Prosecutorial abuse for partisan purposes is common these days, and the latest display is taking place in the all-too-familiar venue of Austin, Texas. On Friday a Travis County prosecutor indicted Governor Rick Perry for the high crime of exercising his constitutional right to free speech and his legal power to veto legislation.
Lest you think we oversimplify, read the two-count indictment. It’s all of two pages. It charges Mr. Perry with abusing his office by “threatening to veto legislation that had been approved and authorized by the Legislature of the State of Texas to provide funding for the continued operation of the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s office unless Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned from her official position as elected District Attorney.”
Yes, that’s all they’ve got. Usually when prosecutors want to use the criminal statutes to cripple a political opponent, they come up with at least some claims of personal or political venality. In this case the D.A.’s office is trying to criminalize the normal process of constitutional government.
The background facts don’t make the case any more compelling. In 2013 police found Travis D.A. Lehmberg drunk in her car with a blood alcohol level of 0.23, or nearly three times the legal limit. A video made at the time shows her ranting against and abusing the police attempting to book her. The Democrat eventually did jail time.
Mr. Perry saw a political opening and said he would veto $7.5 million in funds for Ms. Lehmberg’s Public Integrity Unit unless she resigned. He argued, plausibly enough, that a prosecutor who breaks the law and abuses law enforcement shouldn’t judge the “public integrity” of others in government. Ms. Lehmberg refused to step down, and Mr. Perry used his line-item veto to strike the appropriation.
You can disagree with his decision, as many in the media and politics did, but that is a political dispute. Even if Mr. Perry was motivated by political animus toward the public-integrity unit, which has a history of politicized prosecutions, so what? A Texas Governor under the state Constitution has wide veto power. The legislature lacked the votes to override the veto.