On August 15, Perry was indicted by a Travis Country grand jury on two felonies stemming from allegations of abuse of power and its effects are rippling throughout the Republican political establishment in Texas.
The News-Journal reports that State Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, is declining to join Gov. Rick Perry and his supporters in characterizing his indictment as being politically motivated.
Simpson, a second-term Texas House of Representatives member and member of the Tea Party, said last Wednesday that Gov. Perry’s veto was imprudent, but disputes claims the criminal indictment was political.
“A lot of people think they’ve got it all figured out,” Simpson says, adding that “the special prosecutor bringing the indictment, Michael McCrum, is a Republican. So is the presiding judge who appointed McCrum, District Judge Bert Richardson of San Antonio.”
Simpson also went on to point out to News-Journal that a a Republican judge and special prosecutor had failed to obtain a grand jury indictment on obstruction and retaliation charges against Lehmberg [the Travis County District Attorney threatened by Rick Perry].
“She had nothing to do directly with the (Perry) indictment. It may appear to be vindictive and political based on what people are talking about in public, but we were not privy to the testimony that went before the grand jury. We don’t know what we don’t know.”
This is not the first time Simpson has veered from the conservative mainstream in Austin. He came under fire in July for his “compassion-first response to the border crisis,” as News-Journal reports, and he is currently under heavy fire for “voting, in May 2013, to table a measure that would have transferred duties of the Travis County Public Integrity Unit to the Texas Attorney General.”
“It was unconstitutional,” Simpson said of the measure, which was opposed by House Democrats and 17 other Republicans. “And you can’t do what they were wanting to do the way they wanted to do it. … If you wanted to move it, you have to have a constitutional amendment and basically change the duties of the district courts and the (Travis County) D.A.”
Conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan speaks for the sentiment of many Texas Republicans writing online that Perry never would have been indicted were it not for the actions of Simpson and other Republicans voting against that bill:
“If these Republicans had not joined with the Democrats, Perry would not have had to exercise his line-item veto.”
It is noteworthy that Sullivan, himself, was recently fined $10,000 by the Texas Ethics Commission in July for failing to register as a lobbyist in 2010 and 2011.
The News-Journal closes their reporting writing:
Simpson added he was pleased with some feedback he has received on a public statement he issued in response to the online criticism. That included support from the Tyler woman who leads the committee advising tea party members in the Texas House.
“They have been very grateful for the answer and the explanation,” he said of conservatives. “JoAnn Fleming told me she agreed with me completely. I’m grateful for the people that asked me for the explanation. Not everybody did that.”
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