Charles Schwertner

As a member of the Texas Senate, Schwertner served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.[3][4] He is currently a member of the Senate Committees on Finance, Administration, Business & Commerce, and State Affairs.[5] Schwertner was named to the Sunset Advisory Commission in 2013.[6]

Schwertner was named one of the "Worst Legislators" by Texas Monthly magazine in 2017.[7]

Schwertner won reelection in 2018 with 182,081 votes (55.4 percent) to 136,232 (41.4 percent) for his Democratic opponent, Meg Walsh. Another 10,446 votes (3.2 percent) went to the Libertarian Party choice, Amy Lyons.[8]

In July 2018, Schwertner met a female University of Texas graduate student at a university-affiliated event. The student told the Senator she was interested in working at the Texas Legislature. After the event, Schwertner was accused of sending sexually-explicit texts to said student. On October 8, 2018, the University of Texas at Austin hired Johnny Sutton, a former federal prosecutor, to investigate these claims as such harassment could be a violation of Title IX, a federal civil rights law.[9]

A message from Schwertner's LinkedIn account sent to the graduate student said: "Hope you're getting my texts I sent to you." The student responded: "Please stop the inappropriate texts, it is unprofessional." The student also received text messages from a 512 number that matched a business card belonging to Schwertner. These messages included: "Sorry. I really just wanted to fuck you," "This is Charles," "Send a pic?" and "Hello? Want to just use LinkedIn? Or my main cell?" [10]

Schwertner claimed the messages were sent by a third person whom Schwertner had given log-in credentials to. Schwertner refused to identify this third person and no proof was provided for the existence of said person. The messages were sent through Hushed, an app to send messages from a burner phone. Government watchdogs say the case exposes the threat private message apps pose to government transparency.[11]

A university report based on available evidence could not reach a conclusion on the matter. The two-page executive summary says that Schwertner "refused to meet with" the investigating attorney and that "[Schwertner] has access to information that could allow a more definitive conclusion to this matter, but [Schwertner] is unwilling to share that information, and the University lacks authority to compel him to cooperate more fully.”[12]

Ross Ramey of the Texas Tribune wrote of the case: "The problem is that the investigation at UT didn’t reach any final conclusions. The investigator couldn’t prove Schwertner was at fault, but also couldn’t prove he was not. There is no evidence here to clear his name. In that way, it’s as though no investigation had taken place; Schwertner is in the same fix he was in after the allegations were known and before Johnny Sutton, a former U.S. attorney who is now in private practice, started digging around." [13]