Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Rough sledding for TDCJ board nominees

The Texas Senate Nominations Committee delayed another Rick Perry nomination to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice after rookie Sen. Sylvia Garcia uncovered during questioning that San Antonio businessman Terrell McCombs had not listed all the businesses he owned on his application, reported the Statesman's Mike Ward.

The episode follows the recent Annette Raggette ignominy, in which a nominee declared on her application she wasn't related to a state official though her brother in law and long-time business associate Oliver Bell is the board chair. Bell now says he "should have been paying more attention" when he recommended her for the board, which strikes me as not a particularly credible reaction. Grits must admit a small measure of pride that a short post on this blog started the ball rolling on the committee's investigation of Raggette and Bell's relationship.

In response to the Raggette and McCombs embarrassments, the Nominations Committee created a new rule this week "to require for the first time that all nominees provide up-to-date information on their applications and personal financial statements, and certify in writing that all the information is correct, before they will be considered for approval by the Senate," wrote Ward, who continued, "In investigating the Raggette nomination, senators said they were disturbed to find out that her application and others submitted by nominees had not been fully filled out, that some information was more than a year old and that many nominees’ backgrounds had not been verified or only undergone a cursory check."

It really does seem these nominees aren't being vetted well.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hopefully, the "end of twine" will keep being "pulled" so the whole ball of "twine" (TDCJ) will be unraveled and ALL the irregularities inside the prison system can be brought out into the open.

I'm still waiting to hear about further investigations of other TDCJ VIPs, like maybe, Rissi Owens. Our prison infamous prison system needs to be cleaned up.

Congratulations to the rookie politician. You go, girl!!!!

Gritsforbreakfast said...

She's no rookie politician, fwiw, just a rookie senator. Still, you're right, good job. :)

Anonymous said...

This hinges on the edge of being cattle fodder to the point of embarrassing the entire state. Any wet dreams of running for pres again just got flushed.

It's being discussed and laughed about from coast to coast, so, in an effort to show the nation that we are disgusted with Perry's repeated attempt(s) to inject his unqualified, untruthful buds into a position of great power, a screen shot (minus comments) was sent to: Conan, Craig Ferguson, Letterman, Leno, The Daily Show & The Colbert Report. Titled – “In Perry, We Dis-Trust”

Hopefully they'll re-direct the embarrassment factor back over to the Gov. Office (the one that God speaks to).

Anonymous said...

*It's a crying shame that the rules have to be changed or created in mid stream in order to force the nominees to comply with instructions. It seems that Perry is throwing darts at a spinning circle with photos of friends in need.

You'd think a Nominations Committee would have taken time to create basic rules prior to 2013.

It's also strange to learn that it isn't a crime to falsify or omit known / documented information on a state mandated application. Or is it a crime and they get a free pass.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Mr. Bell needs to resign from his position as well.

John C. Key MD said...

Unfortunately the problem of unqualified political appointees is not limited to the State of Texas, Rick Perry, or any specific political party. It is a widespread, pervasive, and time-dishonored problem.

Anonymous said...

Trust me; this is only the tip of the ice-berg here. TBCJ, TDCJ, and the Parole Board are the most corrupted agencies in the state of Texas. Criminals sit on these boards and all of them need to be replaced for the god of the tax-payers of Texas. If this is how a Christian who god talks to operate than lord help us. The tax-payers and voters need to wake up. These are cronies doing the dirty work for the powers to be. Most if not all of the people in charge of these agencies have little to no experience to even qualify the average citizen for these positions. If you look at every university in this state most of the Board of Regents have no experience in education either. The average qualified citizen who applies for these jobs are told right off the bat by the university or other state agencies that they are not qualified and their applications are stamped with a big fat rejection stamp. Then a crony will be placed in these positions. This is where I am confused; however, when the average citizen signs the same applications, they acknowledge that if they have falsified their application they can receive up to a 10k fine or ten years imprisonment. But these elite cronies are not going to even be prosecuted. Wake up voters, if that was your application, you would be sent to prison. Do not tell me those prison employees are not corrupted and criminals. Maybe the Federal authorities will investigate the people running these prison concentration camps and parole board members one day. Every member of TBCJ should have been fired when these illegal activities occurred by these two cronies.