Posted on 04/05/2007 6:54:05 AM PDT by Cat loving Texan
In dealing with scandal, questions of pace, politics Perry stalled and lawmakers pressed until face-saving strategies worked out, some say.
By Laylan Copelin AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, April 05, 2007 For almost six weeks, Gov. Rick Perry resisted state lawmakers every step of the way toward nuking a state agency with a culture of denial that for years did not address allegations that workers might be molesting youths in their custody.
The governor has blamed a West Texas prosecutor for sitting on a Texas Ranger's investigation and insisted that neither his appointees to the Texas Youth Commission's board nor his own staff should share any blame.
"We're looking forward, not back," Perry said at a news conference last week when he agreed to appoint a conservator with the legal authority to clean up the agency. Flanked by many of the same lawmakers who had demanded that action for weeks, Perry refused to answer why he took so long to accept the recommendation of lawmakers, particularly fellow Republicans.
Lawmakers who pushed Perry in behind-the-scenes negotiations cite Perry's loyalty to his political appointees, poor advice from staff members, attempts to save face and a bitter misunderstanding between Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.
In Perry's public statements and his staff members' remarks, the pace was defended as both addressing the scandal while slowing down the Legislature's "knee-jerk reaction," said Robert Black, the governor's press secretary.
After news of the scandal broke in February, Perry and the Legislature, particularly the Senate, seemed to be reacting at different speeds.
"There was no sense of urgency from the governor's office," Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said of the governor's initial reaction to the Senate's demands for swift action. "I have not been comfortable during these six weeks that the inmates have been protected."
Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, questioned from the start whether state leaders had the political will to address the controversy. He said he now believes Perry got bad advice from his top aides. He also said some House and Senate leaders wanted to let Perry save face: "There was a concern about embarrassing the governor."
Almost all the participants in the debate over what to do, including Perry's staff, said the governor felt strongly that his appointees to the Youth Commission's board should not be blamed.
"They might not have asked enough questions," Black said. "But they didn't do anything overtly wrong."
It is now known that employees at the remote Youth Commission lockup in Pyote, near Pecos, had suspected for years that some administrators were molesting inmates. They forwarded their suspicions to the agency's Austin headquarters where, they complained, nothing happened until a Texas Ranger, acting on a tip, began an investigation more than two years ago.
Perry's appointees to the board contend they knew nothing about allegations of agency management covering up or not acting on complaints. They also said agency managers didn't share a damaging internal report with them.
As it became apparent over the past six weeks that sexual molestation reports might not be confined to the Pyote facility, the pressure intensified on state officials to act.
Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, is a member of the Legislative Audit Committee, which exercised its authority a month ago to allow Perry to name a conservator to clean up the agency. However, Williams said, the governor's office urged the committee to give Perry leeway in the resolution's language to avoid naming a conservator.
"They felt like the conservatorship poured out the board," Williams said of the governor's office.
Deflecting blame
Perry was playing defense from the moment the scandal broke.
Although Texas Rangers typically notify state leaders when they initiate an investigation, Perry says he learned the details of the scandal in Pyote from news reports in February. However, a Perry staffer, Alfonso Royal, received investigative details at the end of October.
Royal, a $70,000-a-year employee, is one of 25 budget and policy staffers who monitor state agencies for the governor. Aware that the Ranger was frustrated by the lack of prosecution of his case locally, Royal urged District Attorney Randall Reynolds, who serves Ward County, where Pyote is located, either to prosecute the case or get help from the state's attorney general, Black said.
Royal never advised anyone else in the governor's office of the problems with the slow-moving prosecutor, according to Black.
In the middle of the standoff with the Legislature, Perry traveled to the Middle East for eight days.
At a news conference upon his return, Perry defended Royal, saying he was happy with his employee's actions and the flow of information in the governor's office: "My staff person did exactly what I would expect him to do."
And although the Youth Commission's board had quit in his absence, Perry argued that the board members had been made scapegoats. He urged lawmakers and reporters to stop trying to assign blame.
"I think this 'when did you know, when did you know it, do you think someone should have done more,' is missing the point of how are we making progress to getting these kids the protections that they need," Perry said.
Concern and anger
Feb. 28, 10 days after news of the scandal broke, was a crucial turning point.
After their weekly breakfast, Perry thought Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick had agreed to let a trusted former aide, Jay Kimbrough, deal with the scandal without naming him as a conservator. (A special law gives a conservator sweeping powers to remake a dysfunctional agency. It is seldom invoked and usually involves instances of gross fiscal mismanagement.)
After the breakfast, Dewhurst returned to the Capitol to preside over the Senate.
At a press conference, he called on Perry to fire the Youth Commission board and hire someone to purge the agency.
That afternoon the Senate convened behind closed doors to discuss the scandal. The senators reacted angrily to what some considered a lax response by the governor, according to participants in the meeting.
Although Dewhurst had not intended for the Senate to reconvene that day, according to Senate sources who did not want to be quoted about a closed-door briefing, some senators wanted to act immediately.
In a rare early evening session, the Senate voted unanimously to urge the governor to name a conservator.
Patrick described the mood on the Senate floor as deeply concerned.
"We didn't know how widespread this was," the Houston senator said. "My own suspicion: This wasn't an isolated incident. We had a report sitting out there two years. Who had sat on it? Who knew what when?"
Perry, who thought he had a deal with legislative leaders that morning, was caught off-guard.
The governor's reaction?
"It wasn't good," Black said. Perry believed Dewhurst had betrayed him, Black confirmed, and it took several days to straighten out the misunderstanding.
The next day, representatives and senators huddled to work on language for the resolution for the Legislative Audit Committee, the body that officially recommends a conservator be appointed.
Craddick, who declined to discuss closed-door deliberations, informed the group: "It's the maddest I've seen the governor," according to a lawmaker in the meeting.
Lawmakers drafted language recommending a conservator but included language that gave the governor an out.
Perry took it: He named Kimbrough as "special master," as he originally intended, although lawmakers privately warned that Kimbrough would not have the statutory authority to do what was necessary.
Kimbrough, a longtime aide to Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott, returned to the Capitol from his new job in the office of the general counsel for Texas A&M.
Although lawmakers questioned his authority, Kimbrough was helping force out the agency's top management. He made headlines riding his Harley motorcycle to inspect Youth Commission lockups around the state.
He also vowed to force out more more than 100 felons working at the facilities and urged releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of youths whose sentences might have been improperly extended by staffers as punishment.
Kimbrough, echoing the governor's position, said he didn't need the powers of a conservatorship.
"It's just a title," he told reporters.
But he ran into complications with confidentiality and employment laws. Meanwhile, a state investigation was suggesting that the allegations of sexual molestation might not be limited to Pyote.
It would take more than three weeks, from the time Perry named Kimbrough as special master, but Ogden said Perry finally saw the need to give Kimbrough the greater authority of a conservator.
"There was no way to do it informally on the back of an envelope," Ogden said. "As time went by, the governor finally understood that."
Find this article at:
The simple truth is that rick perry is a crook, and is in the job for what he can gain financially.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.