Burnt Orange Report

House Dems Look Into Impeaching Perry

By Andrew Dobbs

Perry woke up to this headache this morning:

A group of Democratic Texas state representatives is researching whether it can impeach Republican Gov. Rick Perry on corruption allegations, according to documents obtained by The Monitor.

At the top of the Democrats’ list of accusations of possible wrongdoing involving the governor is the contract between the Texas attorney general’s office and a Las Vegas law firm. The contract called on the firm to draft legislation on the issue of slot machines.

The $250,000 contract became public during a June 2 meeting of the Texas House Committee on Licensing and Administrative Procedures. The contract was finalized in 36 hours during a weekend in December 2003 at Perry’s urging and is being paid for by funds from the Texas Lottery Commission.

The lottery funds were intended for the state’s Foundation School Fund but were instead used to pay the law firm, documents obtained by The Monitor show. (...)

The House Democrats studying impeachment, including Rep. Lon Burnam of Fort Worth and Rep. Pete Gallego of Alpine, said they also are disturbed by statements made by Perry about how the Texas Supreme Court will rule in a school finance lawsuit and the accusation of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn that Perry misused a state agency to perform political opposition research on her. (...)

The power to impeach rests with the Texas House, according the State Government Code. There are three ways to get the process started: by proclamation of the governor; by proclamation of the speaker of the House if 50 or more members sign a petition; or by a written proclamation signed by a majority — 76 members — of the 150-member House. Impeachment in the House is followed by a trial in the Texas Senate, with conviction requiring a two-thirds vote of the senators present, according to state law. (...)

At least one Republican state representative, who asked that his name not be used because of possible political ramifications, said he was studying the impeachment process along with House Democrats.

“I’m studying all the options,” he said.

That's right- impeachment, and at least 1 Republican is joining in the action. Perry has spent an inordinate ammount of taxpayer dollars on political bullying, seeking favors for his allies and has used his office as a multi-million dollar operation to serve the special interests. Still, Democrats have to know that he has little chance of getting convicted so what is the intention? It has little to do with actually running him out of office, it is more about increasing the public's attention to his misdeeds and then spreading that stink over all Republicans in the legislature.

Remember that all we need are 50 signatures to get the ball rolling and now that the story is public there will be pressure on safe Democrats to put their name on the dotted line. There is an excellent chance that this will be coming down and focusing on the gambling issue (which has a very passionate opposition among a majority of House Republicans) makes it more likely that the impeachment will indeed come down. Perry has got to be scared now- Democrats are fighting back.