Texas: Millions to fight 1st Amdt, not one more cent for schools

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, sometimes good (especially on open records issues) and sometimes as bad a grandstander as Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst or U.S. Senator John Cornyn, has chosen to be a grandstander, again, over school prayer.

This time, he's spending Texas taxpayer dollars to fight a federal court order barring school-sanctioned prayer at a public high school graduation. Federal court rulings and their history on this issue are pretty clear, yet Abbott continues to waste money.

Meanwhile, Perry, Dewhurst and the GOP-dominated Texas Legislature still refuse to tap the state's $9.4 billion Rainy Day Fund surplus to provide more money for public schools.

Of course, more money for schools might have more educated students questioning such nuttery in the future.

Of course, we now have the hypocrisy trifecta, courtesy of Gov. Helmethair himself, who appears to have had his "I'm not quite yet running for president" dance get tripped up by a special session of the Legislature:

Gov. Rick Perry often cites the state budget as the only thing Texas lawmakers have to do. And, when asked before the legislative session what the state's top spending priorities should be, he named education.

Looks like education was actually about ... uh ... 9.4 billion spots below being his top priority.