Is it a crime for a governor to threaten to veto a funding bill because he does not believe the head of the office being funded can be trusted to use the money appropriately?  Of course not.  We elect governors and other officials to make such judgments.

Yesterday, the Texas Third Court of Appeals threw out one of the charges brought against former Governor Rick Perry.  This WSJ editorial summarizes the case:

A special prosecutor in notorious Travis County essentially charged Mr. Perry for exercising his constitutional right to oppose and veto an act of the legislature. Mr. Perry threatened to veto a funding bill for the Travis County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit unless D.A. Rosemary Lehmberg resigned. She had been arrested and pleaded guilty to drunk driving, but she refused to resign and Mr. Perry followed through with the veto. The charges boil down to criminalizing routine political debate and controversies.

The procedural mechanism invoked by Perry is a pretrial writ of habeas corpus.  Under Texas case law, this procedure can only be used for facial challenges to statutes, not "as applied" challenges.  The Court of Appeal held that the Coercion of Public Servant statute was unconstitutional on its face.  It regulates speech, and its prohibition of threats is not limited to "true threats" within the meaning of the U.S. Supreme Court cases on that point.

Perry's challenge to the charge of Abuse of Official Capacity is not cognizable in this proceeding, so that one will have to be thrown out at some point down the line.