The Brief: What We Learned From Gov. Abbott’s Emails

by Polo Rocha

 

The Big Conversation

The Tribune’s Jay Root has three stories out on what we’ve learned from reading through some of Gov. Greg Abbott’s emails.

 

The emails, obtained by the Tribune through state transparency laws, display a governor who will send policy ideas and directions to his staff — even late at night.

 

Here are some of the big takeaways:

 

In emails sent during his early days in office, Abbott comes off as far more interested in the nitty-gritty of state policy and the internal workings of government than what’s known of his predecessor, Rick Perry, a born delegator who generally let underlings fret about the minutiae of speech-making and letter-writing.

 

It’s also apparent that Dave Carney, the former Perry hand who guided Abbott to a blowout victory last year over Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis, is more involved in major policy discussions than many might think.

 

And while Abbott has taken a far more cautious and aloof approach to the news media than Perry did, the emails suggest he cares deeply about perceptions that Texans and his fellow elected officials have of him. …

 

While Abbott’s office withheld many emails and heavily redacted others under a variety of asserted exemptions, the ones he did provide give rare insight into his day-to-day style of communicating with aides — often into the wee hours of the morning. And in some cases, they reveal policy ideas and views of the Legislature that haven’t previously come to light.

 

Among those policy discussions were Abbott’s prediction that lawmakers wouldn’t follow through on his call for ethics reform — an admission he hadn’t made public. In one email, he wrote that lawmakers will “prevent it from being brought up or overload it so much that it cannot become legislation.”

 

And another revelation from the emails is that Tony Buzbee, who leads the team of Perry’s criminal defense lawyers, asked Abbott’s team to make him chairman or vice chairman of Texas A&M University System’s governing board.

 

But Buzbee, who is a regent for the system, said in an interview Wednesday that he backed Regent Cliff Thomas for the post once he learned Abbott wanted regents to elect their leader.