I strongly feel that there is a tremendous opportunity for some artistic fellow to make one of those morphing gifs here...
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ToCnlPrHoKY?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I think there's a lot of ways to look at this case. I think there's a legal view of whether there is a solid case to prosecute here. I know I don't know enough about the law here to say one way or another. There's an ethics view of whether the pressure he put on her to resign should be illegal, and this is where most of the argument on the bbs seems to center. There is the political view of whether this hurts Texas Democrats and/or hurts Perry's presidential hopes. This is the where the motivations of our political opponents are castigated while we make our own arguments on grounds of ethics: "They are only indicting to damage Perry's presidential campaign while really all he did was exercise the power granted to him by the constitution to stop an obviously unfit civil servant," or else "He only vetoed her funding to eliminate his political opponent and take the heat off an encroaching corruption probe, while the prosecutor here is just trying to enforce the law." 'They are playing politics while we're trying to do the right thing.' The editorials do this more expertly and in a detached way. They see it all as a political game -- Dems trying to destroy Perry and Perry trying to destroy the Dems. Then they think of all the rest of it in terms of what will help each to win. Then they go on to think from there about how the case will play out. If they think Perry will likely win in court, they'll conclude he never should have been indicted. If they think he'll win in court but lose the presidency, maybe they'll think it was worth it. You also see some 'this is no way to run a democracy' stuff as excuses for why you shouldn't prosecute people in public office. But, very little about the ethics (apart from the legality) of one public official bullying another with the powers of his office. It reminds my of the Trayvon Martin case in that the dictates of the law, the decisions of the court, and the effects on the political climate all leave me cold because it doesn't align with what I feel is the moral obligation. The ethics come first and everything else should fall in line.
Is that really a defense that would work? If Obama blocked federal funding to a program in Louisiana because Bobby Jindal got caught with a hooker and wouldn't resign when he was caught isn't Obama still breaking the law? I'm no expert but it seems if Perry is on record saying he would veto if she didn't resign and then he vetoed when she refused isn't his only defense to convince the grand jury that her not offering her resignation was not his main motivation for vetoing the funding?
Maybe Bobby knows, but I don't. I think there are 3 possible arguments on motivations: 1. The defunding decision was a policy decision and had nothing at all to do with Lehmberg. That would certainly be allowable, but hard to argue given the evidence at this point. 2. The defunding decision was made because Lehmberg is obviously unfit for public office, and her stubborn refusal to leave hurts the people of Texas. Perry could probably argue that with adequate success, but I don't know if that's good enough according to the law. This is arguing the ends justify the means. 3. The defunding decision was an opportunist attempt to eliminate or hamstring a political opponent. They probably won't find the evidence needed to prove this case (emails that say "Uh-oh, Lemberg's getting close. She needs to be stopped before she shows everyone how we've used the State of Texas as our personal piggy bank.") but if they did it's obvious abuse of power. I expect it falls into bucket 3, but the court will find by default its bucket 2 because the other two won't have the evidentiary support. And then it's a question of the law -- do the ends justify the means? I'd say no, but the law isn't always ethical.
Will the fact that Perry didn't push for the resignation of 3 other Republican District Attorneys who received a DUI while in office play into the arguments?
I don't know, but I don't have high hopes for that argument. Obviously, he'd be much better off right now if he drove those poeple out of government too. But, he can argue that he spoke to those other folks about it, they were contrite and he was confident that they'd be responsible citizens in the future; meanwhile, this other chick is a complete lout and, in his estimation, completely unreformed after her time in jail. If it's the case that he can, in certain circumstances, pressure people out of office for drunk driving, it doesn't necessarily follow that he has to do it every time it comes up. Politically, it's paper-thin but people will take their usual sides. Legally, I don't see how you can dispute the exercise of judgement. Maybe you bring it up to help paint the picture, but it's not convincing by itself, imo.
Does the president have to explain why he vetoes a bill? I'm not sure he does, I think the same goes for a Governor. The US stopped highway funds to Louisiana for a REALLY long time because they refused to change their state drinking age, isn't that pretty much the same thing? I would think that him saying that he vetoed the funding because he didn't believe that state funds should go to fund a department with an ADA who breaks the law should be a sufficient defense. As the Governor he has the right to veto that funding and that DUI could be a legitimate reason to do so. What is alleged is that he cut off the funding because that office was investigating him and he wanted to stop the investigation or whatever, I think that would be pretty hard to impossible to prove. I agree that those are the possible reasons for the veto. They'd have to prove it was reason 3 rather than one or two and I just don't think there is any way to prove that.
I guess I'm operating under the assumption that Perry is on record saying he would veto funding unless she resigned. If he is not on record saying so I can't see how there is a case against him. Like you suggested, I doubt he has to give a reason for vetoing but if he decides to give a reason he opens himself up for exactly what is happening.
So much win. One looks like a typical democrat whack job trad and the other looks like a stereotypical old white guy republican.
Even with the reason given of "if she doesn't resign, there are still 2 possibilities for why he made the decision to veto funding as a result of her not stepping down, one is perfectly legal, one is not and it's pretty much impossible to prove one way or the other.
Are you referring to Juan Valdez's scenarios? In that case there's only one option that is legal, one that is legally ambiguous, and one that is illegal. The scenarios he provided with "if she doesn't resign" as an impetus are the legally ambiguous and illegal ones.
I had thought of that example too. And I also mostly disapprove of the federal overreach there, blackmailing Louisiana to pass certain state laws the feds want. I think that case is a little different in that it does not involve individuals who are personally damaged by the bullying, so some kind of indictment wouldn't have been appropriate. But, I would have liked to have seen some kind of court sanction to get the feds off of Louisiana's nuts about it. Alas it didn't happen. This case is like a states' rights case writ small. The counties also have rights and shouldn't have the State apparatus coming in and telling them what to do.
Yes, I was referring to those scenarios because those are the most likely scenarios IMO. Also, you can say "legally ambiguous", but IMO it's legal for the Governor to de-fund an office run by someone that he thinks is not fit to run it because he can argue that it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. So like I said, one legal, one illegal with no way to prove one way or another which was the motivation. Due to that, there's no chance of a conviction and this is just political theater.
Well, we're all talking about our opinions here and our expectations. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But, I think you should recognize that, since we have an indictment, there will be actual legal arguments coming about precedent and the interpretation of the law that is going to drill down in a concrete way to what actions are and are not legal. You might end up being right that he's free to do what he's done, but I don't see how you can say it should be obvious to everyone right now. If it was obvious, it probably wouldn't have made it through a grand jury, even a partisan one.
