Rick Perry’s campaign may be sidetracked by the Trans-Texas Corridor

By KENDRA MARR

Rick Perry’s small-government record has yet another blot.

It’s called the Trans-Texas Corridor.

The governor’s 2012 rivals have latched onto his executive  order mandating the HPV vaccine and his advocacy for in-state tuition for  illegal immigrants, while little has been said about his unrealized  1,200-foot-wide toll road project that would have swallowed more than 500,000  acres of Texas farmland and wildlife habitats. But as the focus of debates  increasingly turn toward President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda — a plan calling  for a heavy dose of infrastructure investment — that may change.

“Pay to play, cronyism — all those charges can be found right here in the  Trans-Texas Corridor,” said Terri Hall, founder and director of Texans United  for Reform and Freedom, a group that fought the project. “We had a Texas-sized  uprising.”

In 2002, Perry unveiled his $175 billion blueprint for Texas transportation,  calling for 4,000 miles of new toll roads, high-speed rail lines and pipelines “as big as Texas and as ambitious as our people.” Not unlike Obama, Perry  envisioned a government role in cultivating private-sector investment in  infrastructure.

But awarding new toll development to a Spanish company stoked nativist fears — and questions about a revolving door to the governor’s office. His massive  land grab through eminent domain, the practice of government seizing private  property for public use, incurred the wrath of farmers, environmentalists and  members of his own party.

Nearly 10 years later, Perry signed the death certificate for his brainchild,  scrubbing all references of the corridor project from state statutes during the  most recent Texas legislative session.

“I supported the ban of ever making a taxpayer-paid road a toll road. You  cannot do that in the state of Texas,” he said in an August interview with Des Moines-based WHO Radio,  stressing that tolling alternatives are raising taxes, asking Washington for  money or waiting for the “asphalt fairy.”

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan said the failed initiative ultimately fostered  conversations about how to fund road projects without increased taxes or relying  on the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

“We would describe it as one starting a very important, robust public debate  and discussion of financing and developing transportation infrastructure,” he  said. “While the corridor concept is dead, the debate has resulted in more  transportation funding options and high-priority projects going forward with  some private financing and strong state and local cooperation.”

Tolling and public-private partnerships have helped the state’s  infrastructure keep up with the big influx of people moving to the state,  Sullivan said, adding that the debate had evolved in such a “positive way,” the  governor “could agree with the legislature that the corridor was no longer the  right approach for the state.”

It’s clear that Texas needs to do something about its crumbling and aging  transportation network. The state added 4 million people over the past decade,  and its population explosion isn’t expected to slow down. Nearly half of the  state’s major highways are congested, and one-third of its major roads are in  poor or mediocre condition, according to the American Society of Civil  Engineers.

At the same time, the state has borrowed heavily to fund its road projects  since 2003 and will owe $17.3 billion by the end of next year.

Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor proposal — launched during his first  gubernatorial campaign — would have run from the Mexico border to Oklahoma. It  was the answer to the challenges of a growing state that was expecting increased  international traffic under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Perry  envisioned separate lanes for cars and trucks, as well as a rail system. The  project was also slated to carry water pipes and utility lines. It was the “largest engineering project ever proposed for Texas,” according to one  transportation department report, promising to reduce congestion, cut pollution,  improve safety and speed up trade routes.

Given the state’s budget difficulties, Perry’s financing schemes included  public and private money, including some toll roads.

Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2003, pushing the  Trans-Texas Corridor project through both chambers as part of an omnibus  transportation bill. But evidently, few lawmakers knew what the bill  contained.

When the state Transportation Department began holding public meetings about  the project in early 2004, voters were fuming at the possibility that private  corporations — particularly foreign ones — might exercise eminent domain to  build massive amounts of infrastructure for profit.

“His plan was meant to be bold, get one’s imagination working, and it turned  out to look scary to people,” said Matt Dellinger, author of “Interstate 69,” which details the fight over the Trans-Texas Corridor.

County toll authorities in Dallas and Houston complained the state was  forcing them into contracts with private companies, while voters began calling  their legislators to repeal the law. David and Linda Stall, a Republican couple  from Fayetteville, Texas, formed a group called CorridorWatch.org, which held  meetings across the state about the details of the plan and whipped up  outrage.

Environmental groups objected to the wildlife being lost, and farmers turned  on the former state agriculture commissioner, calling it an abuse of eminent  domain.

“It would have claimed a lot of farm and ranch ground — some of  the best in farm and ranch country in the entire state,” said Jim Sartwelle,  director of public policy for the Texas Farm Bureau.

Perry’s decision to award development rights to a Spanish company, Cintra,  only tapped into anxieties about immigration, free trade and border security.  Conspiracy theorists dubbed it the “NAFTA Superhighway” and protested the  alleged plot to dissolve the nation’s borders.

And voters cried foul when it came out that one of Perry’s top aides, Dan  Shelley, worked for Cintra until three months before the company was selected  for the state road project. When Shelley left the governor’s office, he signed a  lucrative lobbying contract with Cintra.

But the Perry administration held its ground. Texas Transportation  Commissioner Ric Williamson, one of Perry’s closest advisers and friends,  frequently intoned, “There is no road fairy.”

“We either build toll roads, slow roads or no roads,” Perry said in 2007.

Ultimately, the uproar forced state officials to scale back the proposal. In  2007, the Legislature dealt a blow to the main tenant of the corridor by placing  a moratorium on public-private toll partnerships. In 2009, Perry’s  Transportation Department officially killed it off with a “no build” recommendation on the corridor’s first segment, which was being handled by  Cintra.

It was one of the most controversial issues of Perry’s gubernatorial career — yet he emerged from the fight relatively unscathed.

During his 2006 reelection, there wasn’t a strong Republican challenger to  bring up the Trans-Texas Corridor. Perry, who continued to support the corridor,  won the four-way general election with 39 percent of the vote.

During his 2010 gubernatorial fight, Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison  aired a biting attack ad accusing Perry of tolling roads for the benefit of  foreign companies. Hutchison lost, and while the Democratic nominee,  then-Houston Mayor Bill White, also ran an attack ad on the project, Perry won  easily.

By the recent midterm election, the issue was too old to cause much damage.  Yet tea party activists were still vocally hesitant at what they viewed as the  government’s big private-land grab.

Will it damage Perry’s national ambitions?

“Rick Perry talks a good game about getting government out of your life, but  if there’s any utility at all for him to put government in your life, you’ve got  government in your life,” said Leland Beatty, who worked for Perry’s agriculture  predecessor Jim Hightower.

Hall fumes that some public-private partnerships are still alive and well in  Texas — even if the corridor project is dead. “There are all these sweetheart  deals for all his corporate cronies,” she said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65031_Page2.html#ixzz1Zuxk3Llw

Rick Perry and his cronies

Terri Hall, San Antonio Transportation Policy Examiner

With the pay-to-play Solyndra scandal rocking the White House, presidential  hopeful Rick Perry is embroiled in a mountain of crony capitalism  controversy all his own. During the September 12 GOP presidential debate, Michelle Bachmann exposed the money trail behind Perry’s Executive Order  mandating all 6th grade girls in Texas receive the Gardasil HPV vaccine made by  the drug company, Merck, the employer of Perry’s former Chief of Staff, Mike  Toomey, at the time. Merck funneled money to Perry, initially $5,000, but  eventually adding up to the tidy sum of closer to $400,000, sparking outrage across Texas and now the  nation.

Toomey’s just the tip of the ice berg.

A recent bill pushed through the Texas Legislature benefited the company  Waste Control Specialists, owned by #2 donor to Gov. Rick Perry, Harold  Simmons.  Just days after the bill was signed into law, Mr. Simmons  wrote a $100,000 check to Americans for Rick Perry, the super PAC supporting  Gov. Perry’s candidacy for president notes Debra Medina of We Texans.

Janet Ahmad, President of Homeowners for Better Building, pointed to  similar problems in the construction industry.  Top Rick Perry donor, Bob Perry, paid nearly $8 million in campaign contributions and sought  and received his own regulatory agency called the Texas Residential Construction  Commission in 2003.  Gov. Perry appointed industry-connected people to that  agency, including Perry Homes VP, corporate counsel John Krugh. “The  resulting agency was so anti-consumer and so counter-productive that the Texas  Legislature later decided to abolish it,” Ahmad concludes.

Texas for Sale

Then there’s Perry’s penchant for selling off Texas infrastructure to the  highest bidder, particularly to the employer of his former staffer Dan  Shelley, a Spanish company, Cintra. Shelley worked as a ‘consultant’ for  Cintra (in 2004), became Perry’s liaison to the legislature during the time that  Cintra was awarded the development rights to the $7 billion dollar Trans Texas  Corridor (in 2005), then went back to work as a lobbyist for Cintra (in 2006).  He and has daughter reportedly earned between $50,000-$100,000 on lobbying for Cintra that year.

Two key bills that just passed the Texas Legislature and signed into law by  Perry further illustrate the crony capitalism and pattern of governance in the  Perry Administration, both of which will benefit Cintra, in particular.

SB 1420 makes 15 Texas roads eligible for public private partnerships (P3s)  that sell- off Texas sovereign land/public roads to private entities in 50 year  monopolies. P3s involve public money for private profits (including gas taxes  and other public subsidies), contain non-compete clauses that penalize or  prohibit the expansion of surrounding free routes, and put the power to tax in  the hands of private corporations that result in toll rates as high as 75 cents  per mile ($13/day or like adding $15 to every gallon of gas you buy).  It’s selling off Texas to the highest bidder, which is the MOST expensive,  anti-taxpayer method of funding infrastructure.

Four road projects under SB 1420 have already been awarded to Cintra. In  fact, every single P3 for roads in Texas has gone to Cintra: SH 130 (segments 5 & 6) and I-635 and the North Tarrant Express (comprised of multiple  projects, primarily on I-820) in Dallas/Ft.Worth. All have been heavily  subsidized with gas taxes and other public money (see pages 2 & 3), yet Cintra walks away with a sweetheart  deal and guaranteed profits. Despite Cintra’s shaky financial situation (its debt rating just got lowered  due to fears of the Cintra-controlled Indiana Toll Road going into default),  Perry’s highway department continues to press ahead with these extremely  controversial and unpopular privatization projects.

Perry’s connection to Cintra explains why he endorsed Rudy Giuliani in  the last presidential election. At the time, Giuliani’s law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, was the legal firm representing Cintra in its bid to takeover SH 121 (which eventually unraveled) in the Dallas  area. Giuliani’s investment firm was purchased by an Australian firm, Macquarie,  another global player in P3s at the same time his law firm was advising Cintra  on the SH 121 deal. While many social conservatives were baffled by Perry’s  backing of Giuliani, it was no surprise to those following the Trans Texas Corridor and  Perry’s push to privatize Texas freeways.

Balfour Beatty enters the scene

Perry likes to brag ‘Texas is Open for Business’ and here’s what that means  to property rights and taxpayers. The second key public private partnership  bill, SB 1048, Perry signed into law will mean Katie-Bar-the-Door on selling off  virtually everything not nailed down. The bill was written by lobbyist Brett Findley on behalf of another infrastructure firm,  British company Balfour Beatty, and it will allow all public buildings,  nursing homes, hospitals, schools, ports, mass transit projects, ports,  telecommunications, etc. to be sold-off to corporations using P3s. Unlike the 50  year cap on road P3s, SB 1048 gives no limit on the length of time a P3s can  last or whether such broad authority expires.

Two particularly anti-taxpayer provisions in SB 1048 are the fact taxpayers  secure the private entity’s debt (2267.061 (f)) and that it authorizes public  subsidies for private profits by raiding taxpayers’ money through loans from the  State Infrastructure Bank.

Michelle Malkin called P3s corporate welfare. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are P3s and  required massive taxpayer bailouts. P3s socialize the losses and privatize the  profits. These contracts also eliminate competitive bidding and grant  government-sanctioned monopolies (with guaranteed profits) to the  well-connected.

Public interest not protected, kept secret

These contracts can be negotiated in SECRET, without financial disclosures  (like financing, the structure of the ‘user fees’ or lease payments, viability  studies, public subsidies, or whether or not it contains non-compete clauses or  other gotcha provisions). There is no meaningful public access to P3s before  they’re signed, and the few guidelines created simply exist to advise  governmental entities outside the public purview.

Eminent domain for private gain


P3s represent eminent domain for private gain — the source of much of the  backlash to the Trans Texas Corridor, where P3s were the financing mechanism  that granted these private entities the control of not just the facility, but  the right of way/surrounding property where private companies make a killing on  concessions. A plurality of Texans don’t like the idea of foreign ownership of  our public infrastructure and they dislike eminent domain for private gain even  more.

Of course, it started with the Trans Texas Corridor, known at the federal level as high  priority corridors, corridors of the future, or the NAFTA superhighways. Just in  Texas, it was to be a 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, rail lines,  power transmission lines, pipelines, telecommunications lines and more. It was  going to be financed, operated, and controlled by a foreign company, Cintra,  granted massive swaths of land 1,200 feet (4 football fields) wide taken  forcibly through eminent domain.

Called the biggest land grab in Texas history, it was going to gobble up  580,000 acres of private Texas land (the first corridor alone was to displace 1  million Texans) and hand it over to well-connected global players using PPPs,  who would gain exclusive rights to determine the route and what hotels,  restaurants, and gas stations were along the corridor in a government-sanctioned  monopoly for a half century. It was the worst case of eminent domain for private  gain ever conceived.

Property rights shredded
The Trans Texas Corridor, and P3s in general,  represent an imminent threat to private property rights. While lawmakers  repealed the Trans Texas Corridor from state statute only months ago due to the  public backlash, the corridor lives on through these P3s.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Perry & his cronies: The Shelley-Cintra-Giuliani connection – San Antonio Transportation Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/transportation-policy-in-san-antonio/perry-his-cronies-the-shelley-cintra-giuliani-connection#ixzz1YgNIsDOA

The Crazy Ron Paul

by Marc Gallagher

It occurs to me (and many others) that if the GOP wants nothing more than to
just beat Obama then Ron Paul is the most viable candidate in the Republican
field. I’ll make a prediction. If any other candidate is the GOP nominee then
Obama will be settling in to the Oval Office for “4 more years” in 2013. That is
of course if the world doesn’t end in December of 2012… oops… did some “crazy
Ron Paul supporter” juice just leak out of me by mistake? Maybe.

There are Republicans that will only vote Republican and stand behind the
nominee no matter who it is.

There are Democrats that believe in unicorns, double rainbows, and “Yes we
can!” that will vote for Obama no matter how much his actions suggest “Oh no we
didn’t!”.

Then there are the the rest of us who will vote for the guy (Sorry Michele
and Sarah but you gals don’t have a chance… how’s that feel coming from a Ron
Paul supporter?) that actually agrees with us on approximately 80 to 100% of
what we believe in.

If Ron Paul were the GOP nominee Obama would be forced to attack from the
right on foreign policy, alienating those liberal voters who are ignorantly
sympathetic to the drone-bombing fetishist, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Obama
would be compelled to “let-me-be-clear” his way out of not being very clear on
why there are still troops in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and maybe Syria and
“Pock-ih-stohn”.

Now where would those voters turn after being stabbed in the back by their
warmonger-in-chief? That’s right, the only other candidate in the race with
years of truth and integrity spilling out of him: Ron Paul.

Nearly every question Paul received during the debate last week on MSNBC was
obviously aimed at scaring people who have become dependent on the federal
government. Even the CNN “Tea Party” debate earlier this week had some of this
as well. Don’t fall for their magic markers. Paint your own picture of who Ron
Paul is and what he believes (this video is a great start).

Newsflash: Hey MSNBC viewers, everything you despise about FOX News is
exactly what MSNBC does except the paint dries blue, not red.

You have to take the crazy out of yourself before you will notice that Ron
Paul is just not crazy. He is the candidate with the most common sense. I’m sure
that one of Paul’s trusted advisers said to him prior to the debate, “Ron, if
you look at the rest of the candidates on that stage, and you can’t find the
sane one, then YOU are the sane one.”

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Longtime aide a key link between contributor and Perry

By PATRICIA KILDAY HART and PEGGY FIKAC

AUSTIN — Although never mentioned by name, Austin lobbyist Mike Toomey’s presence was felt keenly at Monday’s Republican presidential debate when Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann harshly criticized Gov. Rick Perry for his 2007 executive order mandating that Texas teenage girls receive an HPV vaccine that would have been worth millions in sales to Toomey’s client, Merck Pharmaceutical.

Calling it “flat out wrong,” Bachmann noted Perry had received campaign contributions from the drug maker and questioned Perry’s motives. “Was it about life or about millions of dollars to a drug company?”

Perry’s response — that he was “offended” by Bachmann’s suggestion that he “could be bought for $5,000” in campaign contributions from the drug maker — belied the powerful role that Toomey, a Houston native who once served as Perry’s chief of staff, has played in the governor’s political career. From advising Perry on personal legal issues to paying $10,000 to help the Green Party siphon votes from Democrats, Toomey has been a loyal and constant Perry political ally throughout his career.

$29,500 from Merck

The governor’s reply also drastically understates the amount of money that has flowed from Toomey and Merck to Perry’s campaign coffers.

Campaign finance records show that Merck has contributed $29,500 to Perry during his entire tenure as governor, $22,000 of it prior to his 2007 order.

According to a new report by Texans for Public Justice, the pharmaceutical giant also has kicked in $377,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association since 2006, the year Perry became involved as a driving force behind the organization’s fundraising. The RGA has given Perry $4 million, more than any other source of funds during his decade in office, according to TPJ.

Toomey has contributed more than $48,000 to Texans for Rick Perry since 2000. He also serves as a lobbyist for other corporations and groups with political action committees that have been generous to both Perry and the Republican Governor’s Association, a position that offers him considerable clout in Austin.

“When Toomey spoke — whomever he spoke on behalf of — he spoke holding a huge purse,” said Houston attorney Mark Lanier, who has sued Merck Pharmaceuticals over the drug Vioxx, a painkiller alleged to have caused heart attacks. “Not simply a purse of money, but a purse of potential money, people willing to step up and give, should the need arise.”

In particular, Lanier said Toomey is “joined at the hip” with not only Merck, but Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which has contributed $221,000 to Perry and “a boatload of money” to Republican lawmakers who favored limiting lawsuits.

Perry’s February 2007 executive order mandating that Texas girls receive an inoculation of Gardasil, a drug to prevent cervical cancer, was blocked by the Legislature after a storm of protest. Lanier said Perry’s Gardasil decision was part of a national public relations effort by Merck to stem negative public opinion associated with Vioxx.

Merck won’t comment

Lanier recalled a New Jersey court hearing in January 2007 in which Merck lawyers pleaded with a judge to be allowed to tell jurors how the company was curing cancer with a drug soon to be mandated by many states. “If they could not influence juries, they tried to influence juries outside courtroom with this national campaign that they were wonderful people,” Lanier said.

Less than a month after that court hearing, Perry would become the first governor to mandate the vaccine.

A Merck spokeswoman declined to comment about Perry’s order or Toomey’s influence. Toomey could not be reached for comment about Bachmann’s charges Tuesday, but a spokeswoman for Perry denied any link between the executive order and political considerations.

“Gov. Perry hates cancer and his only motivation on this issue was protecting life,” said spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. “He is proudly pro-life, and on this issue, which was never implemented, he erred on the side of life.”

1993 land deal

Toomey and Perry served together in the Texas House in the 1980s and have been linked ever since, from Perry’s personal finances to his public legacy.

Toomey acted with Perry’s power-of-attorney in a lucrative 1993 land deal. Perry bought a 9.3-acre lot in the West Lake Hills area and sold it to Michael Dell less than two years later for $465,000, a 281-percent increase from his purchase price.

When Perry angered doctors in 2001 by vetoing a measure meant to prompt insurers to more quickly pay doctors, there was speculation that Perry vetoed the bill, in part, as a favor to Toomey, who was a lobbyist retained by Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Cigna, a health maintenance organization.

Toomey called that “a crock” and said he had not talked to Perry about the measure.

Toomey stepped away from lobbying to become Perry’s chief of staff in 2002-04. When Toomey resigned as chief of staff, he went back to lobbying.

Toomey went with Perry on a controversial trip to the Bahamas in 2004 with large GOP donors, other staff, anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist and political adviser Dave Carney.

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Gov. Perry’s Proposed Road in Texas Had Few Friends and Could Still Take a Political Toll

By AMANDA PETERKA

The less the Trans-Texas Corridor is brought up during the Republican presidential primaries, the better for Rick Perry.

Although it was officially killed in the most recent Texas legislative session, the proposed massive transportation and infrastructure project and ensuing debacle could still end up being a thorn in the governor’s side as he preaches his anti-big government mantra on the campaign trail.

As originally proposed and backed by Perry, the state of Texas would have taken more than 500,000 acres of private land to build the 1,200-foot-wide toll road. The majority of those acres were agricultural lands and wildlife habitats, and many are part of the state’s Blackland Prairies, some of the richest farmland in the country.

“It was so expansive and so wide, unlike any highway ever built. It was an enormous size,” said Terri Hall, founder and director of Texans United for Reform and Freedom, a group that has opposed the project. “A fully built-out interstate is only about 400 feet wide. It was a huge land grab.”

There is no argument that Texas needs to do something about its roads. In the past decade, Texas has added more than 4 million people to its population, stressing the transportation infrastructure well beyond state coffers.

The state’s population is projected to grow further, and most of the growth is expected to occur in the north-south corridor from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border.

To fund road projects, Texas has borrowed heavily, and its debt will be $17.3 billion by the end of 2012 for road repairs made since 2003 (Greenwire, Aug. 17).

In 2002, Perry proposed the $175 billion, 4,000-mile Trans-Texas Corridor, which would have carried Texans from the Mexico border to Oklahoma. Perry envisioned separate lanes for cars and trucks, and a rail system to be built in the middle. The project would also have potentially carried water pipes and utility lines.

With the state’s budget difficulties, “the tolling aspect was one of the selling points from Rick Perry’s perspective,” said Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Once Republicans took control of the state Legislature after redistricting in 2003, the TTC was pushed through the House and the Senate as part of an omnibus transportation bill that allowed for the private funding of public highways, the tolling of such a road and the use of eminent domain to acquire land for the project.

“It was not until lawmakers got back home that they discovered what they had done and there was going to be pushback,” said Harvey Kronberg, editor of The Quorum Report, an online Texas political tip sheet.

And there quickly was plenty of pushback. Environmental groups objected to the wildlife habitat that would be lost and advocated for expanded public transportation rather than allowing more cars. Others objected to tolling as a means to raise money to build highways.

And when Perry awarded the development rights to a Spanish company, Cintra, there were complaints that foreign interests were taking over American roads and that Perry was rewarding his cronies. A former legislative director of Perry’s, Dan Shelley, went to work for Cintra after leaving the governor’s office.

Jim Sartwelle, public policy director at the Texas Farm Bureau, said that his organization is not necessarily anti-toll road. For farmers and ranchers, the problem with the project was the taking of so much agricultural and ranch land — and the fact that Perry himself is a former farmer heightened their outrage. Some of that land had been in families for hundreds of years.

“Agriculture’s biggest concerns were property rights concerns,” Sartwelle said. “What happens if the state takes a large piece of property and cuts it into two pieces? It leaves a landlocked piece with no access. Now the land’s not worth as much. … It was an extremely emotional issue to many of our members.”

Perry spent two terms as agriculture commissioner in the 1990s, his first statewide post. He was elected lieutenant governor in 1998 and became governor after George W. Bush was elected president in 2000.

Leland Beatty, who worked for Perry’s agriculture predecessor Jim Hightower, looked at the TTC as Perry betraying the state’s agricultural interests.

“Once he became lieutenant governor, agriculture never mattered in any way, shape or form,” Beatty said, who also is the retired communications director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “He had always been a big property rights fan, he was always talking about farmers’ right to defend against condemnation. Once he became governor and had a big chance to do the toll road deal, he didn’t care.”

The project became one of the most controversial issues of Perry’s tenure as governor. But while it generated a lot of acrimony and played a huge role in state legislative elections, Perry emerged relatively unscathed.

“There was a lot of screaming and yelling and complaining, and legislators just wanted to eviscerate the TTC. But there was no penalty against Perry,” Kronberg said.

When he was up for re-election in 2006, Perry had no effective Republican primary challenger to bring up the issue. He won the four-way general election that year with 39 percent of the vote.

By that time, the pushback against the project forced state officials to scale back their proposal. One part of it, Texas Highway 130, was begun as a tolled bypass around Austin. The scale was nowhere near that of the original plan.

The TTC concept was shelved in 2009 when legislators decided not to pass a public-private toll bill that would have made it possible. In the 2010 gubernatorial election, Houston Mayor Bill White, the Democratic nominee, did run an ad attacking Perry over the project, but bigger issues dominated the dialogue, and Perry won easily.

“Talk has died down because it was so thoroughly trashed by so many people,” Kramer of the Sierra Club said.

This past legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill repealing the TTC, ending years of dispute.

The mood of the Legislature was, “If it ain’t dead already, we’re just going to formally say we’re putting a nail in this coffin,” said David Weinberg, president of the Texas League of Conservation Voters.

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‘Crony capitalism’ draws attention in GOP race

By PATRICIA KILDAY HART

In its brief but controversial life, the Texas Residential Construction Commission won far more detractors than admirers. Former Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn called it “a builder protection agency” that created additional roadblocks for homeowners living with shoddy construction. To state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, the agency served only “to shield home builders from being responsible” for defective work. The Texas Sunset Commission concluded the agency did “more harm than good.”

The TRCC, however, had at least one friend who mattered: Houston home builder Bob Perry, who has given Gov. Rick Perry more than $2.5 million during his tenure in office. An advocate for the agency from its creation in 2003 until it closed its doors in 2010, the home builder’s imprimatur was significant. His lobbyists played a key role in its inception; his company’s general counsel, John Krugh, was appointed to serve on the commission by Gov. Perry, no relation to Bob Perry, one month after the home builder gave a $100,000 campaign contribution to the governor.

Now dormant, the TRCC serves as a case study of how wealthy contributors can shape public policy. In this year’s hard-fought Republican presidential primary, the agency likely will get renewed scrutiny as Perry’s Republican competitors search for ways to distinguish themselves from the Texas governor. In a speech last week in Iowa, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin took aim against career politicians who reward their campaign contributors with government favors.

“There is a name for this. It’s called ‘corporate crony capitalism,’ ” she said. “I believe in the free market and that is why I detest crony capitalism. And Barack Obama has shown us cronyism on steroids. It will lead to our downfall if we don’t stop it now.”

While Palin won applause from her conservative audience by focusing on the president, many political observers believe her remarks were aimed at another target: Rick Perry, whose lengthy tenure in office leaves him vulnerable to the charge he has rewarded campaign contributors with government favors. She raised a question central to the GOP’s mission: If Republicans hope to defeat Obama because he engages in “crony capitalism,” is Perry the right candidate to carry that message?

“When she said ‘crony capitalism,’ who else could it be? It had to be Perry,” said Dr. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia‘s Center for Politics. “She mentioned Obama, but whoever wrote her speech, it had a Republican dimension to it.”

‘Everybody does it’

To Sabato, the salvo from Palin provided evidence that the Republican contest was far from decided. He expressed doubts, however, that Palin or other Perry opponents would make much headway with the “crony capitalism” charge.

“People are cynical,” he said. “Basically, people expect a certain level of corruption from all high officials. After all, you can go through and name probably 200 individuals that Obama has appointed who gave him big contributions. People shrug their shoulders and say ‘everybody does it.’ ”

Sheila Krumholz, director of the bipartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign finance issues, agreed that Perry is “helped by the fact that this is the system by which all candidates raise money and the system in which they operate.”

However, she added, “I do think there are lines in the sand which, when candidates cross them, they do so at their peril. There have been instances of a scandal or perceptions that candidates in the pocket of specific interests and that will be fodder for their opponents. I don’t think he can count out the ire of the voters.”

Inherent conflict

To Texas lawmakers of both parties, the TRCC crossed that line of propriety.

“This was a reward,” said state Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who fought to shut down the agency. “Bob Perry gave a ton of dough and got rewarded.”

But Anthony Holm, a spokesman for the home builder, said it was “absurd” to link the creation of the agency to campaign contributions to the governor. “A state agency in Texas can only be created by 181 Democrats and Republicans,” he said, referring to the Texas Legislature.

The creation of the agency meant that consumers with complaints of poor workmanship had to go first to the agency for dispute resolution, instead of the courthouse. Farrar said that in practice, that meant “consumers lost a lot of rights.”

A state Sunset Commission report bears out that charge: Before lawmakers decided to end its existence, the TRCC resolved only 12 percent of its cases to the satisfaction of consumers. The rest wound up going to court, the report noted, “the very outcome” the TRCC was supposed to avoid.

State Sen. Bob Duncan, R-Lubbock, initially supported creation of the agency but became dismayed when Perry appointed Krugh to the commission. While on the commission, Krugh worked actively against legislative changes that many believed would have made the TRCC more responsive to consumers.

The Texas Senate confirmation hearing for Krugh illustrated the inherent conflict in naming Bob Perry’s lawyer to the commission. Duncan asked Krugh about his opposition to legislation that would have made the agency more consumer friendly. When Krugh replied that he opposed them “as a builder,” Duncan admonished him.

“I’m asking you to take off your builder hat. When you are sitting on this commission, you are sitting in a fiduciary (capacity) for the State of Texas. You have to make decisions based on … what’s fair and balanced, not what’s in the best interests of the builder.”

Krugh, who no longer works for Perry Homes, could not be reached for comment, but in a 2005 interview with Texas Monthly, he said he hoped the agency would help homeowners avoid costly and unpredictable litigation. “The old system drove them to their lawyers and their experts and they got caught up in what I call this vortex of litigation, and they couldn’t get out,” he said. “The third-party intervention at least gives the homeowners some control over what goes on before they get caught up in that vortex.”

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Rick Perry’s Texas Miracle—for Corporations

The governor gave big companies hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to create jobs. When they failed to deliver, he fudged the numbers.

—By Siddhartha Mahanta

Over the past several years Gov. Rick Perry has crisscrossed his home state, bragging about the Texas Enterprise Fund, his economic program that has given millions of taxpayer dollars to corporations such as Caterpillar Inc., Texas Instruments, and Home Depot. The TEF program is supposed to draw businesses to the state and create jobs. It has been a centerpiece of the so-called Texas economic miracle Perry now touts on the presidential campaign trail.

But there is a problem behind his happy Texas tale: The program appears not to have worked nearly as well as Perry claims. The governor has repeatedly overstated how many jobs it has created, according to several Texas-based advocacy and research groups. Moreover, Perry’s office has stonewalled attempts to get clearer information about the program’s lackluster results.

In January  2010, Perry’s office claimed that TEF had created 54,600 jobs  since it began in 2003. But company-reported data shows that, by the end of 2009, fewer than 23,000 jobs could be attributed to TEF. And two-thirds of TEF-backed companies failed to meet their job targets. The program handed out nearly $440 million during that period.

The TEF program requires applicants to agree to produce a  certain number of jobs by a certain date in exchange for a grant, the  largest of which have been a pair of $50 million awards granted to the  Texas Institute for Genomic Medicine and Texas Instruments back in 2004  and 2005. (Former presidential  candidate Tim Pawlenty enacted a similar program during his time as  governor of Minnesota.) Recipients are supposed to  face a “clawback” penalty on the  funds if they fail to meet their hiring targets.

But the Perry administration hasn’t exactly gone hard on corporations that have fallen short. In 2007, TEF awarded Lockheed Martin with nearly $5.5  million; in return, the company promised to create 800 new jobs by the  end of 2008. Subsequently, Lockheed quietly renegotiated its deal with  Perry’s office, agreeing to just 550 new jobs from 2007 through  2014, explaining the lower number as a result of “federal cutbacks.” In  exchange, TEF also lowered its grant to Lockheed to $4 million unless  the company managed to meet its original hiring target of 800. Meanwhile, Perry’s office didn’t collect any clawback penalties from Lockheed—while continuing to report that it had created 800 jobs.

This scenario—Perry’s office allowing companies to amend their job targets while  continuing to tout the higher, unrealized target—was replicated in more  than a dozen other instances in 2009, Texans for Public Justice (TPJ) found.  The group’s 2010 report drew on campaign finance  fillings, company-reported hiring data, and the Perry administration’s  own numbers.

The program also suffers from a conspicuous lack of transparency, according to Andrew Wheat, the research director for TPJ. Wheat says that his colleagues intended to  use government data from 2010 to assess the program, but they were forced to  rely on numbers from 2009. “We put in a request to get that data  covering 2010,” he said. “We’re still waiting.”

Even if Perry’s office disclosed its TEF numbers more expediently, Wheat argues, the game would still be rigged. “Imagine what  the bean counter’s job is like,” he said. “On the one hand, you’re supposed to be    conservatively protecting taxpayer dollars and imposing clawbacks, basically enforcing a contract. On the other hand,  you   know that this is the centerpiece of your boss’ campaign. So it has  to be presented as a success.”

Don Baylor, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Public Policy   Priorities, says there is no way to verify Perry’s claims more broadly.  “It’s quite simply not possible to know whether these  companies would  have come to Texas without the cash,” Baylor says.

One thing is clear, though: Perry paid for a sizable chunk of TEF at  the expense of Texas’  unemployed. Because the Texas Legislature is  required to submit a balanced budget  every two years,  any new spending  programs must be offset by an equal  amount in spending  cuts. So in 2005, to  offset spending on TEF, Perry created a 0.1 percent  employer  unemployment  insurance tax. To offset that increase, the  general  unemployment  insurance tax rate was reduced by 0.1 percent.  From 2005  to 2009, that resulted in a transfer of almost $162 million from the unemployment fund directly to Perry’s TEF fund.

Politicians of both parties are clamoring for clarity on TEF. Last  year, former gubernatorial candidate and mayor of Houston Bill White, a  Democrat, called for a formal audit of TEF  spending on a biotech lab based at Texas A&M University, Perry’s  alma mater. His objective  was simple: to get a clear explanation of  why certain  companies had  been allowed to reduce their employment goals  after  they’d already  been awarded TEF money. “We asked for basic  information,  such as  whether companies had met the original projections  or  commitments for  increased employment they had submitted to the state   when wanting the  taxpayers to finance their businesses,” White said. His call for a  public audit was ignored.

State Republicans also take serious issue with Perry’s  program—especially tea party members like Rep. David Simpson. “It’s  legal plunder,” Simpson told Bloomberg. “You can’t avoid the appearance  of impropriety when you take money from everyone and you give it to a  select few.”

That problem is only compounded by the fact that over the years, a  number of the the program’s beneficiaries—including huge banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America—have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Perry-associated  PACs.

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Letter: A sensible overview of Ron Paul’s beliefs on the role of government

By Alex Kelly, senior in industrial engineering

Last week I read an article in the Iowa State Daily making claims on the views of presidential candidate Ron Paul I believe are inaccurate. The article misrepresents Ron Paul, and as a supporter of his, I wish to clear up any confusion on his political stance.

Republican Rep. Paul has gained a large amount of support with his ideals of independence and liberty for individuals. Paul has adamantly opposed any government acts that infringe on individual freedoms. Some of his key issues include: ending foreign interventionism, abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a sound money supply, reducing the size and scope of the federal government, and allowing individual states to have more freedom to enforce laws they see fit.

One area some people are confused on is his stance on abortion. In the 1960s and ’70s, Paul was an obstetrician and gynecologist and delivered more than 4,000 babies. Through that experience, among others, he developed a moral stance against abortion. Paul has sponsored a bill aiming to overturn Roe v. Wade (HR 1096) because he believes individual states should be allowed to regulate abortion and protect the lives of unborn children residing in the jurisdiction of that state.

The only crimes discussed in the Constitution are counterfeiting, piracy, treason and slavery. Criminal and civil matters were deliberately left to the states. Paul believes it is the job of the federal government to protect life, not to grant permission to take it away. Although he is morally against abortion, his intent is not to make it illegal, only to take away the federal mandate (and funding) and allow the states to regulate abortion.

Another issue discussed was his stance on Social Security and Medicare. Paul believes welfare programs such as these are immoral due to the fact that these benefits can only be granted at other individuals’ expense, thus infringing on their property rights. This transfer can only be arranged by force through taxes or inflation. Our government programs are currently funded out of deficit spending and inflating the monetary base. This devalues our currency, thus raising the cost of commodities and the cost of living, which hurts the poor and middle class the most.

That being said, Paul does not intend to immediately eradicate these programs. He has stated numerous times that they could perhaps be kept going for a while longer if we used savings from reducing our involvement overseas.

Finally I would like to address concerns over his views on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paul has stated he would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the basis that it violates individual property rights, not because of what it sought to accomplish. He has also stated that he would have never voted for the Jim Crow laws as they violated individual rights. Paul believes that the civil rights movement was a great event in our country’s history, but made more superficial and less effective by government. He believes that “banning blatant discrimination in all government programs” makes sense, but forcing people to integrate and avoid discrimination in all private transactions only exacerbates the conflicts they are trying to eliminate. Voluntary associations are more authentic and longer lasting. Outright foolish discrimination in business and elsewhere can be quickly punished by social and economic disproval as was seen with the economic boycott in the civil rights movement.

Many believe that government intervention actually intensified much of the racial segregation in the country, through their endorsement of the Jim Crow laws and laws mandating segregation within the military and other organizations. Whenever the government writes laws segregating people by race, gender or sexual orientation, they violate one set of individuals’ rights.

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Ron Paul Campaign Presses Perry on Big Government Record and Fake Rhetoric

Issues open letter knocking Perry’s liberal record

LAKE JACKSON, Texas– 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul’s campaign continues to challenge Rick Perry in the lead up to tonight’s Republican presidential debate. Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton released an open letter to Gov. Perry focusing on his record as Texas head of state, pointing out inconsistencies with his new Tea Party rhetoric. See text of letter below.

Subject: Rick Perry Can’t Handle the Truth

An open letter from Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton

Dear Governor Perry,

After our campaign’s first ad highlighting your Big Government record and support for liberal Al Gore, your campaign is attacking Dr. Paul – missing the point of why your past is important.

We don’t think the fact that you used to be a Democrat is the big problem here.  The real problem is that, too often, you still act like one.  Even you yourself, Governor Perry, said of your party switch, “I will still vote the same principles, only with an R after my name.”

That’s the kind of thinking that has our country teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.  We cannot afford to nominate someone who thinks the letter next to their name is more important than what they believe.

Governor Perry, let me be clear: It is not that you supported Al Gore that worries us.

It is that you supported Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

You pushed for federal bailout and stimulus funds.

You support welfare for illegal immigrants.

You tried to forcibly vaccinate 12-year-old girls against sexually transmitted diseases by executive order.

You raised taxes twice.

And, state debt has more than doubled in your tenure as governor, pushing Texas to the brink of our constitutional debt limit.

It’s that you supported ALL of these bad ideas that are inconsistent with how most Republicans understand conservatism, yet you now try to swagger your way into the Tea Party.

Governor Perry, with all due respect, you have used great rhetoric.  But you will have to answer to the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and across the country as to why that rhetoric does not match your record.

For Liberty,

Jesse Benton
Campaign Chairman
Ron Paul 2012

Rick Perry Death Penalty “cover-up”?

Was an innocent man put to death?  Did Rick Perry attempt a “cover-up”?  You decide.

Perry removed commissioners prior to the report from the Texas Forensic Science Commisision.