Tag: Rick Perry

During a special session that ended July 1, the Texas Legislature, at Governor Rick Perry’s urging, added language to a school finance bill that will seal the governor’s travel records for 18 months — until after the 2012 presidential election.

One Republican legislator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the governor as “extremely concerned” about keeping his records sealed, and said Perry was actively lobbying key legislators to get it passed in the waning days of the special session. The legislator said Perry’s wife, Anita, also was pressing legislators on the issue.

Texas newspapers have tried for years to see Perry’s travel records, which would include the costs of the governor’s security detail. But the state Department of Public Safety, run by Steve McCraw, a former FBI official and a longtime Perry friend, has said that the safety of Perry and his family could be jeopardized if the public knew how many officers accompany them, where they stay and Perry’s traveling patterns.

Records reported in 2005 by the Austin American-Statesman showed that Perry and staff members had traveled the previous year to the Bahamas for a meeting with top campaign donor James Leininger and Grover Norquist, a national anti-tax advocate. The records showed $4,200 in taxpayer money was spent for the six state troopers who went along, including costs for renting scuba gear, golf cars and cellphones, according to the newspaper.

Perry said later that the trip was to discuss education policy and finance with his political and technical advisers “in a setting removed from daily distractions.”

In 2009, Perry traveled to Israel where he was given the “Defender of Jerusalem” award. According to a local television report, he and his wife flew first class at more than $5,000 per ticket, paid for by an energy company financier. Four security detail officers also went on the five-day trip at a cost of more than $70,000 to taxpayers. The expenses included $17,000 for rooms at the King David Hotel, nearly $13,000 for food and more than 350 hours in overtime pay.

Read more at the Washington Post.

After explicitly stating that marriage is a states rights issue, Rick Perry has joined Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum in signing the National Organization for Marriage’s anti-gay marriage pledge.

The candidate vowed to establish a “presidential commission on religious liberty” to investigate instances of discrimination against conservatives, “send a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification, and appoint U.S. Supreme Court and federal judges who will “reject the idea our Founding Fathers inserted a right to gay marriage into our Constitution.”

Earlier this week, Time Magazine discovered that Perry compared homosexuality to alcoholism in his 2008 book about the Boy Scouts.

From PoliticusUSA.com: According to reports, Rick Perry invested as a private citizen in Movie Gallery corporation to the tune of between 5-10k according to his 1995 personal financial reports.

Movie Gallery was, at that time, the largest distributor of porn in America, and able to sell and rent regular videos for much cheaper than the competition due to their heady porn profit.

The ultra conservative American Family Association (AFA), a self-described “Christian organization promoting the biblical ethic of decency in American society begged the government to investigate Movie Gallery.

Rick Perry later passed laws to help companies like Movie Gallery avoid “frivolous” tort suits, after they were sued for allegedly violating the law by illegally distributing porn across state lines. This move was seen by some as a move to protect his investment in Movie Gallery, as he used the very word Movie Gallery used (“frivolous”) regarding the lawsuits they were fighting at the time.

Read more at PoliticusUSA.com