Wendy Davis, the Texas lawmaker who rocked national headlines with her 11-hour floor speech against a bill to limit abortion, has now been caught making a couple of exaggerated claims in her campaign for governor.
Ms. Davis is hoping to become the first Democratic governor of Texas since 1995.
In a recent federal lawsuit, she claimed that she was divorced at 19 — and “after I got divorced, I lived in a mobile home park in southeast Fort Worth,” The Daily Mail reported. The truth is that she didn’t divorce until the age of 21. And when she did divorce, she only lived in the mobile home park for a few months, The Daily Mail reported.
The man she divorced was named Frank Underwood. Shortly after their split, and her relocation to a mobile home, she moved into an apartment with her daughter, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Meanwhile, Ms. Davis has also slightly misrepresented how her education was funded.
Her website states she attended Texas Christian University “with the help of academic scholarships, student loans and state and federal grants.” It also states she was the first person in her family to “earn a Bachelor’s degree,” and that she “graduated first in her class and went on to Harvard Law School.”
That’s true — but what’s left out is that her wealthy husband, lawyer Jeff Davis, also helped fund her Harvard dream. The Daily Mail reported that he paid her tuition and took out a loan to help pay.
She addressed the misrepresentation in The New Yorker and said: “It was community resources. We paid for it together.”
She also admitted that “my language should be tighter,” The Daily Mail reported.
Ms. Davis rose to national prominence when she donned a back brace, urinary catheter and pink running shoes and then tried to filibuster a bill that clamped down on abortion in the state. She spoke for about 11 hours.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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