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Maybe the Governor needs an emergency to justify directing agencies, businesses, and private individuals outside the Executive branch, but, of course the head of the Executive Branch can and should direct the heads of the various departments in that branch. They are not independent agents.

It's one thing for a judge to tell the Governor that he doesn't have the right to make special requests of judges - that's a different branch of state government and we've all seen how fussy those judges about any criticism.

However, to expect the Governor to just sit by and let the agency bureaucrats run the bureaucracy without any direction is pure madness. Just come up to Austin when any of the abortion/gay/transgendered issue bills are heard (or watch them on the computer) to see who would be deciding all of these matters if the elected head of the Executive Branch weren't strong enough.

(I'll holler at y'all when HB 300 gets to Committee. The last time this came up in 2005, lots of people signed in against the bill but not testifying, but only a couple of us actually gave testimony against it. )

And then there's the lawsuit that was filed Friday that will put us in bad with Medicaid and all those regs on the Vaccines for Children entitlements -- here come the fines and censures from the Feds.
Thank God we've got General Abbott to answer all the questions.

I'll repeat myself: Do you lump HPV in the same threat category as measles, mumps, etc.?

I would also ask the following questions: If this was done under Ms. Richards would you be okay with it? Keep in mind that most of the democrats seem to be for Perry's order - that speaks volumes about this.

Also, if you think it's okay to go from mandating immunization of children for publicly communicable diseases to STDs, where do you draw the line?

hocndoc, Rick Perry does not have the power to issue such an EO. There is really nothing else to say.

Perry is going to get is ass handed to him. And rightly so because he is grabbing power. Rick Perry cannot expand the power of the Texas govenors office by a stroke of the pen.

Read Perry's past EO's, read the Texas Constitution. Perry can no more say with an EO that the state will spend $35 million dollars vaccinating young women as he could mandating we shoot a rocket in to space.

Besides Perry's abuse of power I'm confounded when I see so-called conservatives agree that it's A-OK for Perry to steal the rights of Texas parents and Texas children.