AUSTIN — After vetoing funding for the anti-corruption unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, aides to Texas Gov. Rick Perry engaged in negotiations that would have seen the funding restored, provided District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg resigned her position, several sources told the San Antonio Express-News.
Travis County Precinct 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty said Tuesday that he reached out to the Governor’s Office to work out a deal to restore the funding after Perry axed the $7.5 million appropriation for the District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit.
Daugherty said that he spoke with key Perry aide Ken Armbrister about working out such a deal, but that in the end the talks were fruitless because Lehmberg wouldn’t step down.
“What I heard was that as long as Rosemary is willing to stay in her position, there probably is not an avenue for that to happen,” Daugherty said. He added that he expected to speak with the special prosecutor, Michael McCrum, investigating the case in the next couple of weeks.
The Texas Tribune first reported the story Tuesday evening.
“There was this massive amount of fear that if Rosemary steps down, it’s the governor who gets to appoint someone,” Daughtery said, adding that a Lehmberg aide was even floated as a potential replacement who might be palatable to Democrats, who dominate Travis County politics.
Attempts to contact the Governor’s Office for comment late Tuesday were not immediately returned.
Daughtery is the sole Republican on the Travis County Commissioners Court. “It never got anywhere.”
He described the conversations, which he said included Armbrister, a former state senator, as high level talks that largely avoided the nitty-gritty of how such a deal might come together.
“We all knew that we were all, kinda, throwing things out but not overly specific, but we all knew what the deal was,” Daughtery said. “We won’t have a fighting chance to get the Governor to reconsider if Rosemary is going to stay in her spot.”
He said that Lehmberg’s implacability stymied any effort to cut a deal.
“It was pretty obvious that wasn’t going to happen, so that’s when I said that I’ve put as much time into this crazy thing as I can, so I just moved on,” he added.
