“Innocent Before Proven Guilty?”: The Bizarre Bipartisan Rush To Clear Rick Perry
If you’re planning a second presidential bid — especially if your last one didn’t go so well — getting indicted would seem to be, at the very least, a major roadblock.
But the news that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is facing felony charges has so far brought the man nothing but support and sympathy. As the Texas Observer’s Forrest Wilder put it, “Judging from the reaction of national pundits and journalists, the verdict in the case of State of Texas vs. James Richard ‘Rick’ Perry is already in: Rick Perry is not just innocent; he’s being railroaded by liberal Democrats in a vindictive, politically motivated prosecution.”
On both the right and the left, politicos have sympathized with the governor, arguing the case is nothing but a political witch hunt. “Sketchy” is how David Axelrod described the whole affair.
Rather than taking a hit, Perry has managed to turn his ordeal into an indictment of the apparently oh-so-powerful liberal establishment in Texas. He’s largely played offense. On Tuesday, he got booked, smiled through his mug shot, then went out for ice cream at Austin-favorite Sandy’s. His statement on the charges explained that “this indictment amounts to nothing more than an abuse of power and I cannot, and will not, allow that to happen.”
The greatest irony with Perry being cast as victim is that the many charges of cronyism and legalized corruption that have long dogged his tenure are now at risk of fading to the background — just part of those ostensibly trumped-up integrity charges.
But the highlights alone show a theme. Perry’s biggest backer, the late home-building magnate Bob Perry (no relation), once got his own commission, the Texas Residential Construction Commission, which largely shielded builders from consumer complaints. In another case, Perry mandated an HPV vaccine for all Texas girls after his former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, became a lobbyist for the vaccine maker, Merck. Then there was the time construction firm HNTB hired former Perry spokesman and friend Ray Sullivan less than a year after he left the governor’s office; from 2004 to 2009, when Sullivan returned to Perry’s staff, the company got $300 million worth of state contracts. (One $45 million contract, for disaster recovery, had to be canceled after the company disastrously mismanaged rebuilding from Hurricane Ike.)
For now, the indictment gives Perry more allies than he has any right to expect, which allows him to gain distance from charges of corruption on every front.
Of course, that might not last.
The charges aren’t nearly as straightforwardly bunk as many reports make them sound. In 2013, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested for drunk driving and displayed appalling behavior — screaming and crying and spitting — as she was pulled over and cuffed, all of it caught on camera. Many thought she should resign, but Perry uniquely stood to gain from her departure. Housed within the Travis County DA’s office is the Public Integrity Unit, which investigates and prosecutes corruption in the state. It’s one of the most significant checks on the power Perry has amassed in his 14 years in office. Had Lehmberg resigned, Perry would have appointed her successor.
Perry threatened to veto all funding for the Public Integrity Unit if Lehmberg didn’t resign. And when Lehmberg didn’t step down, the state funding got cut. But Perry, through intermediaries, continued to make offers in exchange for her resignation, including a promise to return funding to the office and another position for Lehmberg within the DA’s office. Though no one disputes that the governor has the power to veto funds or to call for a DA’s resignation, Perry’s guilt or innocence rests on whether these threats and promises amount to an illegal coercion of public officials.
Though some national pundits have claimed a liberal witch hunt because a left-leaning group, Texans for Public Justice, filed the complaint against Perry, it was actually a Republican judge, Bert Richardson, who gave the case to special prosecutor Michael McCrum, a man who’s received support from Democrats and Republicans. We still don’t know what evidence McCrum has gathered in his investigation.
It’s certainly possible that as the case drags out and more information comes to light, Perry will lose his glow of invincibility. Even if the evidence is not enough for a guilty verdict, it may still hang Perry in the courtroom of public opinion. But these aren’t easy cases to prove, and Perry has assembled an impressive team to combat the charges.
For now, Perry should be pretty pleased with turning what should have been a black eye into some sort of beauty mark. He might even go out and get more ice cream to celebrate.
By: Abby Rapoport, Freelance Reporter in Austin, Texas; The Week, August 22, 2014
“The True Foment Is Deeper And Broader”: Ferguson’s Schools Are Just As Troubling As Its Police Force
A day after his visit to Ferguson, Missouri, Attorney General Eric H. Holder stated in a press conference that, “History simmers beneath the surface in more communities than just Ferguson.” To what history was he referring? Many assumed General Holder meant the longstanding tensions between the mostly black residents of Ferguson and the mostly white police force, but I believe General Holder meant a deeper and broader history that goes well beyond policing. The anger in Ferguson is not just in reaction to shabby treatment by the police, but also the city’s housing, educational, and other civic institutions.
The history of racial mistrust in Ferguson can be found in the legacy of residential segregation in the St. Louis metropolitan area, enforced from the early to the middle twentieth century through mechanisms such as racially restrictive covenants, zoning laws, realtors agreements, and assessors ratings, as research by Professor Colin Gordon demonstrates. Because of these longstanding policies, black Ferguson residents today are disproportionately renters without a strong political stake in the town’s governance and geographically concentrated in areas without economic power.
The broader perspective can be found by looking to recent events surrounding the school district that serves Ferguson residents. Michael Brown graduated from Normandy High School, which was located, until recently, in the Normandy School District. The facts here are a bit complex, but note that I said “until recently.” That is because the Normandy School district lost its accreditation in 2012 due to dismal standardized test scores. (Normandy was one of only three out of 500 school districts in Missouri to lose its accreditation.) The state school board took over the Normandy School District and renamed it the “Normandy School Collaborative.” By 2013, though, the new district also had lost its accreditation. Missouri law allows students of failed districts to transfer to higher-performing schools in surrounding suburbs, but the failing school district has to pay tuition and transportation costs to get the kids to their new schools. The 1,000 transfer students of Normandy obviously had no desire to remain in the “new” failed district, but the cost was high, so, incredibly, the state board voted to waive accreditation of the Collaborative rather than classify the new district as unaccredited. Ferguson’s teenagers were therefore trapped in a failed school because state politicians didn’t want to pay for them to transfer out.
These kinds of shenanigans put the policing of Ferguson into context. The protests we have watched unfold there are not simply about unfair policing in that town; rather, they are the result of a deep and broad collection of official decisions that residents, not surprisingly, interpret as demeaning to them. Viewed in this light the analogies that some have drawn to the riots of the sixties make more sense. The Kerner Commission, charged with investigating urban unrest, hypothesized that conditions in slum living such as poor housing, schools, and jobs fueled the violent reactions of residents, but the reporters also fingered as a prime cause of every riot during the period tensions between police and residents of so-called racial ghettoes. The Commission noted specifically that public confrontations between law enforcement personnel and residents of segregated urban neighborhoods, usually ordinary arrests or stops, as opposed to extraordinary and tragic events like the one in Fergsuon, specifically sparked many riots. Policing incidents may trigger social unrest, but the true foment is deeper and broader.
The lessons that police can learn to prevent incidents such as these also have broader application. My colleague Tom Tyler and I have written that police legitimacy is a key to promoting compliance with the law and better cooperation between police and the public. Decades of social psychological research shows that the foundation of legitimacy is in four components of procedural justice. Legal authorities such as police promote legitimacy by (1) treating people with dignity and respect; (2) making decisions fairly, based on fact and not on illegitimate factors such as race; (3) giving people a chance to tell their side of the story, what psychologists call “voice;” (4) and acting in a way that encourages those with whom authorities deal to believe that they will be treated benevolently in the future. The research is quite clear. People care more about these factors than outcomes. That is, it is often more important to them to be treated with dignity and respect while receiving a negative outcome, such as a traffic ticket, than it is to be treated poorly and not receive a ticket even in a situation where they clearly violated the law. The bottom line? The citizens of Ferguson want to believe that the authorities they interact with believe that they, Ferguson residents, count. Instead, again and again the message the Ferguson residents have received through official action, word and deed is that they do not.
Those of us outside of Ferguson received a lesson in what I have sketched out here when Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol came to Ferguson. It is true that his race and the fact that he grew up in the town helped smooth the way for him. It is also true that the fact that he went out and spoke to the demonstrators, listened to them, and explained what he was doing and why are all textbook components of procedural justice. When police authorities act in this way, if a tragic incident such as the shooting of Michael Brown occurs, police executives get a “moment of pause” rather than a riot.
City leaders and the Normandy School board can benefit from a greater commitment to legitimacy in their decision-making as well. Transparency and inclusiveness are keys. I believe that the citizens of Ferguson simply want to be treated as just that—citizens. It is far past time to provide them with what they deserve.
By: Tracey Meares, The New Republic, August 22, 2014
“A Nation Of Cultural Illiterates”: What’s Next In Ferguson? Let’s Try A Little Education
What next?
That’s what should concern us now. When the nightly dance of angry protesters, opportunistic criminals, and inept police clashing over the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown finally ends, what steps should civic-minded people take to address the ongoing abuse of African-Americans by the criminal injustice system? Not just in Ferguson, Missouri, but in America?
There will be no shortage of good ideas: dashboard cameras, community policing, the hiring of more black cops, the removal of military hardware from police arsenals, sensitivity training. To these, I would add a suggestion that is admittedly less “sexy” than any of those, but which I think has greater potential to make fundamental change in the long term. In a word: education.
Beginning as early as the latter elementary years, schools should offer — no, require — age-appropriate cross-cultural studies that would, in effect, introduce us to us. Meaning not some airy-fairy curriculum of achievements and accomplishments designed to impart some vague intra-cultural pride, but a hard-headed, warts and all American history designed to impart understanding of who we are, where we’re from and the forces that have made us — inner-city black, Appalachian white, barrio Mexican, whatever.
You might consider this a utopian idea. Maybe it is. But I’ve never been able to shake a conviction that if you walk the proverbial mile in another man’s shoes, you inoculate yourself against your biases toward him. I believe empathy follows understanding.
Surely we could use some empathy just now. As America races toward a future in which no one race is numerically dominant, it remains largely a nation of cultural illiterates content to interpret various Others through lenses of stereotype and canard. If this has been a bonanza for certain politicians (“Elect me and I’ll keep you safe from the gays/the Mexicans/the blacks!”), let us never forget that this ignorance, these unconscious biases for and against, have real-world impact.
Michael Brown lying dead in the street is seemingly one image thereof. Here’s another:
Last Thursday at 2:30 in the morning, seven teenagers, ages 18 and 19, broke into the home of basketball star Ray Allen. Allen, who played last season for the Miami Heat, was not home, but his wife was. Waking to find strangers in her bedroom, she screamed and they ran.
Police say the teenagers, who had been at a party at a house near Allen’s in the tony South Florida suburb of Coral Gables, didn’t think anybody was home and simply wanted to see what it looked like inside. The kids were questioned and released. Authorities have thus far declined to prosecute, saying — incredibly — that under Florida law, there was no crime with which the group could be charged.
It ought not surprise you to learn that these kids were white Hispanics. And I challenge you — I double-dog dare you — to tell me seven black kids who invaded a home in a wealthy neighborhood in the middle of the night would have likewise gotten off with a good talking-to. Black kids are strangers to such lavish benefit of the doubt.
And we have been too sanguine for too long about such inequality of treatment in a nation whose birth certificate says, “all men are created equal.” We have only the one country. And we can either tear it apart or figure out a way we can all live in it in justice and thus, in peace.
To do that, we must stop being moral cowards, stop embracing the idea that somehow, our racial and cultural challenges will resolve themselves if we just don’t talk about them. Ignore it and it will go away. Take a good look at the carnage in Ferguson and ask yourself:
How’s that working out so far?
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist, The Miami Herald; The National Memo, August 20, 2014
“The New Credential For 2016”: For Republicans, “Come And Get Me, Coppers”, More Politically Acceptable Than Expressing Contrition
We’ve heard the argument before with respect to Chris Christie and Scott Walker that the abuse-of-power investigations they’ve faced could actually help them as presidential candidates, so long as they stay out of the slammer and can blame their persecution on the godless liberals. But now that Rick Perry has joined the Shadow-of-the-Hoosegow club, RealClearPolitics’ Scott Conroy offers a general theory that they’ll all benefit from a presumption that legal problems mean The Left is afraid of them and wants them hauled off in chains before they can roar through the primaries like avenging angels.
It’s a strategy that may pay dividends in a 2016 primary fight, as all three would be courting conservative voters who will likely see the investigations as badges of honor.
Bob Haus, who helmed Perry’s 2012 campaign in Iowa and is poised to reprise that role in 2016, said the “overwhelming response” from activists in the nation’s first voting state has been strongly supportive.
“They see the actions against Governor Perry for what they are: raw politics,” Haus said. “I would also say that Governor Perry has shown great strength and resolve in this matter. He and his team have managed this issue exceptionally well, and have shown they will fight this aggressively.”
In other words, “come and get me, coppers!” is a more politically effective response than anything expressing contrition or an openness to a slap on the wrist.
Now this has to be deeply frustrating to other candidates seeking 2016 traction who don’t have the credential of being threatened with imprisonment. Consider Bobby Jindal, who’s tried every stunt imaginable to get whipped-up Con-Con activists interested in his presidential availability. As it happens, Bobby was just handed a judicial setback by a state judge who issued an injunction to block Jindal from killing implementation of Common Core education standards in Louisiana–he was the state’s premier Common Core supporter until he became its premier opponent, of course–pending a trial. You have to wonder if Bobby’s brain trust has discussed ways to secure a contempt of court charge to spice things up–you know, the governor entering the courtroom brandishing a Bible and shrieking “Get thee behind me, Satan!” at the judge or something. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 21, 2014
“Shake The Complacency”: Twelve Percent Turnout Is An Insult To Your Children
The Rev. Al Sharpton, host of msnbc’s “Politics Nation,” spoke at the Greater Grace Church’s services yesterday, and addressed the crisis surrounding Michael Brown’s death from a variety of angles. Of particular interest, though, was one of Sharpton’s challenges to the community itself.
“Michael Brown is gonna change this town,” he said, before criticizing the paltry voting record on the area. “You all have got to start voting and showing up. 12% turnout is an insult to your children.”
That was not an exaggeration. The historical and institutional trends that created the current dynamic in Ferguson – a largely African-American population led by a largely white local government – are complex, but the fact that black voters haven’t been politically engaged has contributed to the challenges facing the community. In the most recent elections, turnout really was just 12%.
Patricia Bynes, a black woman who is the Democratic committeewoman for the Ferguson area, told the New York Times that last week’s developments may shake the complacency that too often shapes local politics. “I’m hoping that this is what it takes to get the pendulum to swing the other way,” Bynes said.
To that end, Ferguson residents have had an enormous amount of work to do over the last several days – mourn, grieve, protest, and recover, all while struggling through moments of violence – but haven’t forgotten about the importance of civic engagement in general, and voter registration in specific.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a piece over the weekend that included a striking detail (thanks to my colleague Laura Conaway for the heads-up).
Rev. Rodney Francis of the St. Louis Clergy Coalition pointed to voter registration tent at the scene. “That’s where change is gonna happen,” Francis said.
Debra Reed of University City and her daughter, Shiron Hagens, were working at the registration tent. They said they set it up on their own.
“We’re trying to make young people understand that this is how to change things,” Reed said.
Note, some Republican-led states have made voter-registration drives far more difficult in recent years – Florida, for example, has imposed harsh restrictions without cause – but no such hindrances exist in Missouri.
State GOP policymakers have taken steps to restrict voting rights and curtail early voting, but none of this should be seen as an excuse to discourage Ferguson residents from registering and participating. The kind of systemic changes many in the community crave can be achieved through the ballot box.
To repeat Sharpton’s message: “You all have got to start voting and showing up. 12% turnout is an insult to your children.”
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 18, 2014
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