Beating up on Geren shouldn’t fool voters

State Rep. Charlie Geren was criticized by ultraconservatives during last year’s legislative session for his bill extending tax breaks that helped lure Facebook’s $1 billion data center to Fort Worth.

The critics said there’s no need to give tax breaks to a company that had recently posted a $2.9 billion annual profit.

Well, maybe, but that’s how economic development works these days.

With help from state Sen. Kelly Hancock on the Senate side, the bill easily passed both chambers.

The opposition was mainly philosophical: The bill had no immediate fiscal impact, because all it actually did was stretch an existing 15-year sales tax exemption to 20 years.

Still, for this and other reasons, Geren, 66, is being attacked in his re-election campaign for being a conservative Republican who is not conservative enough to continue serving in the Texas Legislature.

“We keep re-electing politicians who say they are conservative on the campaign trail and then when in office get failing grades from the major conservative groups,” Geren’s Republican primary opponent, Bo French, 46, told Star-Telegram writer Anna Tinsley. No Democrats are running.

French criticizes Geren for his “weak record on the border, weak record on school choice, weak record on life, weak record on fiscal responsibility, his weak record on religious liberty… .”

Voters in District 99, stretching from Fort Worth to Pelican Bay and from Rivercrest to Azle, have consistently elected Geren since 2000 because they have agreed with the way he represents them, not because he’s pulled the wool over their eyes.

Much of the opposition comes because he’s a top lieutenant to House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. The Texas far right has long sought to replace Straus.

Geren and Straus need make no apologies. In fact, the Texas Legislature is a very conservative body — Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both darlings of the ultra-right, praised the work of last year’s session.

That session underspent money available by billions of dollars, dedicated $800 million for border security, targeted funds for road construction (excluding toll roads), transformed early education, boosted higher ed and passed the Pastor Protection Act.

Geren’s record for the session shows not only that he passed a healthy number of his own bills but also that he helped other lawmakers, including some from the far right, pass their bills.

The Star-Telegram Editorial Board recommends Charlie Geren in the Republican primary for the District 99 House seat.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Beating up on Geren shouldn’t fool voters."