Perry exits Texas stage making a case for his past, and his future

By Manny Fernandez

AUSTIN, Tex. — Gov. Rick Perry leaves office here next week not so much as a man but as the face of an era — a 14-year reign in which he became the state’s longest-serving chief executive and was widely regarded as the most powerful governor in the history of modern Texas.

He turned a happenstance, unelected rise to office — going from lieutenant governor to governor in December 2000 after George W. Bush resigned to become president — into a one-man Republican dynasty, winning three four-year terms, making every appointment on every board and commission in the state and redefining the power of the governor’s office.

In a farewell speech to the Texas Legislature on Thursday, Mr. Perry made a spirited case for his tenure, boasting that Texas has become more prosperous and financially sound — with better schools, safer streets, cleaner air and fewer frivolous lawsuits — since he became governor. . . 

For all his boasting of Texas as a small-government, free-enterprise state, critics say he has used his power to reward friends and campaign donors, mismanaging taxpayer-funded agencies and programs along the way. A report by the state auditor found that Mr. Perry’s economic development fund, known as the Texas Enterprise Fund and administered by his office, had awarded more than $200 million in taxpayer dollars to companies and universities without requiring them to submit applications or to create a set number of jobs.

Regardless of how many prisons closed, Mr. Perry oversaw 279 executions, a record that, according to Rick Halperin, the former president of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, made him “the most lethal governor in American history.”

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