Gov. Rick Perry’s backside just might catch fire if a Travis County grand jury finds wrongdoing in the governor’s office.

At issue is whether Perry acted improperly by allegedly offering to restore money to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office if the DA resigned.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/04/22/perry-offered-restore-vetoed-funding-if-da-would-r/

The DA is a Democrat, Rosemary Lehmberg, who was arrested on a drunken driving charge. Lehmberg also runs the public integrity office, which investigates other public officials’ conduct.

In comes the governor to supposedly promise to restore money for the office if Lehmberg resigned her office in the wake of the DUI charge. Perry had vetoed money for her office after her April 2013 arrest, but he’d make it all better if she just out of the way.

I will not predict what the grand jury will do. It is looking into whether Perry threw his weight around improperly by meddling in the affairs of the Travis County prosecutor’s office. Was it right for him to promise to restore money in that manner?

According to some observers, Perry’s tactics smack of the kind of behavior alleged against fellow Republican Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey. Christie is still in hot water over allegations his office closed the George Washington Bridge and created traffic mayhem as payback for refusal by the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., also a Democrat, to endorse Christie’s re-election effort.

Both men are now considered possible presidential candidates in 2016. Christie’s brand already has been damaged. Perry is in the middle of a makeover attempt to try to recover from his disastrous run for the GOP nomination in 2012.

If the grand jury indicts Perry, he’s going to suffer far more than another “oops” moment.