The Long Goodbye
In 2003, after spreading around $9 million in campaign contributions, the powerful home builders’ lobby got the Legislature to agree with its contention that implied warranties were too darn vague and that the lawsuits they produced were too damaging to the industry. Instead, it asked lawmakers to create a new state agency to protect builders from legal retribution. It was one of the most blatant power plays in recent years, made possible by an anti-lawsuit fervor that swept through the new Republican-controlled Legislature and by the influence of two politically active builders: the biggest individual contributor, Bob Perry (no relation to Governor Rick Perry but lots of political ties), and the co-founder of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Dick Weekley.

The Long Goodbye
The power of Bob Perry’s ‘Swift-Boating’ money

In mid-September, TPMMuckraker.com’s Paul Kiel reported that Perry’s Free Enterprise Fund is again “working with” Stevens, Reed, Curcio, and Potholm (SRCP), the same group that produced the Swift Boat ads. Stevens, Reed, Curcio and Potholm has worked for the National Republican Campaign Committee as well as a number of top-shelf Republicans including Sen. George Allen (R-VA), Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Kiel pointed out that “This July, the group got in hot water for an ad it ran against Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown…which hit Brown for being weak on national security, [and] featured a doctored image of the twin towers with photogenic smoke hovering around them.”

The media backed down from running a movie that was less then mindless idolatry of Ronald “Iran-Contra” Reagan and some of the media is putting up some roadblocks to the Dixie Chicks new documentary, but the media doesn’t have a problem accepting Stalinesque trash from sleazy members of the conservative mafia like Bob Perry,

In the good old days, if you scrimped and saved and bought your dream home in Texas, you could sleep easy at night knowing that the roof over your head was protected by a common-sense legal doctrine. Known as an implied warranty of habitability, in layman’s terms it meant that — whether or not anything was put in writing — the courts would hold the builder to a guarantee that your home was fit to live in and constructed with care. If your foundation sagged or your windows leaked or your roof caved in, you could demand that the builder fix the defect and take him to court if he didn’t.

That option is no longer available. In 2003, after spreading around $9 million in campaign contributions, the powerful home builders’ lobby got the Legislature to agree with its contention that implied warranties were too darn vague and that the lawsuits they produced were too damaging to the industry. Instead, it asked lawmakers to create a new state agency to protect builders from legal retribution. It was one of the most blatant power plays in recent years, made possible by an anti-lawsuit fervor that swept through the new Republican-controlled Legislature and by the influence of two politically active builders: the biggest individual contributor, Bob Perry (no relation to Governor Rick Perry but lots of political ties), and the co-founder of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Dick Weekley.

http://thelonggoodbye.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/one-of-the-principles-that-we-operate-on-in-this-country-is-that-leaders-are-held-accountable/