Posted on 09/24/2011 9:21:26 AM PDT by Comparative Advantage
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s clashes with conservative activists are nothing new: A bitter battle over racial preferences and liberal judges has raged in the tight-knit world of Lone Star politics since 2001.
In the days following George W. Bush’s election to the presidency, the newly minted Gov. Perry had a chance to prove his mettle by nominating justices to fill two Texas Supreme Court vacancies.
Following Ronald Reagan’s unsuccessful 1987 nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, conservative activists had been awakened to a new kind of politics — the politics of judicial nominations — and Perry’s selection of Xavier Rodriguez in Texas only made them angrier.
Born in San Antonio, Rodriguez was educated at Harvard before returning to earn his law degree in his home state and practice law with Fulbright & Jaworski, where he became a partner. Though described by one opponent as “a decent lawyer and a decent guy,” the young attorney’s nomination forced his experience and beliefs onto Texas conservatives’ collective radar.
And when conservative lawyer Steven Wayne Smith picked up his newspaper and read that Rodriguez named the reliably liberal Supreme Court Justice David Souter as his judicial role model, any ideas Gov. Perry may have had of an uneventful appointment went out the window.
A half-decade saga began that day which, by its conclusion, was a Texas tale of racial politicking, an underage abortion ruling and an executive vendetta.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
You have to read the article. Perry made an appointment based on race.
Read the entire article. The author is a conservative.
You’re right. Thank you.
Perry is a Bush redux, making appointments based on race. We have that in DC already. I’m not voting to add another one of them.
Agreed. He’s pandering for votes.
Perry is a case study in how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
amazing
Steven Wayne Smith:
Primary Election of 1998 (Losing to Hankinson)In 1998, Smith ran for the Republican nomination for Place 4 on the Texas Supreme Court. Smith’s opponent was incumbent Deborah Hankinson, who had been appointed to the Court in 1997 by then-Governor George W. Bush.
In the Republican primary, Smith lost to Hankinson by a tally of 59.41 percent to 40.58 percent.
[edit] Election of 2002 (Winning Election)Smith was elected to the court in 2002 by first defeating Xavier Rodriguez, an appointee of Governor Rick Perry, in the Republican primary. Smith polled 306,730 votes (53.49 percent) to Rodriguez’s 266,648 ballots (46.50 percent). Rodriguez spent $558,000, called himself a “moderate”, and lost; Smith spent $9,500, called himself a “conservative”, and won in an upset.
Smith defeated Democrat Margaret Mirabal in the November general election. He polled 2,331,140 votes (54.09 percent), to Mirabal’s 1,978,081 ballots (45.90 percent).
The 2002 election was for the unexpired portion of a normal six-year term. The term began with the re-election of Greg Abbott to the seat in 1998. Under the Texas Constitution, after he resigned in 2001 to run for Texas Attorney General. an election had to be scheduled for fall 2002 for the remaining two years of Abbott’s original term. Thus, Smith had to run for re-election in 2004.
[edit] Primary Election of 2004 (Losing to Green)In 2004, Smith again tapped David Rogers to manage his campaign for a full six-year term on the Supreme Court. Rogers noted that in the 2002 primary election, while grass-roots Republicans supported Smith, many political insiders did not. Smith’s 2004 supporters included the Texas Eagle Forum, former Governor William P. Clements, Jr., (for whom Smith worked in Clements’ second term), former Congressman and Railroad Commissioner Kent Hance (who opposed Clements in the 1986 Republican gubernatorial primary), conservative/libertarian Congressman Ron Paul, and California activist Ward Connerly, president of the Civil Rights Institute.
Perry and U.S. Senator John Cornyn opposed Smith’s candidacy and he eventually lost the primary to Green. Green was unopposed in the 2004 general election.
A controversial email that Smith sent out responding to Green’s attack that Smith was short on credentials may have backfired and cost Smith some support. While touting his own academic achievements at the University of Texas School of Law, Smith disparaged Green’s academic achievements, namely that Green had graduated from St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, a smaller and less well known law school. Senator John Cornyn is a St. Mary’s alumnus. Dean Bill Piatt of St. Mary’s blasted Smith, saying that it was inappropriate for a sitting Supreme Court justice to belittle one of the law schools in the State of Texas. Piatt widely distributed a letter that he had written to Smith to many alumni of St. Mary’s and others in the legal community. Smith wrote a conciliatory response letter to Piatt, but did not publicize that letter.
[edit] Primary Election of 2006 (Losing to Willett)On January 3, 2006, Smith announced that he would enter the March 7 Republican primary for Place 2 on the Texas Supreme Court. He opposed Justice Don R. Willett of Austin, a Baylor and Duke University Law School graduate who was appointed to the bench in fall 2005 by Governor Perry to replace newly confirmed Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Priscilla Owen.
Both Willett and Smith took conservative legal positions with respect to the high court, which hears civil and juvenile appeals cases. Bush announced on January 19, 2006, that he was supporting Willett.
In 2004, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison supported Smith’s reelection, but she endorsed Willett in the 2006 race. Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, himself a former Texas Supreme Court justice, also endorsed Willett. The San Antonio Express-News endorsed Willett, but the Fort Worth Star-Telegram backed Smith.
Smith lost to Willett by 4,979 votes. He sought a recount. Willett’s victory came largely from his strong showings in populous Harris, Tarrant, Dallas, Bexar, Gregg, and Travis counties. Smith ran well in Brazos, Tom Green, Victoria, and Potter counties as well as in numerous less-populated counties.
....
BTW do you have the link to the Smith/Phalen Abortion controversy?
How do you explain am outstandingly educated attorney working in private practice and an ATTORNEY FOR Businesses fighting Discimination suits a LIBERAL.
And supporting a so so law that spent his career working as a Legislative toady.
Thing that make people go HUMMMMM.
No he isn’t. What you are seeing is the slimey underside of the Texas political scene. They would rather have a outstanding Lawyer defeated for a questionable Legislative Aid. He brought the Hopwood case against UT.
I guess he thought because Rodriquez was his opponents last name he must be a quota baby.
Harvard/UT/UT. Got hired by the one of the most influencial Lawfirms in Texas.
Now just exactly why would he not be acceptable to Conservs.
To Rodriquez credit and character he NEVER played the race card.
Unlike Smith supporters.
Though Rodriguez insisted he had “no strong ideological bent,” critics seized on his only major ruling, that an underage plaintiff did not have to inform her parents about an abortion because the difficult conversation could subject her to emotional abuse.
Rodriguez believed the definition of emotional abuse was satisfied by the testimony of the girl whose case he heard. “If I was ever pregnant,” the unnamed girl testified, “I might as well not come home. I’d have no place to stay. I’d have no freedom, no liberties. My car would be taken away. My cell phone would be taken away. I wouldn’t have all the luxuries that I do now.”
What kind of heartless person wouldn't?
What’s new about this? Anybody who doesn’t support the left is a “racist”. I hear this in the media every day. they wore the spots off the race card years ago.
Actually that last part is very sad. I'm sure the self-centered princess never felt a twinge for her child.
That isn’t what the article is about. You have to read the article.
The last paragraph about Perry’s immigrant and racial policies is particularly damning. He’s vindictive as well, imho.
I would say he’s vindictive. The article pointed out that he “declined” to congratulate Smith on winning. We don’t need more of the same in DC.
Quite a conclusion to the article.
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No. We already have that.
“It does seem playing up to the Hispanics is more important than sticking to his principles.”
Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe those ARE his principles. He has done nothing to disabuse us of that notion.
The fact that some conservatives would put Perry’s in-state tuition for illegals above SS reform is just plain nuts.
Romney is on record saying that he want to maintain SS.
The WSJ has an excellent article on the Texas solution to SS. You should read it.
Romney is not much different from Obama, just another big government narcissist.
Perry is a states rights guy, so his in-state tuition for illegals shouldn’t even be a question in this election.
The Daily Caller has an ad for Ron Paul on the same page with this article. That says it all.
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