“It appears to those on the prosecutor’s side that his funding veto and the threat that preceded it were an attempt to intimidate and coerce the office that has the job of policing corruption and ethics cases in state government.

“The threat is the thing. Had the governor simply cut the funding without saying anything — especially in public, but even in private — this would just be a strange veto. That is not unprecedented.”

So writes Ross Ramsey, in an excellent analysis for the Texas Tribune.

The more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to believe that the coercion allegation might be the one that sticks to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/08/15/analysis-its-not-crime-its-politics/

A Travis County grand jury indictment of Perry issued this past week accuses the governor of coercion and of abuse of power. He threatened to veto funds for the Travis County District Attorney’s Office if DA Rosemary Lehmberg didn’t resign after she pleaded guilty to a drunk-driving charge. Lehmberg served her time in the slammer, but didn’t quit. Perry cut the money for the public integrity unit run out of Lehmberg’s office.

The grand jury thinks Perry abused his power.

I’m wondering, though, if the coercion matter isn’t the more damaging part of the indictment.

As Ramsey notes, Perry made a pretty big stink about all this stuff regarding Lehmberg. I agree with Perry that the DA should have quit. I also believe the grand jury may have something on the governor regarding the manner in which he sought to pressure the prosecutor to quit.

Perry vows to fight the indictment. He calls it a political farce. He even calls the indictment itself an “abuse of power.”

We’ll see about that.

I like Ramsey’s metaphor describing the indictment: “Meanwhile, the governor and others are already haunting Iowa, the home of the first presidential primaries almost two years from now. This indictment could be to the Perry presidential campaign what a sewer leak is to the opening of a new restaurant: The food might not be the diners’ strongest memory of the meal.”