Lena Guerrero Aguirre (November 27, 1957 – April 24, 2008) was a Texas political figure who served in the

Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abou ...

, and was later the first woman and first non-white member of the

Texas Railroad Commission The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC; also sometimes called the Texas Railroad Commission, TRC) is the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry, and su ...

, which regulates the

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

and

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

industry. Her political career ended in 1992 over a falsified résumé scandal. In the 1960s, Guerrero and her siblings were

migrant worker A migrant worker is a person who Human migration, migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work. Migrant worker ...

s.Lena Guerrero: Texas Monthly September 2001
/ref> She attended the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, where she was president of the Young Democrats of Texas.Lena Guerrero, once a rising star in Texas politics, dies after battling cancer
She was elected to the Texas House, and appointed to a vacant seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, but when she ran for reelection to the seat it was discovered that she had falsely claimed to have graduated from UT.
/ref> She died of brain cancer at the age of fifty.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Guerrero, Lena 1957 births 2008 deaths Deaths from brain cancer in the United States Democratic Party members of the Texas House of Representatives Hispanic and Latino American state legislators in Texas Hispanic and Latino American women in politics University of Texas at Austin alumni People from Austin, Texas People from Mission, Texas Members of the Railroad Commission of Texas American lobbyists Burials at Texas State Cemetery Deaths from cancer in Texas Neurological disease deaths in Texas Women state legislators in Texas People who fabricated academic degrees 20th-century American women politicians 20th-century American politicians 21st-century American women