Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2025 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida.
Charlie Kirk speaking with attendees at the 2025 Student Action Summit at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore

Texas State Rep. Jeffrey Leach is taking heat for proposing legislation to erect a statue to assassinated far-right activist Charlie Kirk on the grounds of the Texas Capitol.

In social media posts shared over the weekend, the North Texas Republican said that when the Texas Legislature reconvenes in 2027, his first order of business will be to file to bill proposed a statue on capitol grounds to memorialize the late Turning Point USA founder.

Kirk was shot in the neck Sept. 10 at a Utah college campus and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, where he later succumbed to his injuries. The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is in custody after reportedly confessing to his father, who turned him in to the authorities.

After Leach, a seven-term Texas lawmaker, proposed the statue in Kirk’s honor, comments flooded in on his social accounts, many criticizing the tribute as an apparent co-sign of Kirk’s rhetoric, which some observers have called out as displaying “white nationalist” ideology.

“Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric on the great replacement theory inspired both of the mass shooters tied to your district,” political influencer Howdy Politics commented on Leach’s post.

One shooting to which Howdy Politics appears to be referring is a 2023 incident at an Allen mall in which a man associated with extremist group Right Wing Death Squad took the lives of eight people, as reported by CNN.

Other commenters on Leach’s post took issue with his proposed break from the tradition of honoring prominent Texans at the capitol by honoring a Chicago native who has no connection with the Lone Star State.

“He wasn’t even from Texas, why in the hell would we want a statue of him?” user @murtyatx asked.

Still others took issue with Leach referring to Kirk in the post as a “civil rights icon.”

“Charlie Kirk isn’t just a conservative activist — he is a civil rights icon,” Leach wrote. “And he should be honored and recognized accordingly.”

“You have to believe in civil rights to be a civil rights icon…” commented Jermaca Brown, an activist who organizes around anti-racist issues and gun control.

Kirk was quoted making racist remarks about Black people on his own podcast The Charlie Kirk Show as well as other programs and events.

“Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact,” Kirk said on his program in May 2023 according to a report in Media Matters.

Kirk also said on his program that black women in power such as Sheila Jackson Lee and Michelle Obama “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken very seriously.”

Kirk’s ire wasn’t reserved for Black Americans alone, however. In a social media post just two days before his murder, Kirk said. “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”

Though tensions remain high around Kirk’s slaying, it remains to be seen whether the incident will still hold the public’s interest when the Texas Legislature reconvenes in January 2027.

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This article appears in Sep 3-17, 2025.

Stephanie Koithan is the Digital Content Editor of the San Antonio Current. In her role, she writes about politics, music, art, culture and food. Send her a tip at skoithan@sacurrent.com.