The Contrarian

Updated below.

Gov. Rick Perry touts his Texas Enterprise Fund—which doles out public money to spur job growth—as an economic boon to the state. But nearly half the companies that received the taxpayer grants are also politically connected to Perry, according to a new report by an Austin watchdog group.  

The report—released Thursday by the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice—found that of the 90 companies that have received Enterprise Fund grants, 43 have given money either to Perry’s campaigns or to a political organization closely tied to him. Those 43 companies received $333 million in public money through the Enterprise Fund. They donated nearly $7 million to Perry’s campaign account or to the Republican Governors Association. Perry served as chair of the Washington, D.C.-based governors association in both 2008 and 2011 and has helped raise substantial money for the group.

The Enterprise Fund has handed out nearly $440 million in taxpayer money to those 90 companies since its creation in 2003. Perry’s office claims the economic development grants have created more than 59,000 jobs. Critics have often called the program a political slush fund for the governor.

In March 2010, the Observer first reported that nearly 40 percent of Enterprise Fund companies had contributed to Perry’s campaign or to the Republican Governors Association. Our 2010 analysis showed that 20 companies had donated $2.2 million. In the past 18 months, the number of Enterprise Fund grants has increased—as has the political giving.

Andrew Wheat, Texans for Public Justice research director, said the campaign contributions present a conflict of interest for the governor’s office. “Having the government give out public money to private companies is inherently controversial,” he said. “If indeed a government is going to have this kind of program it would seem to be prudent to have it heavily insulated from the political process, which this one definitely is not.” (Full disclosure: Wheat has written columns for the Observer.)

Perry’s office largely decides which companies receive funds, though the lieutenant governor and Texas House speaker also must approve grants. Companies that receive money from the Enterprise Fund file reports with Perry’s office to document that they’re creating the required number of jobs. Companies that fail to create jobs must return money to the state, but only if the governor’s office requires them to.

Wheat said it’s a conflict of interest for Perry—who’s receiving large campaign contributions from these companies—to oversee their compliance. “It seems insane that the politician that is handing out this money and is receiving campaign money from these same sources is also in charge…. There should be independent bean counters enforcing the public’s interest in these contracts.”

Perry’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment late Wednesday afternoon. In Tuesday night’s GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire, Perry was asked about public subsidies for companies that are also his campaign contributors. He defended the grants and noted that the Texas Legislature has oversight of his economic incentive programs. The Legislature meets once every two years.

The top donors in the report include major companies such as Hewlett-Packard and General Electric, which each gave more than $600,000 to the Republican Governors Association since 2008.

Another top donor—the Texas A&M Institute for Genome Medicine—may have exaggerated its job creation numbers, according to a Wall Street Journal report this week. The newspaper found that the Texas A&M Institute for Genome Medicine claimed to have produced 12,000 jobs, when in fact the newspaper could confirm only 220 jobs. “What accounts for the discrepancy? The newspaper asked. “To reach their estimate of 12,000-plus jobs created by the project, officials included every position added in Texas since 2005 in fields related sometimes only tangentially to biotechnology, according to state officials and documents provided by Texas A&M. They include jobs in things like dental equipment, fertilizer manufacturing and medical imaging.”

The Institute for Genome Medicine—at Perry’s alma-matter—received $50 million in taxpayer money from the Enterprise Fund in 2005. The institute has contributed $506,000 to Perry’s campaigns and another $85,000 to the governors association, according to the Texans for Public Justice report, the fifth most generous contributor among Enterprise Fund recipients.

Update (Oct. 14): The Texas governor’s office referred questions about the report to Perry’s campaign. Katherine Cesinger, a campaign spokesperson, responded that TPJ drew “false and unsupportable” conclusions in its report. “In fact, many of the ‘crossover’ companies TPJ cited also contributed nearly equal amounts to the Democratic Governors Association as they did to the RGA during the same time period,” Cesinger wrote in an email. “Each TEF project must receive unanimous approval from the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House to receive funding. Funds are awarded based on the merits of the projects, including job creation, and the TEF is key to Texas’ ability to successfully compete with other states economically. The program also has strong contract provisions and is reviewed every two years by the Texas Legislature.”

“A month ago, all we heard about was Rick Perry and now, he’s off the map. He had a worse September than the Red Sox.” —David Letterman

It’s funny because it’s true. On Aug. 13, the Boston Red Sox had the best record in the American League and were favorites to reach the World Series. On that same day, Rick Perry announced his presidential candidacy. He rocketed to the top of nearly every poll and soon became the favorite to win the Republican nomination.

Then came September. The Red Sox completed one of the most stunning late-season collapses in baseball history by surrendering a ninth-inning lead to last-place Baltimore on the season’s final night and missed the playoffs.

Bad as that was, Perry might have had a worse month. (That’s really saying something: Boston lost 20 of its last 27 games.)

You know the litany of Perry errors. There were his unsteady debate performances—the last of which included an attack on Mitt Romney and an answer on Pakistan policy that were so nonsensical it seemed Perry was coming off a four-day bender. Conservatives are hammering Perry for granting in-state college tuition to children of undocumented immigrants. Then there were his face-palm, off-the-cuff remarks, including saying that Warren Buffett(!) was out of touch with the private sector and that Perry would be open to sending troops into Mexico. And, of course, there was the ranch controversy.

Eat your heart out, Terry Francona.

The popular theory among some political pundits is that Perry is down, but not out—that he can still right his campaign, overtake Romney and win the nomination. And the Perry-comeback narrative has some merit. My colleague Forrest Wilder recently laid out several compelling reasons why Perry can still win this thing. He does have the money, time, talent and opportunity to do it. The clown show that is the GOP field remains wide open. So I won’t count anyone out, Perry included. (A smooth performance at Tuesday’s Republican debate could start the Perry comeback.)

But I have a hard time seeing it.

Perry’s problems appear to run much deeper than a few controversial statements and what his family’s hunting ranch was called. Put simply, the Texas governor looks like a flawed candidate right now.

It’s baffling for those of us who watched Perry win every election he entered in Texas and who considered him a talented campaigner.

For most of August and September, I told national reporters who called to ask about the governor that Perry was an excellent politician. He may not seem impressive at first, I had said, he may not be a policy whiz or be a slick debater, but he’s a natural on the campaign trail, someone who connects with people, and a man with uncanny political instincts and an aggressive style that rattles his opponents.

That person seems to have disappeared. I don’t recognize the Rick Perry who’s running for president.

He’s making cringe-worthy gaffes during debates and embarrassing comments on television and in speeches. Instead of attacking his opponents, he’s constantly clarifying, explaining, apologizing and back-peddling. Each time he tries to reorient his campaign and get back on the attack, another controversy knocks him on the defensive. I don’t claim to be a political expert, but I do know that candidates who are clarifying and explaining their positions are losing the race.

What’s so puzzling is that the topics giving Perry problems aren’t new. Texas Democrats and Republicans have attacked Perry for years without success on cronyism, HPV and immigration.

Yet now Perry seems flustered. I won’t pretend to know why. Perhaps it’s the same unknowable reason that the potent Red Sox lineup stopped scoring runs late in the season. Perhaps he’s in poor health. Perhaps his campaign team has become too comfortable and overconfident after a string of easy gubernatorial elections. Perhaps Perry just wasn’t that good to begin with.

But whatever the reason, it’s evident that Perry wasn’t prepared for a national campaign. As a result, he’s falling seriously behind.

I’m usually suspicious of early polls, but some of Perry’s numbers are alarming. The latest survey of New Hampshire voters has Perry in a tie for fifth—with just 4 percent of the vote. (The poll has a margin of error of 4.4 percent—so Perry could be as high as 8 percent….but he could also be at zero!) Either way, he trails Romney by about 30 points. The voting in the first primary state begins in 90 days. His numbers in Florida are nearly as bad.

There’s still time to revive his campaign, but the signs aren’t encouraging.

Media reports this past weekend told of a more “disciplined” Perry on the campaign trail in Iowa. Disciplined doesn’t mean better. A New York Times story today portrayed a candidate trying to find the right formula:

Mr. Perry is re-examining his campaign — and himself — in an effort to correct his shortcomings of style and substance….

“He seems uncomfortable on the stage,” said Sam Clovis, a conservative radio host in Sioux City who had a more favorable impression of Mr. Perry after shaking his hand during a weekend campaign stop here. “He’s going to have to get much, much better.”…

He raced through campaign events, delivering speeches that clocked in around eight minutes. He quickly moved to question-and-answer sessions, but after calling on five people, he shouted, “Last question!” (Most candidates assign that task to an aide to avoid the impression that it is the candidate who is eager to go.)….

Several Republican voters who turned out for his campaign events said they knew little about him, aside from the recent debates, and walked away disappointed that they had not learned more.

Steven Berntson, 57, a corn and soybean farmer from Paullina, asked Mr. Perry to discuss the books that have shaped his life. Mr. Perry replied by citing the free-market economist Friedrich Hayek, but did not name the title of his well-known book, “The Road to Serfdom,” as he criticized Keynesian economics and turned back to a general conversation about the economy.

After Mr. Perry finished speaking, as he shook hands and signed autographs nearby, Mr. Berntson said that he was disappointed by the answer and by the fact that he had mentioned only one book.

“I wanted to see how deep he was,” Mr. Berntson said. “I asked an open-ended question that I thought would give the candidate lots and lots of room to help us know who he is. And he talked about it for less than one minute.”

Yikes. Does anyone believe that “The Road to Serfdom” is really the book that shaped Perry’s life? Or did he just say that because he wanted to stay on message? When politicians try to remake themselves on the fly, start heeding consultants’ advice for fixing their flaws, shortening their answers and speeches, and sticking strictly to talking points, it usually doesn’t end well.

Retail politics and speaking to small crowds on the stump is supposed to be Rick Perry’s strength, his specialty, his big advantage over Romney. He’s never been a great debater. He’s not a policy wonk. If he’s struggling on the campaign trail too, then what does he have?

Not that candidates can’t improve their skills. We’ve seen politicians improve aspects of their game over the course of a campaign. (During more than 20 debates in 2007-2008, Barack Obama became a much sharper debater.) But you have to be naturally good at something. It’s very difficult for a candidate to re-invent himself in the middle of a national campaign.

But that’s seemingly what Perry is doing. He reminds me of a baseball player mired in a hitting slump who’s constantly fiddling with his stance, tweaking his swing, grasping for the right adjustment that will yield results. He seems a far less confident candidate than the governor who stormed into the GOP field in August and gallivanted through Iowa.

Worst of all for Perry, his struggles have put him in the uncomfortable position of needing a good performance in the Republican debate on Tuesday night in New Hampshire to turn around his candidacy. That’s a difficult spot for someone who doesn’t excel in debates.

Perry has never been in this position before: needing a sparkling debate performance. He’s typically been ahead in the polls—able to coast through debates by avoiding mistakes. Coasting won’t suffice this time. Pat, empty-sounding answers won’t do it. Perry is behind. People want to see something from him. He needs to show some depth, an understanding of economic problems. He needs to be very good. Can he pull it off? Anything’s possible. But it’s asking an awful lot of Perry.

Like mystified Boston baseball fans, I’m stunned by all that’s gone wrong for Perry. He may still win the nomination, of course. But, right now, he seems more likely to suffer the Red Sox’s fate.

test test hello my

Updated below

The now-infamous Cameron Todd Willingham case will be back in the news this week and not just because Texas Gov. Rick Perry is leading the Republican presidential field.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission, which has been investigating the Willingham-arson case for three years, plans to discuss the case at its meeting in Austin that begins this afternoon and runs through Friday.

Willingham was executed seven years ago for starting the 1991 house fire that killed his three daughters. Perry oversaw the execution and rejected a last-minute request for stay of execution—and ignored an expert report that questioned the forensic evidence in the case. Eight other nationally recognized fire scientists have since examined the case and found no evidence of arson. (For more background, read this Chicago Tribune story and this one from the New Yorker.)

The Willingham case has become an international sensation and a political problem for Perry. But much of the reporting on the case focuses on Willingham’s guilt or innocence—a debate that will likely never be settled—and misses the larger point. There is a systemic problem with flawed arson cases in Texas and across the country. The Willingham case is just the most famous example.

The commission last met to discuss Willingham in mid April, when it released a “final” report on the case. I put final in quotes because the commissioners were still waiting for the Texas attorney general to decide if the commission has jurisdiction to investigate the case and it wasn’t in April clear if the commission would take further action.

In that first report, commissioners highlighted the many flaws in the Willingham case and made 17 recommendations.

The most important was its recommendation that the State Fire Marshal’s Office review its old arson cases for possible flawed evidence. The Fire Marshal’s office files are filled with hundreds of defendants who may have been convicted by the same type of faulty arson evidence that sent Willingham to death row. None of these cases have been examined.

How many innocent people are sitting in Texas prisons on bad arson cases? We simply don’t know, because no one has looked.

I know of three likely innocent men still in prison because of faulty arson evidence. In 2009, I wrote a series on arson cases and profiled the flawed convictions for Curtis Severns, Ed Graf and Alfredo Guardiola.

All three are sitting in prison at this very moment. The Observer’s review of old arson cases turned up three apparent wrongful convictions.

Yet no agency or group has stepped forward to conduct a comprehensive investigation of past convictions. The commission’s recommendation that the Fire Marshal at least begin that process was a promising first step.

But the recommendations were non-binding. The Fire Marshal officials told me in mid-August—four months after the Willingham report came out—that they had no plans to re-investigate older arson cases.

I then called Nizam Peerwani for a comment on the Fire Marhsal’s inaction. Peerwani is the new chair of the Forensic Science Commission. (He replaced the controversial John Bradley who was forced off the commission last spring when the state Senate wouldn’t confirm his appointment. Peerwani, the medical examiner in Fort Worth, will be a much different chair than Bradley was. In previous meetings, Peerwani has not only supported other scientists on the panel, but asked some of the most intelligent and probing questions about the Willingham case.)

Peerwani told me he planned to meet with officials from the Fire Marshal’s office just before the start of today’s meeting to discuss a re-investigation of older cases. He still endorses the retrospective review, but said he understands their financial and time limitations. “I understand where they’re coming from,” he said. “We don’t have enforcement power. It’s only a recommendation on our part. “

Peerwani said crime labs and other entities that handle forensic evidence should have a policy to review their work. He said that he initiated a review of arson cases in Tarrant County from the past 20 years. It took eight months. They found no faulty convictions, he said.

Asked for further comment, State Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado released this statement through a spokesman: “I will be meeting with the Commission in the coming days to discuss all of the recommendations and explore ways that process improvements might be applied.”

Peerwani said the commissioners will decide this week if they will further investigate the Willingham case and issue another report. Or if they will drop the matter.

Even if they choose to continue, there isn’t much left for the commissioners to do. The attorney general ruled in July that the commission didn’t have jurisdiction to investigate evidence in cases before 2005. That would seem to tie the commission’s hands since Willingham was executed in 2004.

So it seems unlikely that the commissioners will make any resounding statements about the competency of the investigators in the Willingham case. They almost certainly won’t clear Willingham’s name.

But they still can press the Fire Marshal’s office—and other agencies—to dig into older arson cases.

There are 750 people in Texas prisons on arson convictions. Dozens, even hundreds, of them—like Severns, Graf and Guardiola—could be innocent.

Will their cases ever be uncovered? We’ll know more after the commissioners discuss the Willingham case either later this afternoon or tomorrow.

We will likely never know for certain if Willingham was innocent. We do know, however, that he was convicted on flawed evidence.

A review of older cases could go a long way toward uncovering anyone else who has suffered that fate.

 

Update (5:50 p.m.): The Forensic Science Commission will take up the Willingham case first thing Friday morning.

This afternoon, the commission considered new cases that involved flawed forensic evidence. It quickly became apparent how constricted the commission is following the recent opinion from the Texas attorney general’s office.

The commission rejected a half-dozen complaints, including three allegedly flawed arson cases, because they weren’t within its jurisdiction—at least as recently interpreted by the AG. The AG this summer ruled that the commission doesn’t have authority to investigate cases before 2005.

The three arson cases all occurred before then. So even though the cases apparently contained serious problems—and would otherwise have been investigated—the commission was forced to dismiss them because of “jurisdictional issues,” as Chair Nizam Peerwani put it.

The dismissed complaints included the Sonia Cacy case. Cacy was wrongly convicted of arson and served several years of a 99-year sentence before she was released from prison with the help of Austin fire scientist Gerald Hurst (the same expert who first questioned the evidence against Willingham and whose report Gov. Perry ignored just before the 2004 execution.) While Cacy’s case has obvious flaws, the commissioners were powerless to do anything because she was convicted before 2005.

Several commissioners expressed frustration with this new legal straight jacket.

Commissioner Sarah Kerrigan made clear the commission would have investigated these arson cases if not for the new legal boundaries. She suggested sardonically that the commission establish a committee to handle dismissed cases because given constraints of the AG opinion, “We’re going to be dealing with this in a large number of cases.”

And that might have been the point. There’s little doubt the commission was created to investigate flawed forensics prior to 2005. But imprecise wording in the 2005 statute that birthed the commission raised legal questions about jurisdiction.

Former Chair John Bradley took advantage of that ambiguity and asked for the opinion from the AG’s office. Bradley’s move was widely seen by critics as an attempt to stall the Willingham probe. We’ll find out tomorrow morning if the AG opinion will scuttle the commission’s investigation into the Willingham case.

But regardless of what happens with the Willingham case tomorrow, it’s clear that the AG opinion as severely limited the Forensic Science Commission’s power to investigate new allegations of forensic misconduct. That can’t be good.

Rick Perry has never been keen on debates.

In his three campaigns for Texas governor, Perry treated candidates debates as necessary evils—events he had to endure and survive. (That is, of course, with the notable exception of the 2010 general election, when Perry refused to debate his Democratic opponent.)

Though Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas history, I can think of only four debates he’s appeared in: one debate each in the 2002 and 2006 campaigns, and two during the 2010 GOP primary.

 The governor didn’t perform particularly well in any of them. He didn’t have to. Each time, he was ahead in the polls and coasting toward victory. His mission was simply not to screw up. He played it safe, defended his record, and avoided any gaffes that might have altered the race.

Tonight Perry will take part in his first nationally televised debate as a presidential candidate. (8 p.m. EDT on MSNBC). We’ve been bombarded in recent days with analysis of Perry’s debating skills. Paul Burka at the Monthly thinks Perry will be “seen as the winner.”  The New Republic opines that he will “thrive in presidential debates.”

In reality, we really don’t know if he’s up to the task; Perry never needed a knockout debate performance. He’s never trailed in the polls and needed a lively debate performance to jump-start his campaign.

The conventional wisdom in Texas has always been that if and when Perry ran for national office, he’d have to break away from his cruise-control debating style and actually engage his opponents.

I doubt that will happen tonight.

Perry once again finds himself leading in the polls. His mission tonight—as in his past gubernatorial debates—is to avoid saying anything incredibly stupid.

Perry may face tough questions from the medial panel, and attacks from Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney about his controversial past remarks and actions.

But as long as Perry can effectively defend his record and not commit any race-altering gaffes, then he will likely continue as the GOP front-runner. It’s a position Perry is familiar with and one he’s succeeded in.

All eyes will be on Perry tonight, but I suspect he will stay above the fray. And I doubt we’ll learn much about his debating skills.

At some point—either later in the primary season or perhaps in a general election against Obama—Perry will face a one-on-one debate that he can’t simply coast through. He will face a debate in which he’ll have to appear presidential, offer concrete proposals and rise to the occasion before a live national audience.

But that won’t happen tonight.