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The Texas Forensic Science Commission was supposed to meet in Irving today to examine the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, an almost assuredly innocent man executed in 2004.

That meeting won’t happen today. And it’s unknown if it will ever happen.

As you know, the cancellation is the result of Rick Perry’s decision to replace three members of the Forensic Science Commission on Wednesday. The decision has created a media firestorm.

Most of the major newspapers in Texas have slammed Perry for this powerplay (Grits and Kuffner have good roundups of the coverage). Many national outlets also have featured this story, including the New Yorker, New York Times and NPR. (Shameless plug: yours truly was interviewed for the NPR segment yesterday on All Things Considered.)

As my colleague Bob Moser reports, Perry was inundated with questions about Willingham during an appearance yesterday with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Bob rightly points out that when even Burka is calling this a “cover up,” Perry might have a serious scandal on his hands.

So why would Perry do this?

It seems to me — and I’ll preface this by saying it’s speculation — that Perry’s people have made the calculation that taking their lumps now is better than the alternative.

Imagine this scenario: It’s early next year, right before the March primary, and the Forensic Science Commission– a state government body whose members Perry helped appoint — issues its final report on Willingham, which concludes that Perry had overseen the execution of an innocent man (and allowed it even though his office knew of mitigating evidence before the execution). That’s the nightmare scenario they’re trying to avoid.

I suspect the Perry people are hoping the current fiasco blows over, and forgotten in a few months. Meanwhile, with John Bradley in charge of the commission, the Willingham investigation can be scuttled entirely or slow-walked till after the election or watered down so the final conclusions aren’t so critical of Perry.

It’s a risky play, though. It’s not clear this issue will be forgotten any time soon.

For one, the Craig Beyler report — with its devastating critique of the forensics in Willingham’s case — has already been released and isn’t going away.

And a lot of people are outraged by Perry’s decision and will likely keep this issue alive.

State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, a key player in creating (and funding) the Forensic Science Commission in 2005 and 2007, told me, “It’s very unfortunate because we should always search for the truth. We as a state have made mistakes  and we need to find ways to not repeat those mistakes  and ways to improve our criminal justice system.”

“It just gives the wrong impression,” Hinojosa said of Perry’s decision. “The public has the right to know if we made a mistake.”

Spying on employees, altering federal documents, giving yourself (or a friend) a pay raise…Just another day at the office at the International Boundary and Water Commission, according to its former general counsel.

Investigators from the Inspector General of the State Department are in El Paso right now investigating these serious allegations made by whistleblower Robert McCarthy. The lawyer was fired by the IBWC’s commissioner in July after reporting the misconduct to the State Department, which loosely oversees the agency.

Not many people are familiar with the IBWC, but they are a key federal agency along the border. Created in 1889, the IBWC carries out border treaties with Mexico and operates several international dams and water treatment plants and (supposedly) keeps levees along the Rio Grande from crumbling into dust.

If the USIBWC and its Mexican counterpart don’t function properly then it means millions of lives, billions in property and several important levees and dams are at stake on the Rio Grande. We have to only remember the disastrous flooding in Presidio last year and the millions of dollars of damage from flooding in the Mexican city of Nogales.

The (now former) USIBWC General Counsel Robert McCarthy reported to the Inspector General that the agency had violated several federal laws and regulations. Among those allegations are that the agency mismanaged $220 million in Recovery Act money to raise levees along the Rio Grande. 

He also reported that agency officials conducted secret surveillance of agency employees, altered official government records, made false reports to the Inspector General, manipulated payrolls, and misappropriated funds.

IBWC Commissioner C.W. “Bill” Ruth fired McCarthy three days after he made his report to the Inspector General. In 2008 President Bush appointed Ruth commissioner after the tragic death of Commissioner Carlos Marin who died in a plane crash while surveying the flooding in Presidio.

If even some of McCarthy’s allegations are true then the executive leadership and Commissioner Ruth should be replaced.

The IBWC is tucked away in a musty, dusty corner of the State Department. It has little oversight other than “foreign policy guidance’ from the State Department. The Commissioner is even allowed to set his own salary. Wouldn’t we all like to have that option?

This is not the first time the IBWC has been investigated by the State Department IG for complaints of mismanagement. In 2006, the IG wrote:

“The agency is simply too small, too isolated, and too vulnerable to management abuse to continue without the protection and oversight of a major government department.”

 The IBWC is far too important to border residents to be treated like a government orphan. Hopefully, the Obama Administration will clean up the mess and put the IBWC under the oversight of a larger agency.

The nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is assisting McCarthy with his whistleblower case against the agency. Jeff Ruch, executive director of the nonprofit, said that this is not McCarthy’s first time crying foul on a federal agency. In 2007, he was a whistleblower at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in California where he helped manage accounts for Native American landowners in the Palm Springs area. McCarthy was a key witness against the federal government in a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit that claimed among other things that Native American leases were mismanaged and landowners were charged exorbitant fees by the federal agency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s an interview I did with KPFT’s Ann Raber this week. The topic is Austin Energy’s ambitious plan to ramp up renewables from 12 percent to 35 percent by 2020. The interview will air on KPFT in the Houston-Galveston area.

We’re hearing a lot of talk these days from conservatives about the high price of health care reform.

We can’t afford that, they say. It’ll mean a huge tax increase. Sen. John Cornyn said last week that the Baucus plan would cost Texas taxpayers too much — $20 billion over 10 years to be exact.

Not to be outdone, Gov. Rick Perry — using an estimate from the health and human services department — pegged the 10-year cost at $60 billion.

I pointed out last week the flaw in this argument. Yes, expanding health coverage for millions of Texans will cost the state a lot of money — but it will also save a lot of money for county governments, which are paying much of the $7 billion a year in uncompensated care for Texas’ uninsured. (A lot of the cost for uncompensated care arises from people who lack health insurance showing up at emergency rooms in public hospitals — the single most expensive place to receive treatment.)

So health reform isn’t really new spending. It’s a cost shift: state government spends more, counties spend less.  

Today the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a study that shows just how much maintaining our current health system will cost Texas in the next decade. (Here’s a summary of the findings. You can find the whole report here.) 

It ain’t pretty. Details after the jump.

The exercise of raw power is truly stunning to behold.

Gov. Rick Perry today has replaced three members of the Forensic Science Commission, which is investigating whether Texas—under Perry’s administration—executed an innocent man in 2004.

The Statesman and the AP are reporting that one of three deposed commissioners is chairman Sam Bassett, an Austin defense attorney.

Perry has installed as chairman John Bradley, the district attorney of Williamson County and one of the state’s most notorious tough-on-crime advocates.

Bradley’s first act? He has canceled Friday’s schedule meeting at which the commission was supposed to discuss the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, an apparently innocent man executed in 2004. Willingham was convicted of killing his three kids by starting a 1991 house fire. His case was recently featured in the New Yorker.

The commission last year hired a national arson expert to study the Willingham case. The expert, Craig Beyler, released his report in late August. He concurred with the other fire experts who have looked at the case: the fire was accidental, and Willingham almost assuredly innocent.

The commission planned to hear from Beyler at Friday’s meeting. The commission also planned to release a final report on the case early next year. That raised the possibility that Texas would be the first state to officially admit executing an innocent man.

The timing couldn’t have been worse for Perry, who’s in a tough race for reelection. Asked recently about the case, Perry stood by his decision to execute Willingham, as the Dallas Morning News reported:

Even without proof that the fire was arson, [Perry] added, the court records he reviewed before the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in 2004 showed ‘clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children.’

That makes no sense. if there was no arson, there was no crime, and Willingham was, by definition, innocent.

The Commission’s inquiry of the Willingham case figured to pose mounting political problems for the governor. And Perry has never been crazy about the idea of the Forensic Science Commission, which the Legislature created in 2005.

It’s worth noting that Bassett’s term had expired, and the governor has the power to appoint whomever he chooses.

But Perry’s actions today certainly appear an attempt to bottle up the Willingham investigation.