The Top Ten Awesomely Bad Moments Of The Perry Administration

[To learn what inspired us to do this post, go here.]

With Texas Governor Rick Perry saying he’s going to run again in 2010, we at Capitol Annex thought it might be a good time to review his tenure as governor. In doing so, we found a significant number of “awesomely bad moments” worth chronicling. We had initially intended to document ten such moments, but ended up with more. So, we’ve chronicled the ten worst below, with some “honorable mention” moments below that.

10. I’m Proud Of Texas. How ‘Bout You? No retrospective of the Perry Administration could ever be complete without the infamous ad from the 2006 election cycle. Yep, the one where Rick Perry slowly turned toward the camera (as if turning faster would really muss up the hair he so carefully sprayed a can and a half of Aqua Net on earlier that morning) and said, “I’m proud of Texas. How ’bout you?” Never mind that the ad spouted blatant lies about job growth and all of the “good” that tort reform has done for Texas. It was that slow turn toward the camera and the “How ’bout you?” that help sum up everything that is wrong with Rick Perry’s leadership–or so it seemed.

9. “It’s OK To Be Gay, Governor Perry!” Who could forget the emails that flew from every corner of the state alleging that First Lady Anita Perry was all set to move out of the Governor’s Mansion–even to the point that moving vans were seen on the street–and that Perry was going to resign to accept a lobbying job for the Texas Automobile Dealer’s Association. Add to that former Texas Democratic Chair Charles’ Soechting saying these immortal words:

“How many of you all know? Raise your hands up. That’s right. They had a rally up there in support of the governor today. Some of his friends said, ‘Come out, Rick, and we’ll support you.’ Anyway, it’s a good time for us,” Soechting said.

More here, here, here, and here.

8. HPV Vaccine Mandate. With what seemed like the best of intentions (note that we said “seemed like”), a governor who has seen cancer destroy his family passionately seized an opportunity to prevent cervical cancer in young Texas women–and, through his political incompetence, turned it into one of the biggest disasters of his political life. In the early part of 2007, when Texas Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order requiring that Texas’ school aged girls be vaccinated against the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), it immediately stirred up a storm of controversy from both sides of the political aisle. Republicans didn’t want the state requiring their children be vaccinated with a drug they claimed would encourage rampant sexual promiscuity and Democrats (all except former Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell, it seemed) and Democrats were miffed that Perry issued the order and usurped the Legislature’s authority while the Legislature was actually in session. Of course, Perry’s waxing poetic about fighting cancer just seemed like another episode in the pay-to-play culture of his administration when it came to light that he’d taken money from Merck before mandating the use of Gardasil in Texas. The Legislature ultimately overrode his executive order.

7. The MoFo Moment. It was June of 2005, and Rick Perry decided to mock a television reporter. Via KSAT:

Gov. Rick Perry apologized to a Houston TV reporter Tuesday for a comment he made during a satellite interview.

KTRK reporter Ted Oberg was interviewing Perry on Monday about the governor’s plan for school finance when Perry politely told the reporter he would have to wait until Tuesday for details about the plan.

“In saying goodbye, I told the governor, ‘Try as I may, governor, I guess I can’t win this one,’” Oberg said.

About 10 seconds after Oberg and Perry said goodbye, the camera crew was getting ready for the next interview with another TV station when Perry, unaware that the camera was still rolling and his microphone still on, said, “Try as I may, governor, I’m not going to wait that long. Adios Mofo.”

The next day, Perry apologized to Oberg, saying his comment wasn’t directed toward the station, and all he was doing was trying to get a reaction from the camera crew.

And, if you don’t know what MoFo means, go here.

6. Discussing School Finance In The Bahamas–with Grover Norquist and James Leininger. Over President’s Day Weekend in 2004, Rick Perry took a junket to the Bahamas to discuss school finance with school voucher kingpin Dr. James Leininger and anti-tax wingnut Grover Norquist.

From the Austin Chronicle:

When public interest groups complained about the unseemliness of the governor vacationing with deep-pocketed donors, spokesman Robert Black described the cruise as a “working trip” paid for by “campaign funds” and devoted to a discussion of “public school finance.” That is, during a luxury retreat in the Bahamas, the governor discussed “public school finance” with a group of wealthy right-wing activists who have done everything in their power to undermine, or even abolish, public education. But we should be reassured by the knowledge that foxes paid for the chicken feed.

The trip resulted in an investigation by the Texas Ethics Commission to determine if Perry illegally converted campaign funds to personal use.

5. The Father’s Day Massacre. On June 17, 2001, Texas Governor Rick Perry vetoed 78 bills passed during the 77th Texas Legislature–a record for any Texas governor on any day that earned the moniker, “The Father’s Day Massacre.” Among the bills Perry vetoed were HB 236, a ban on executing the mentally retarded (which ultimately resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court swooping down and smacking down the state of Texas); a ban on discrimination against bikers (HB 259); judicial training in ethnic and racial sensitivity (HB 546); prompt payment for healthcare providers (HB 1862); low-interest loan program for Green building (HB 2839); living wage for school district construction (SB 350); and no arrests for traffic violations (SB 730).

4. If You Are Gay, There Is A Better Place For You To Live. Although a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman (the Defense of Marriage Act), didn’t need Rick Perry’s signature to become law, he could not resist the opportunity to hold a signing ceremony and throw out red meat to his faithful, conservative followers, However, he ended up essentially spitting in the face of thousands Texans when a reporter asked him what he had to say “to gays and lesbians who are serving in the military right now in Iraq who are going to come back to Texas and may not be entitled to the same rights as the rest of us?” His response:

Mr. Perry responded that “Texans have made a decision about marriage, and if there is some other state that has a more lenient view than Texas, then maybe that’s a better place for them to live.”

Needless to say, the statement made national headlines and was yet another infamous Perry gaffe.

3. Redistricting Redux. On June 21, 2003, Rick Perry called a Special Session of the Texas Legislature to address Congressional Redistricting (the first of three such special sessions). It was also the day that Rick Perry became Tom DeLay’s bitch. While indicted former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land) bears the brunt of the blame for the mid-decade redistricting power grab that altered the state’s congressional districts, separated communities of interest and deprived minorities of their voting rights, and made politics in Texas more acrimonious than ever, Texas Governor Rick Perry stands second in line in the blame department. Without an ally with the constitutional authority to call the Legislature into special session, DeLay’s mid-decade redistricting scheme would have been dead after Democrats fled to Ardmore, Oklahoma during the regular session in May. However, Perry bent his will to DeLay’s and did his part to facilitate DeLay’s pipe dream of a “permanent Republican majority.” The Special Sessions cost millions in taxpayer dollars and resulted in the Democrats in the state senate fleeing to New Mexico. And, the ultimate result of the sessions–a new map for Texas’ congressional districts–was ultimately tossed aside, at least in part–by the U.S. Supreme Court after millions of dollars in costly litigation.

2. The Trans-Texas Corridor. During his election campaign in 2002, Texas Governor Rick Perry decided to roll out what has become a tremendous albatross around his neck–not to mention one of the biggest public policy issues Texas has faced in the last 100 years. From the January 29, 2002 Austin American Statesman: (sorry, no link)

Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday he has asked state highway officials to start planning a massive transportation network across Texas – with toll roads, railroads and underground utility tunnels grouped in corridors stretching from border to border.

“This plan is as big as Texas and as ambitious as our people,” Perry said. The $ 175 billion, 4,000-mile network is necessitated, he said, by the rapid growth of the state’s population and the expected increase in Mexican truck traffic following passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

“Some might ask, ‘Is this too big?’ I say nothing is too big for Texas when our economic security, our environment and our quality of life is at stake,” Perry told an audience of officials from around the state.

Perry, the Republican candidate for governor, will pitch the plan at a series of appearances, including one Wednesday before the Greater Houston Partnership.

Dubbed the Trans Texas Corridor, the plan really involves a network of corridors, each about 1,000 feet wide and containing a six-lane divided roadway, six railroad tracks for high-speed passenger and freight trains, and easements for underground pipelines and communications cable. It would take about 50 years to complete.

1. The Texas Youth Commission Scandal. In the fall of 2005, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s office learned of a wide-reaching sexual abuse scandal involving inmates and employees at facilities run by the Texas Youth Commission, the state’s juvenile incarceration system. His office, however, failed to take any action on the matter until February, 2007–after the scandal broke on the front pages of daily newspapers across the state. In typical inept fashion, Perry’s staff ignored the issue in 2005 (later claiming they didn’t see a report on it), and then got Texas Youth Commission officials to attempt to shift the blame for knowing about the abuse and not doing anything to members of the Legislature (in all likelihood, Perry and his staff knew about the issue as early as 2001, and failed to act). Perry defended his staff’s inaction with Nixonian overtones, even telling reporters they were confused about the difference between “some notes” and a “report.” It was, perhaps, the dumbest statements he’s ever uttered. When the scandal finally did come to light, Perry was slow to respond. When he did respond, his preference to appoint a potentially unconstitutional “special master” as opposed to a “conservator” for the commission became a quagmire. When he did appoint someone to clean up the mess, it was a political hack that was universally criticized. To date, the agency still suffers from a myriad of difficulties.

Honorable Mention. (Sometimes, there are so many awesomely bad moments, 10 just isn’t enough).

15. Delete After Seven Days. During the hottest moments of 2007’s Texas Youth Commission Scandal, it came to light that it was the policy of the office of Texas Governor Rick Perry to delete all emails after seven days. The problem, however, was that the “seven day delete” policy clearly violated state regulations concerning maintaining governmental correspondence. The “seven day delete policy” became a story unto itself and dragged on through most of 2007, gaining national attention, involved a Wisconsin open government advocate, and involved wiping servers clean of email correspondence.

14. 2002 Campaign Ad Links Tony Sanchez To Drug Cartel Money. Who can forget the infamous, tacky, and inaccurate ad that Perry launched on July 29, 2002 against his Democratic opponent, Tony Sanchez that linked Sanchez’s former Savings and Loan to money from a drug cartel. This was the script of the ad (.doc):

Newspapers reported Tony Sanchez’s bank laundered $25 million in drug money, stuffed into suitcases, flown to Texas and deposited in his bank.

A federal judge confirmed Sanchez’s bank wired millions of laundered drug money to Manuel Noriega’s Panama.

The Justice Department said Sanchez had a choice: to cooperate with law enforcement or the drug dealers. Sanchez chose the drug dealers.

Sanchez voice: “I’m very proud of the way our savings and loan handled that matter.”

On July 28, 2002, the Austin American-Statesman characterized the ad this way (sorry, no link):

Gov. Rick Perry, in a 30-second TV ad based on a selective reading of court records, on Monday will accuse Democratic challenger Tony Sanchez of being involved in international laundering of drug money.

The new commercial, named “Suitcase” for the delivery method of choice of suspected drug dealers who ran $25 million through Sanchez’s Tesoro Savings & Loan, is sure to add a few degrees to a campaign that has heated up in proportion to the summer weather.

In three spoken sentences, backed by grainy images and mysterious music, “Suitcase” will serve as the commercial that Perry hopes will be the beginning of the end for Sanchez.

“Can Texans really trust Tony Sanchez?” says the punch line, adding an italicized, enlarged “really,” underlined in red, to the kicker used on previous Perry ads attacking Sanchez.

A Sanchez campaign spokesman, when told about the ad, called it “the most irresponsible fabrication ever to be aired in a Texas political campaign.”

“They are implying that Tony Sanchez laundered drug money,” said spokesman Mark Sanders. “What happened was unscrupulous characters, unbeknownst to the savings and loan, put money in and took money out. It wasn’t the savings and loan laundering money.”

“Suitcase” opens with a one-sentence recounting of how drug money “stuffed into suitcases” was flown to Texas and deposited in Tesoro in 1983 and 1984. The deposits were spread out among scores of accounts in many people’s names.

How the money flowed out of Tesoro, including $9 million wired to Panama as government officials tried to freeze it, was the source of a federal court battle that ended in 1988 with an order saying Tesoro did nothing wrong when it wired the money as requested by the account holders.

Sanchez does not deny that drug money was deposited at Tesoro, which was founded by his family in 1974 and failed in 1988, but he insists he and other officials knew nothing about it and cooperated with law enforcement officials.

The new Perry commercial, referring to a case that did not directly involve Tesoro, says, “A federal judge confirmed Sanchez’s bank wired millions in laundered drug money to Manuel Noriega’s Panama.”

While ignoring a federal judge’s 1988 decision that Tesoro acted properly in wiring the money to Panama, the ad shows El Paso U.S. District Judge Harry Lee Hudspeth’s signature on a Nov. 8, 1984, order in a case involving drug-related money in an El Paso bank.

That order upheld the Internal Revenue Service’s claim that the dealer who deposited the money owed $28.4 million in income tax. The judge’s decision did not address whether anyone at Tesoro knew the money in the suitcases was ill-gotten gain.

In addition, Sanders said, “Manual Noriega’s involvement is a figment of Rick Perry’s imagination. He should be ashamed of himself.”

No judge has ever said anyone at Tesoro knew it had become a money launderer of choice for Mexican drug dealers.

The ad marked a new low-point in Texas politics. While the ad was no doubt Perry’s most effective ad of the election cycle, it was perhaps the most misleading, dishonest political ad ever produced in a gubernatorial campaign in Texas.

13. We Need To Hold An Election. Get Out A Calendar And Some Darts (Or Our Lady Of Perpetual Redistricting vs. The Virgin Of Guadalupe). While Rick Perry has been in office, on not one but at least three occasions, he has decided to set election dates (a power he is granted under Texas law) on some pretty odd dates. In the first instance, Perry decided to set the second Saturday in September, 2003, as the date for a constitutional amendment election. Of course, the hot issue on the ballot that year was tort reform (Proposition 12) and Perry and his Republican cronies wanted to make sure that the election was a low-turnout affair. So, instead of holding the election in November (as is typical), they decided to move it up to the middle of September, thereby suppressing turnout (surprise, surprise, except in Houston where a major mayoral contest drove voters to the polls) and all but guaranteeing passage of tort reform by voters. In another instance in 2006, Perry set the special election runoff in Congressional District 23 against Congressman Ciro Rodriguez and now-former Congressman Henry Bonilla on the day of a pretty significant holiday within that Congressional District: the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

12. If You Don’t Like The Rebel Flag, Drop Dead. According to rocker Ted Nugent, this is what Texas Governor Rick Perry told him to tell reporters after Nugent fielded calls from reporters about performing at Perry’s inaugural in a confederate flag with machine guns as props in 2007. In addition, during the performance at Perry’s 2007 inaugural ball, Nugent made several unspecified slurs directed at non-English speakers, and generally embarassed the hell out of many Republicans. According to Nugent, Perry supported the flag-wearing, gun-displaying Nugent 100 percent:

(Perry) called me to tell me, when they attack me for wearing the rebel flag, be sure you tell them that I, as governor, support the waving of the rebel flag at the Laredo airport, alongside with the American, Texas and Mexican flags, and tell them to drop dead.

11. Pilgrim Pays For Progress. Though a recent, still developing scandal, the fact that Texas Governor Rick Perry’s litany of pay-to-play favors now includes requesting a federal waiver after a chicken producer dropped a hundred grand to an organization Perry chairs is worthy of mention on this list. It appears as though Governor Perry’s recent request for a waiver of federal corn-based ethanol production mandates was a “thank you” to right-wing poultry king Lonnie “Bo” Pilgrim. Pilgrim met with Perry on March 25 and asked him to seek a waiver from the federal mandates. Six days later on March 31, Pilgrim donated $100,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association–a group which Perry chairs. Then, on April 17 (no doubt with Perry’s assistance), Pilgrim had a closed-door audience with nine Republican governors during an energy conference in Grapevine. On April 24, lobbyists for Pilgrim’s Pride and public relations folks from the Austin firm Public Strategies met with Perry’s staff to formalize the final details of the waiver request which was issued the next day (the same day Pilgrim’s Pride issued a statement supporting Perry’s decision).

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