Gov. Rick Perry did it once more to the Texas Legislature: vetoing a bill with strong bipartisan support on specious grounds that it duplicates federal law.

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/06/14/senator-perry-vetoed-equal-pay-bill/

Someone has to explain why the governor keeps sticking it in the eye of legislators from both parties who this legislative session have found ways to lock arms to forge bipartisan coalitions. The latest target of Perry’s veto pen is House Bill 950, which mandates equal pay regardless of gender. Yes, it looks and sounds just like the Lily Ledbetter Act approved by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2009. Perry vetoed the state law on the grounds that it duplicates federal law.

State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, told the Texas Tribune: “I am deeply saddened by his action not just because of its impact on thousands of families affected by wage discrimination but because it’s a rejection of the bipartisanship that this body and the House showed by voting that bill to his desk.” Davis was a co-author of the bill that would have brought state law into synch with federal law.

Is that an unreasonable thing to do? Of course not. Perry, though, seems intent on wrecking the spirit of bipartisanship that became something of a pleasant surprise in the 2013 Legislature.

Perhaps it is Perry’s belief that Texas should stand alone against what he has labeled federal intrusion. Virtually every other state has approved laws that mirror the Ledbetter Act.

Why not Texas? Looks to me to be nothing more than partisan stubbornness.