It’s possible that Gov. Rick Perry did the right thing morally by ordering that Texas girls be vaccinated against the cancer-causing human papillomavirus, but it may have been wrong legally.
Two legal experts have questioned the constitutional legality of Perry’s executive order. In a Statesman opinion piece Wednesday, former Travis County District Judge Scott McCown said the state Constitution authorizes the governor to administer the law, not make the law. “This principle is textbook civics,” he wrote. “Making law is for the Legislature.” McCown is executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.
And in Tuesday’s Quorum Report, Austin attorney and political-law expert Buck Wood goes even further, stating flatly that the governor doesn’t even have the power to issue executive orders: “There is no such thing as an executive order. It’s made up.”
Quorum Report notes that Texas governors have issued executive orders in the past but only to disburse federal funds – programs in which the power was specifically granted by the federal government. But as for giving orders to state agencies, Wood says, “He cannot usurp any agency’s prerogatives without legislative authority.”
This article appears in February 2 • 2007.
