Same in California. (Though “Demand” occasionally gets thrown in, especially during discovery).
Just read this on CNN:
I wonder about Perry’s advisers. Does he have any? Does he not listen? This whole problem was easily avoidable if he just kept his mouth shut. It’s pretty stupid to politically extort an elected official publicly, but I doubt it will result in a criminal conviction.
I am sure he has advisers, and I am sure he listened to them, and I am sure they told him to do exactly what he’s done. So far it is working out quite positively for him. It energized the base quite nicely, and the Democrats all over the country (except in Austin, of course) are shaking their hands at the shenanigans of Texas Democrats.
It seems to me that the prosecutor is politically trying to punish an elected official (the Governor of Texas) for doing his job. The prosecutor presented his evidence and managed to convince a grand jury that the Governor may have committed a crime.
Now it’s up to the court to decide if any laws were actually broken.
Democrats are shaking, alright. With laughter. At the politician who isn’t bright enough to avoid ending his presidential aspirations in the dumbest way possible. If he was advised to carry out his vendetta, then his advisers are dumb as Texas dirt too.
Ignorant question is ignorant. The paradox of blackmail is well-established case law in most western countries: it can, in fact, be illegal to threaten doing something that would be legal to do without threats. I’m not saying such laws do or should apply to Perry; I don’t know Texas statutes at all. But it would be neither inherently unjust nor completely unprecedented for the law to bar Perry from issuing this type of ultimatum.
What “Texas Democrats”? The ones on the grand jury that indicted Perry? There were none.
“none”?
It’s an interesting paradox and I suppose some people in “western countries” will continue to discuss the issue but -
Is it illegal for a Texas Governor to use his State of Texas line-item veto?
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, a former federal prosecutor, who does have some understanding of Texas statutes, questions whether the indictment will survive to a final judgment or even a preliminary court challenge.
Meanwhile, the mean drunk is still holding her job but she doesn’t get her $7+ million taxpayer dollars to play with.
She wasn’t going to get her $7 million to play with to begin with. She was never going to get it, her department was going to, and they weren’t going to play with it, they were going to use it to carry out their mission.
Reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit, is it?
It’s legal for me to release legally taken pictures of you making out with your doberman. However, that does not necessarily mean it’s legal for me to threaten to release those pictures unless you give me money/quit your job/etc.
It’s legal for the Texas Governor to use his line-item veto. However, that does not necessarily mean it’s legal for the Texas Governor to *threaten * to use that veto unless someone gives him money/quits their job/etc.
Again, I don’t know Texas statute. What I’ve read suggests this prosecution is in fact an overreach; I’m not convinced any laws have been broken. But the issue is the threat of veto, not just the veto itself, and misrepresenting that fact doesn’t get us any closer to the truth.
You’re correct that the issue is the threat of a veto.
However, I again direct your, and other readers’, attention to State v. Hanson, 793 SW 2d 270 (Texas Ct App 10th Dist. 1990).
That case also involved a threat. And it was a threat to cut funding. And the demand was that someone get fired or the threat would be carried out.
The court held that this was a legal part of the political process, protected by the First Amendment.
Neither the judge or the prosecutor were democrats. If it is just politics, it’s the republicans doing it to one of their own. Maybe they are tired getting embarrassed by people like Perry, and want to make sure he doesn’t run.
A pity that there were no actual lawyers involved with this indictment. They might have been aware of this nugget of caselaw, realized that it was entirely dispositive, and would not have subjected themselves to such embarrassment. Because, really, there is no possible way to interpret that case but as utterly destroying any notion of proceeding.
Perhaps you could send off a quick e-mail, and earn their undying gratitude?
It doesn’t matter what you threaten to do with the peeping tom-type pictures of me and a German Shepherd (she said she was over 21, she was wearing lederhosen, and she was carried a shepherds crook 
), you’re not the governor of anything.
State v. Hanson, 793 SW 2d 270 (Texas Ct App 10th Dist. 1990) suggests that the Governor of Texas can legally threaten to withhold taxpayer money from mean drunks who head government departments.
At this point in time, the threat of a veto isn’t the primary concern of the court. The 1st hurdle will be to establish whether the Governor of Texas can or can not use his power of line-item veto.
It’s also possible that the prosecutor want to earn the undying gratitude of the DNC and didn’t care if a relative case law existed? It’s also possible that the prosecutor did not explain some previous case laws to the grand jury because it could hurt his chances of getting an indictment?
Regardless, it’s now up to the court to decide if the prosecutors case holds water.
Except the prosecutor is not a Democrat, he’s an independent with ties to the Republicans, appointed by a Republican judge.
State v. Hanson, whatever the similarities, is not State v. Perry. And the 390th district court’s appellate court is the 3rd, not the 10th.
Those of us who wander in the darkness without a law degree might not understand whether this counts as significant or a nitpick. Some clarification might well be in order.
I was just pointing out that the indictment is in the 390th district court which is under the 3rd Court of Appeals; the district court is not bound by the Hanson decision in the 10th Court of Appeals.