Perry withdraws TDCJ board nomination

Governor Rick Perry has withdrawn the nomination of Annette Raggette to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice which oversees the state prison system after this blog broke the news, followed up by a story in the Austin Statesman, that she has close business ties and worked for years for an eponymous company run by TDCJ board chairman Oliver Bell. The story in the Texas Tribune announcing the nomination's withdrawal included this jab from rookie senator Sylvia Garcia:

“I’m not surprised because I think there are a lot of concerns. It surprises me that the governor’s office doesn’t do a fuller review,” said Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, a member of the Senate Nominations Committee. “It appears to us there was a business relationship and we have reason to believe there was a family relationship. We thought brother-in-law deals were a thing of the past.”

Hadn't heard about the possible "family relationship." But it's true there seems to have been little review of the nomination. Grits discovered the potential conflicts of interest with a simple Google search of the nominees' names that led to Raggette's (since altered) LinkedIn Profile.