Again, you need to look to the actual intent of the law, and not just examine its letter. What was the collective intent of Texas legislators when they enacted the law? Was it to curb or deter an elected / appointed official's abuse of political power? Indeed, that law's very existence in statute is testament to that.

I'm of the opinion that Gov. Perry's publicly expressed intent to oust DA Lehmberg from her elected post, by compromising fiscally her office's ability to perform its designated oversight duties with regards to the public conduct of state officials in Austin, constitutes an egregious abuse of authority and power on his part. This is about a citizen's right to expect good government from those who consciously seek to serve in it.

Politically, the Texas State Legislature is ostensibly to provide oversight over the state's executive branch. But if legislators are not willing to address this matter themselves, then what remaining remedy is there for the people, save for the law itself?

Political corruption is in my estimation always a very serious cause for concern. But the collective attempt on the part of citizens to ensure or compel ethical conduct by their public officials has of late been suffering a slow death by a thousand cuts in the courts, which speaks to the judiciary's own increasing politicization.

And if you as an attorney choose instead to make a case about the law's supposed vagueness, not to curb or punish a public official's bad conduct, but rather as a means to render such conduct all but impossible to actually prevent, then I can only conclude that you as a legal practitioner are willfully not seeing the forest for the trees.

You stated that you can't imagine that the law was ever intended to cover a situation such as Gov. Perry's present predicament, and that it should not be used for this particular purpose. I would argue the exact opposite, that legislators drafted the law in general terms for the very purpose of being all-encompassing, and thus covering situations exactly like this one.

The law's rationale rests in its inherent deterrent value, as a means to curb and punish bad public conduct. But if you insist that it must further provide detailed terms to address specific instances -- an itemized laundry list of prohibited activities, as it were -- then I can only conclude that your own unstated purpose here is to render that law impotent, in part by saddling it with minutiae.

You further state that there are other solutions than resorting to the use of the law itself. To which I respond, name one which can be hereby invoked and pursued that would otherwise prevent or deter Gov. Perry from doing what he did. The state legislature? Hardly, given that GOP majority lawmakers have long acted as though they were the governor's lapdogs.

Again, the law exists for a reason, and that is as a possible avenue for remedy to people, when all other legally available means to gain satisfaction have since been exhausted.