Presidential candidate Rick Perry’s motion to dismiss charges against him was tossed out by a Texas judge. The charges stem from Governor Perry’s veto of state financing of a Texas District Attorney’s office. Governor Perry said at the time that he was signing the veto because District Atorney Rosemary Lemberg refused to resign from her office. Lemberg had been arrested on drunk driving charges.
Oklahoma recently had a somewhat similar situation when a member of our governor’s cabinet was arrested for drunk driving. The cabinet member apologized to the governor, who accepted his apology and left him in his position.
This whole thing sounds like partisan misbehavior to me, both in Texas and in Oklahoma. When the person who gets caught driving drunk is in the official’s own party, then it’s a forgivable lapse. When they are in the opposite party, it’s an outrage.
Ditto for the abuse of power charges which have been filed against Governor Perry. I don’t doubt that his decision to veto that funding was partisan, and to be honest, I have a pretty low opinion of trying to use state funding to force a duly elected official to resign from office. On the other hand, I also think that the charges against him are payback for the veto, and I have an equally low opinion of using felony charges as political punishment.
To read more about Governor Perry’s travails, KVUE.COM.
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