Rick Perry

If At First You Don't Secede ... Sue The EPA: Texas Guv Uses Climate-Gate Emails To Take On Feds

Zachary Roth | February 18, 2010, 11:41AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in a bid to stop it from regulating global warming pollution. The centerpiece of his argument? Those leaked "Climate-Gate" emails.

Last year, the governor -- who faces a contested GOP primary race, which includes a Tea-Party-backed candidate who has lately caught fire -- raised the threat of seceding from the union. And on Tuesday, he opened a new front in his quest to tout his conservative bona fides.

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Cameron Todd Willingham

Perry: Death Penalty's Working Fine!

Zachary Roth | October 21, 2009, 10:01AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

A little thing like being shown to have probably executed an innocent man isn't going to get in the way of continuing to put people to death, if Texas governor Rick Perry has anything to do with it.

Said Perry yesterday:

Our process works, and I don't see anything out there that would merit calling for a moratorium on the Texas death penalty. It's fair and appropriate, and we will continue with it.

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Rick Perry

Defending Himself, Perry Attacks Executed Man As "Monster"

Zachary Roth | October 15, 2009, 11:03AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Texas governor Rick Perry has defended his handling of a death penalty case that may have led to the execution of an innocent man -- and launched an extraordinary attack on the dead man himself.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Perry yesterday called Cameron Todd Wilingham a "monster," a "bad man," and "a guy who murdered his three children, who tried to beat his wife into an abortion so that she wouldn't have those kids."

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Cameron Todd Willingham

Evidence Builds That Perry's Office Pressured Panel On Willingham Probe

Zachary Roth | October 14, 2009, 10:11AM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Things are looking worse and worse for Texas governor Rick Perry, accused of stifling a state panel's probe into that flawed arson investigation that may have led to the execution of an innocent man.

Sam Bassett, the former chair of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, has now told the Houston Chronicle that lawyers for Perry told him the case was inappropriate, and that the hiring of a nationally known fire expert was a "waste of state money."

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Death Penalty

Texas Governor Stymieing Panel Probing Flawed Death Penalty Case?

Zachary Roth | October 2, 2009, 12:35PM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

Even by the standards of Texas's enthusiasm for state-sanctioned killing, this is pretty shocking...

A Texas scientific panel has been looking into possible missteps in a criminal investigation of a 1991 arson case which led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. A recent New Yorker story about the case laid out compelling evidence that Willingham may well have been wrongly put to death.

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