Texas state senator arrested for drunk driving

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A Texas Republican state senator has been arrested and jailed Tuesday on a driving while intoxicated charge, records show. 

Charles Schwertner, 52, is currently being held at the Travis County Jail after being taken into custody by the Austin Police Department early Tuesday morning. 

His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Records show Schwertner has been charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. He was stopped by police in Austin’s Hyde Park neighborhood around 12:46 a.m. 

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Texas State Sen. Charles Schwertner Tuesday morning following his DWI arrest. (Austin Police Department)

Prior to the arrest, Schwertner, according to the Austin American-Statesman newspaper, was set to preside over a Senate committee meeting at 11 a.m. regarding Texas’ power grid and recent winter outages. 

A bio on the state senate website said Schwertner is a practicing orthopedic surgeon and a lifelong Republican representing District 5, which comprises counties in central and east Texas. 

In 2018, Schwertner was accused of sending sexually explicit messages and photos of his genitals to a University of Texas graduate student. 

The officials said the student and Schwertner, a UT alumnus, met at a campus event where she told him she was interested in working in the state legislature. The pair then exchanged messages on the networking site LinkedIn before texting each other on their cellphones, reports said. 

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Texas State Sen. Charles Schwertner serves on a number of committees in the Texas state Senate. (Fox News Digital)

Schwertner allegedly texted the student, "I just really want to f--- you" and sent her a photo of what appeared to be his genitals in the shower. The image does not show his face, officials said, and the student never responded to the message. 

However, a review, later carried out by the school, determined that even though Schwertner did not fully cooperate with investigators, it was "plausible" a third party texted the messages from an application that both it and the senator were able to access, according to the Texas Tribune. 

Schwertner was first elected as a Texas House representative in 2010, before serving in the Senate since 2013. 

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Texas State Sen. Charles Schwertner, 52, has been a member of the Texas state senate since 2013. (Texas Senate)

"As Chairman of the powerful Senate Committee on Business and Commerce and the Senate Committee on Constitutional Issues, Schwertner oversees a number of critical policy areas for the state of Texas, including electric utilities, insurance, banking, alcoholic beverage regulation, technology, and telecommunications," his bio says. 

"Schwertner also serves as a member of the Senate Committees on Education, Finance, State Affairs, and on the Legislative Budget Board," the bio added. 

Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.