Rick Perry Being Charged

The Soggy D.A.

So apparently the left in Texas is celebrating what to them is the equivalent of winning the Super Bowl: Texas Governor Rick Perry is being formally charged on counts of abuse of power and coercing a public official. I'm actually not a huge fan of Rick Perry for various reasons, but this whole story has me very confused.


From what I've read it goes a little like this; the Travis county DA, one Rosemary Lehmberg, was arrested for drunk driving a while back and (I think) was rather belligerent during that whole process. Disgusted at her actions and the fact that she didn't think this sort of behavior warranted stepping down as the DA (you know, the person who prosecutes people for crimes, like drunk driving), Perry called for her resignation and threatened to line item veto any bills that included appropriations to her DA office until she was gone.

She refused to resign, and the governor vetoed a line item which was to fund her DA office. That county pressed charges (no conflict of interest there, amiright?) and now the governor is facing a possible felony conviction for abusing his authority. The problem is that the Texas constitution, as near as I can tell, gives him exactly that kind of authority to pressure corrupt officials out of office.

Am I missing something in this story? I still don't understand why Rick Perry is being charged. I'd think the people would want their DA removed for being such a bad egg. I mean, that is one of those positions of power where the person really needs to be morally sound to be credible.

She's the person that would be compiling charges against drunk drivers, and she's one herself. If she refuses to step down, which is the right thing to do, isn't it up to the Texas government to do something about that? And to top it all off, Texas democrats are calling for Perry to resign, but not this drunk driving DA.

I clearly don't understand everything going on here. Or maybe I do and this is all just political.