The Twisted Truth

Steven Kreytak’s commentary on the court case in which state officials, associates of Tom Delay, are accused of illegally laundering money involves the larger issue that Republican justices in the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals are putting politics above law. Two Democrat and three Republican justices preside over this court, and biased actions by the Republicans have instigated infighting among the judges. The Republicans view prosecution of their fellow Republicans for laundering corporate money for use in state campaigns as political harassment. They have been tying up the prosecutions for over two years. The district attorney and Justice Jan Patterson (Democrat) wanted Justice Alan Waldrop (Republican) to step aside, due to bias. Chief Justice Ken Law (Republican) refused. Justice Patterson tried to file a dissent. The news article discusses how Justice Patterson asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene after Chief Justice Law stopped a county clerk from filing her dissent. The action taken by Law shows his bias as well as his intent to save the public face of his fellow Republicans. Steven Kreytak’s commentary simply states that Law denied any wrongdoing, and it quotes Law directly. Readers can plainly see that, when asked to respond to the Supreme Court, Law came up with the story that he did not seek to stop Patterson from filing a dissent, he only wanted her to use the court’s internal procedures by circulating her opinion first among the justices. Kreytak’s commentary is very effective because his use of direct quotes credibly demonstrates that Law has twisted the truth. The audience consists of voters, and Law is up for re-election. The facts speak for themselves, and Law is not fit to continue as Chief Justice.