Whose Lawyer Is He?

Once again Attorney General Greg Abbott, following in the footsteps of his mentor Rick Perry, has proven that the general public cannot be trusted, particularly with sensitive information.  It seems much of the state media has been doing their best to get the Attorney General’s Office to reveal the location and extent of hazardous dump sites or sites where things dangerous to their neighbors are stored or kept.  Our Attorney General, Mr. Abbott, has steadfastly considered this information not public and apparently believes the public does not need to know whether or not they are living on top of a cesspool or not, or beside something likely to blow them to smithereens on any given evening.

Just as an example, there are dump sites along the Trinity River which have been there for years and continually seep such carcinogenics into the river as dioxin, mercury or worse.

It boggles my mind that our Attorney General and current Republican nominee for Governor boasts about thwarting federal efforts to regulate such things as storage of dangerous explosives, cancer laden fumes and poisonous substances going into our drinking water.  While I understand his political reasoning, I believe most of the Attorney General’s lawsuits have been for the purpose of simply pleasing special interests in Texas and showing how conservative he is.  While I understand the political reasoning behind Attorney General Abbott’s reluctance to blow the whistle on industrial polluters in this state, I resent him spending my tax money to file lawsuits against the federal agencies which are trying to protect the citizens of Texas. 

I doubt very seriously that even the most conservative resident of Jefferson County would love to go back to the good old days when we all enjoyed the full stench of the local refineries’ output.  Some of my fellow citizens of Jefferson County would probably be surprised to learn a facility exists right here in our county very similar to the plant which blew up and leveled the town of West, Texas. 

I have always thought of the Attorney General of Texas as the people’s lawyer.  Being the people’s lawyer, it seems to me, he should be doing everything he can to protect the public.  It seems that full knowledge of where dangerous commercial activities are taking place would certainly be in the interest of everyday citizens.  We get a glimpse into Greg Abbott’s Republican-candidate-for-governor mindset by simply reading his brags.  Abbott brags he goes to work, sues the federal government and goes home.  I firmly believe I would rather have an Attorney General that goes to work, sues bad guys, protects my environment and fights criminal behavior in Texas than one who simply sues the federal government.

Like my conservative friends, I abhor the waste of public funds.  It appears to me to be a waste of our tax dollars for our state’s lawyer to continue filing lawsuits against our own government. As a matter of fact most of the lawsuits against the federal government of which Abbott is so proud have been lost at great expense to Texas taxpayers.  I don’t know about you, but for me I don’t believe I’d hire a lawyer who loses more lawsuits than he wins.