After Texas governor and former Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry was catapulted back into the national spotlight this week for his kerfuffle with State Senator Wendy Davis, All In with Chris decided to dig a little deeper into his recent record.
The Governor made grim history Wednesday evening when he presided over the state’s 500th prisoner execution since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1982. The execution of Kimberly McCarthy, convicted of robbing and murdering her neighbor, was the 261st conducted under Perry.
Thursday morning, just hours after McCarthy’s execution, Governor Perry keynoted the National Right to Life convention. In his address, Perry took a shot at state Senator Wendy Davis, who earned national praise this week for her dramatic 11-hour filibuster of an anti-abortion bill. “It is just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters,” Perry said, referring to Davis’ early life as the child of a single mother and later becoming a teenage mother herself.
Meanwhile, in the United States Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing on April’s massive fertilizer explosion in West, Texas. It has been two months since the explosion that claimed 15 lives, and no cause has been determined. Where is Governor Rick Perry in all of this?
State Senator Leticia Van de Putte, the Texas legislator who earned praise for helping run out the clock the night of Wendy Davis’ filibuster and Evan Smith, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Texas Tribune, will join Chris Hayes to delve into Perry’s recent actions and what it all means for the political situation in the Lone Star State.
Rachel Simon
Rachel Simon is a writer and editor based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the author of “Pickleball for All: Everything but the ‘Kitchen’ Sink.” Her work has been published in The New York Times, Glamour, Vulture, Teen Vogue and more. You can find her at @rsimon113.