It is not true, it is a dangerous undermining of electoral laws and due process.
So you say. Would you mind telling us what specific law is undermined? Please specify an element in the judicial concept of "substantive due process" that is undermined? Or is this just "truthiness", a claim to know intuitively because it "feels right"?
...But to assert that is his "business" as governor is ridiculous.
How so? I am not saying I like that business aspect of politics, but it is part of the widely acknowledged reality of our political system. Moreover, it certainly seems to be an ethical act for an ethical reason - he (and many others) did not believe that a state-wide integrity and ethics enforcement unit should be directed by a woman who was not only massively drunk behind the wheel, but also acted without integrity or ethics during her arrest and booking (trying to use the Sheriff to get her out of the arrest). Political pressure, using political powers, is one legal means to rid the people that are a disgrace, even if Travis County ideologists refuse to believe that the ethics of their leadership has anything to do with their mission to maintain, ironically, the ethics and integrity of officeholders.
"...you view unofficial channels of political pressure as THE standard way by which elected officials should be removed from office."
Perhaps you ought to look up the dictionary meaning of the words you use before you attempt to characterize my views. "Official" means an authority's authorized duties, powers, and ACTIONS. The action of a governor's line item veto is an "official" action...he didn't 'unofficially' issue a veto. And the meaning of the word "standard" is ordinary or customary (not exclusively).
So I view the official channel of veto, for the purposes of exerting political pressure for an ethical ends, as one way to achieve those ends. As elected Texas officials very rarely get removed it is difficult to say what is "standard". So what I can say is that Texas law provides two means of terminating elected officials; impeachment or a court suit. However, nothing in Texas law precludes encouraging resignation by other means, including official and politically motivated means. And unless you can prove that Perry had an immoral purpose behind his veto, I cannot even fault him on a moral/ethical basis.
...Yes, that is a way to blackmail and coerce an elected official out of office, threaten to put their colleagues out of work and harm the public by eliminating an office that serves and protects the public for no other reason than to personally punish that person.
No one denies it could serve his goals, just that it is dangerous, reckless, anti-democratic, and an abuse of power toward an end that no sane person thinks the veto should or was intended to be used for. ...
Colorful hyperbolics but meaningless rhetoric. There is no "abuse of power" regardless of what you think a "sane person thinks". There is no specific limit on what vetoes can be used for in Texas law, and certainly the veto can be used to eliminate programs that you treasure.
Using official powers to veto whatever line item he likes, even for a political purpose, is within his rights. It is ubiquitous in American government and only illegal when it transgresses a specific exception to that power. And it is only corrupt or illegal when it is used for an immoral or illegal purpose; getting rid of a drunk and/or special investigative unit is not in and of itself ethically corrupt or illegal.
...He didn't use "pressure" he used threats towards her to harm other people and the public. That is grossly unethical no matter how he made those threats, but to do it via veto power is an abuse of that power to make an unethical threat to undermine the democratic will to have that office in place to oversee just the kind of unethical actions he threatened to engage in to achieve his ends.
All you did is rattle off a stream of unsupported characterizations and 'truthies'. Yes, vetos harm folks, some unintentionally. However he is not undermining 'democratic will'; even with youor socalled "offical" means depends on the punishment decision of a single judge...not on a 'no-confidence' vote of the people. And Rick Perry, in case you forgot, was elected by the people to protect the common weal with the legal powers at his disposal.
Firing this drunk and abusive woman, who violated clear statutory grounds for her termination, is not within the Governor's constitutional power - using the line item veto to pressure her to resign is.
No, they did not give Perry the power the blackmail his opponents out of elected office.
Show us the statute which says anything similar to "The Governor shall be granted powers that allow him/her to remove elected officials from office via threats and coercion.
Again, let's look at the common meaning of the words you use to decorate your accusations. "Blackmail is an act involving unjustified threats to make a gain or cause loss to another unless a demand is met." Perry made a justified threat, hardly debatable given her actions and the Texas law on grounds for removal. And in regards to granted powers...see below...
Actual political pressure is a just form of social pressure available to all humans and not a power "given" to us...IF the rules of government were intended to give him special powers to coerce people out of office, then the rules would simply eliminate all elective offices and replace them with Governor appointments or give the governor direct veto power over all State elections and direct power to fire them. ...It is of course possible for him to use powers he was given to coerce people out of office, but that is an unintended misuse and unethical abuse of those powers.
Political pressure is using a political means (or end) to influence political actors. The powers of a legislature and executive branch is written in the Constitution and the laws. Any law (Constitutional or statutory) that grants power over legislation, appointments, implementation, or administration is what it says it is; if a law grants taxing power to the legislature and it makes no exceptions on who they can tax, no one would seriously plead that "Oh the legislature didn't mean to tax butchers and candle stick makers because they do good, no one gave the legislature that power to tax good people".
The law said "The legislature has the power to tax the people" with NO EXCEPTIONS; they can tax candle stick makers and butchers and "those who do good" because they were not exempted from the law.
The governor of Texas has line item veto power; there is no known exemption to that power written in the law itself. He may veto any line item funding in the budget, be it for the support of disabled and incarcerated inmates of "Madhouse State" or because he thinks the ethics unit has a crazy and sleazy leader or is on an absurd mission. And he may threaten to use his legal power to obtain any legal end under State and Constitutional law; and there is nothing in the law that says dumping the head of an office of integrity is not a legal end.
Your argument amounts Perry using a kitchen knife that came with the Governor's mansion to stab someone, then claiming "they gave him that power".
If there is a law that says the governor may use a kitchen knife on persons, it may be used to stab persons. And if it says he may use it to delete line items, he may do so. ONLY when such use violates a specific law that takes precedence (eg the State or applicable Federal Constitution) is the Governor restricted.
Perry and what he did is as scummy as any prosecutor, so that's not much of a solution. Oh, and you basically just admitted that you have no regard for the rule of law and want your politicians to undermine it whenever it serves their and your political aims.
You have to be joking.
