Conservative ire with Perry runs deep, reflects racial politics

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 20: Texas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry wipes his forehead during a press conference with American and Israeli Jewish leaders and supporters of Israel in the Great Room at the W Hotel Union Square, where he attacked President Barack Obama's foreign policy, on September 20, 2011 in New York City. Perry, who's leading polls for the GOP presidential nomination, condemned the Palestinian Authority's effort to seek recognition by the United Nations and blamed Obama's policy of "moral equivalency" for emboldening them. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

THE VENDETTA

Following his upset 2002 victory, Smith would serve on the Supreme Court of Texas until 2005, when Perry, not distracted by a re-election campaign of his own, actively worked to unseat him.

“Perry didn’t just oppose Smith’s re-election,” Rogers told TheDC. “He and [U.S. Senator] John Cornyn recruited Smith’s opponent, Paul Green — a study buddy of Cornyn from St. Mary’s Law School.”

“Paul Green looks like a judge out of central casting. He is a business conservative, though not an ideological conservative, and he ran his campaign like he was Steve Smith, although there is nothing in his record that would have indicated he was a tea-party-flavor Republican.”

And unlike Smith’s previous primary opponent, an Ivy League-trained corporate lawyer from a major city, Green was better able to connect with rural voters.

While Smith’s 2004 campaign — again managed by Rogers — collected more established conservative endorsements than in 2002, Perry’s and Cornyn’s opposition proved too much, and Smith was defeated in the 2004 primary battle. Green went on to win the general election unchallenged.

“As you know,” Miner, Perry’s communications expert, told TheDC, “In Texas the voters made those decision. They made a decision on Xavier Rodriguez and later made a decision on Justice Smith.”

TEXAS RACIAL PREFERENCE RULES

In 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court annulled Smith’s landmark 1996 win against state university racial preferences in Texas.

Today, Rogers tells TheDC, “all of the universities in Texas practice racial preferences in their acceptance policies. Those decisions are decided by the regents, and every regent is appointed by Perry.”

Miner responded that “the governor does not support race being a factor in admissions, and has long been on the record on that issue.” But he did acknowledge that Perry appoints the regents who uphold racial-preference policies.

In June of this year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear a new challenge to the affirmative action system in place at the University of Texas.

A source close to the plaintiff in that case told the Chronicle of Higher Education that “the U.S. Supreme Court is a likely next stop. If the Supreme Court accepts a petition to hear the case, the oral argument could take place in the spring, with a decision likely a year from now — smack in the middle of the presidential campaign.”

That would be June 2012.

Rick Perry has made no public comment on that challenge, says Rogers. “Universities are discriminating on the basis of skin color and the government is not speaking out on it. I think that is abhorrent behavior, and it is certainly not conservative behavior.”

When contacted by TheDC, Perry deputy press secretary Lucy Nashed said the governor’s office does not comment on pending litigation. When informed that the matter was not currently before the courts, as Fisher had not yet applied with the U.S. Supreme Court for judicial review, Nashed insisted that “it is still a matter for the courts to decide.”

The legal community has marked the likely Supreme Court review of the Texas racial-preferences case as “the next big case dealing with race in higher education admissions,” writes Joshua Thompson, a staff attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation.

“It is all but assured that when the Fisher plaintiffs petition for a writ of certiorari, the Supreme Court will be presented with an opportunity to end the diversity rationale altogether.”

Even if the Supreme Court should decline to hear the case, the Texas battle over race will likely become a campaign issue.

Rogers draws his own conclusions about a Perry candidacy in 2012: “I think that Rick Perry is a fiscal, gun-rights and small town values conservative and has it in his bones. But on immigration and racial preferences, he has been a real disappointment to conservatives, and he would continue to be a disappointment as president.”