Perry Has Appointed More Minorities Than Any Governor In Texas History

Perry Has Appointed More Minorities Than Any Governor In Texas History
Texas Tribune
Even some of Perry’s fiercest Texas critics say they do not believe he is racist. They point to his record of appointments as evidence: He appointed the state’s first African-American state supreme court justice, Wallace Jefferson, and later made him chief justice. (Jefferson’s great grandfather was a slave, “sold like a horse,” Perry once said with disgust.) Perry’s former general counsel and former chief of staff, Brian Newby, is black; so is Albert Hawkins, the former Health and Human Services Commissioner who Perry handpicked to lead the massive agency in 2002.

“He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,” said former Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, who is black and served with Perry in his early years in the Legislature. “He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.”

Added Dallas Democratic Sen. Royce West, who is also black: “I don’t agree with him on policy issues, but you can point to many things he has done that were sensitive to ethnic minorities.”

Indeed, in his 11-year gubernatorial tenure, Perry has appointed more minorities to statewide posts — including university regents and secretaries of state — than any governor in Texas history.

“Texans need to see that no matter where you come from, the color of your skin or the sound of your last name, that if you are willing to work hard and play by the rules you can become anything you want in this state,” Perry said in a 2010 interview with The Dallas Examiner.

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Wild Thing’s comment……..
Gov. Rick Perry has the conservative goods, and the record to prove them and the screaming match leveled at him will become suspect, only after we finish courting candidates without the goods whose rise is based only on how well they throw rocks at Rick Perry. The proof that conservatism is alive and actually on duty is in only one candidate whose got the record to prove it. Rick’s got it and they want it. Overeach and the fiction flacking with half truths will eventually meet its Waterloo. Voters catch on to the killing field over time.