The following editorial appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Thursday:
In the days since we learned of Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s felony indictments, we’ve heard them called thin, flimsy and a criminalization of politics. And this was from people who normally disagree with him.
As he and his people arranged the most triumphant of jail bookings Tuesday in Austin, it was fairly clear that the Perry camp will take full advantage of his newly martyred status. However expected or unseemly, this is 21st-century American politics, which are not so different from any other century. Let no crisis go to waste, as they say.
Perry vowed “to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being.” It was the reddest of meat for supporters, who undoubtedly believe that no Texas judge would allow such silly abuse-of-power indictments to reach a jury’s ears.
This newspaper’s hope is that they’re incorrect. It’s in every Texan’s best interests for the charges against Perry, whatever your view of them, to traverse the entire judicial system as impartially as possible.
One alternative is that Perry’s decorated legal team can persuade a judge to toss the indictments as unsupported by evidence. While that might allow Perry to focus on another run for president, it would leave open for too many of us the big question:
Did Rick Perry break the law when he vetoed funding for the state’s Public Integrity Unit because its supervisor, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, would not resign after a spectacularly embarrassing drunken driving arrest?
You may agree with conventional wisdom that such a move was well within his rights, legal and proper. That’s certainly Perry’s contention, which he has offered at increasing volumes since the indictments were announced Friday.
Twelve jurors, from one of Texas’ 254 counties, might agree. Or not. Because like it or not, a Travis County grand jury heard what evidence special prosecutor Michael McCrum had accumulated and found enough to bind Perry over for trial.
In our judicial system, that’s more than nothing. We don’t know what evidence those grand jurors heard. We don’t know whether the Public Integrity Unit’s investigation into Perry’s signature Texas Cancer Research and Prevention Institute affected his veto.
What we do know are the bare outlines of the Perry-Lehmberg conflict and how that played out in financing for a critical state agency.
Yes, it would make more sense for that agency to reside in a more logical place, like the Texas attorney general’s office. And anyone who has seen Lehmberg’s performance on video should agree that she should have quit.
Yet these are not the questions of urgency, which is this: Did our governor violate state law in how and why he withheld that funding?
This is what a jury, not a lone judge, should decide after hearing all evidence in a full and fair hearing. That is what’s best for our legal system and best for our state.
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©2014 The Dallas Morning News
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