The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Perry, Texas

6.22.06 @ 12:01AM

NOT SO FAST
Re: Seton Motley's Simply Conservative:

Texas Gov. Perry sounds almost too good to be true. Has he been mentioned for '08? And if not, why?
-- C.S.

I was pleased this morning to see the byline of one Seton Motley on the web page of The American Spectator. He's a good egg who has spent a long time haunting the halls of the Texas Capital Building, and his head and heart are in the right place politically, so it's good to see his name and writing being distributed on a wider basis.

That having been said, the thesis in his piece on Texas Governor Rick Perry's performance in office is (how to put this nicely?) a tad overstated on the Governor's behalf.

Don't get me wrong: Governor Perry has done a good, solid, workmanlike job for the people of Texas over the last six years. He has kept a keen eye on government spending and waste, and he has indeed signed the good bills that have been sent to him by the Texas Legislature.

But Motley's piece makes it sound as if he accomplished all these things standing alone against the evil forces of Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and an out-of-control Texas Legislature, and somehow overcame a terrible mess left behind by the departing George W. Bush. This is a reading of history that is at best misguided and quaint.

First of all, the only real powers the Governor of Texas has is to veto bills and make appointments to state commissions and boards. Other than those real powers, the Texas governor only has his personal powers of persuasion. It is in this second, less-defined area that a Texas governor can have the most effect, and it is in this area that George W. Bush was extremely effective and Governor Perry has been more than a little lacking.

George W. Bush when Governor faced a Texas legislature that was ruled over by two of the most powerful Democrat figures in recent state history: Lt. Governor Bob Bullock and Speaker of the House Pete Laney. When Gov. Bush took office in 1995, the conventional wisdom was that Bullock and Laney would completely dominate him and he would get none of his agenda enacted into law. What happened instead was the spectacle of a green Republican Governor playing these two old warhorses like a pair of cheap fiddles, and the 1995 session was one of the most successful sessions in the history of the Texas Legislature, as Bush kept his promises on every one of the seven major issues he had made the centerpieces of his campaign. For six years he was one of the most effective governors this State has ever known, and he left behind a budget in surplus and a state economy growing much faster than the rest of the nation.

Governor Perry, in contrast, has not even been able to establish fundamentally cordial relationships with a Speaker and Lt. Governor of his own party. The recent school finance reform effort got done over the dead carcass of Perry's own proposal, which was defeated in the House in 2005 by an unprecedented unanimous vote of 126 to 0 (even its own House sponsor could not bring himself to cast a "yes" vote on it), and failed in a later vote by a "closer" margin of 124 to 8. This is not exactly what one might call "leadership." The truth is that this reform would likely have gotten done more than a year ago were it not for Perry's refusal to consider ideas other than his own on the matter.

If Seton wanted to give credit where credit is really due for the good things that have taken place in Texas governance in recent years, he should have written his piece about House Speaker Tom Craddick. Craddick is the real driving force behind the great conservative victories in areas such as tort reform we have seen in Texas in recent years, which of course is why he is so reviled in the Texas news media.

Again, it was nice to see Seton's byline on your website. No doubt even greater things lie ahead for him in the coming years.

I just hope he gets his story straight next time.
-- David Blackmon
Houston, Texas

Perry has just in the last few months decided to put National Guard on the border; this was after he saw which way the wind was blowing. He has not done anything about all the hiring halls put up for the ILLEGALS and the cities that do not allow their police to check for legal status. At least one of our Montgomery County Commissioners has bragged about hiring ILLEGALS for his work crews. Doesn't the state have anything to say about that?

How can you say we have a "business tax-and-regulatory friendly state in the land," and then turn around with "just passed in special session is a large, broad and incoherent business tax to offset much needed and Texas Supreme Court mandated property tax reduction." Perry pushed this tax increase for business.

And I don't thank him for most of the 300,000+ Louisiana people -- our crime rate has gone up since they showed up. They are not used to having laws to live by, just look at Nagin asking for the National Guard to help catch a gang. Their police are useless.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Taxes, Education, Bill Clinton, Economics, Business, Earmarks, Religion, Constitution, Law, Supreme Court, Military, Iran, NATO, Immigration, Oil, Medicare