, or procedures for transitioning a child's biological sex." His amendment was killed by point of order raised "on the grounds that the amendment is not germane." The point of order was raised by Charlie Geren himself and sustained by House Speaker Dade Phelan.
The Texas Senate added language to the bill that a "grant recipient may not use a grant awarded under the grant program to . . . provide mental health services, including treatments or procedures, to a child that affirm the child's perception of the child's sex if that perception is inconsistent with the child's biological sex." The distinction between the language here and Rep. Tinderholt's amendment is significant. Wherein Rep Tinderhold's amendment would have precluded any grant money from going to a children's hospital that transitions a child's gender, the Senate language simply precludes the hospital from using the grant money specifically for that, but the hospitals are still free to use other money to pay for it.
When given the opportunity to actually protect children, Charlie Geren chose instead to put them at risk from the very "radicals . . . forcing their ideas onto our kids" he wants credit for protecting them from.
Sorry, Charlie. No.
