Dissent Blocked in DeLay Case?

Can anything be done in Texas without the imposition of massive political drama? The latest twist in the Tom DeLay legal saga is an appeals court judge alleging that the chief judge of her court refused to file her dissenting opinion as to whether one of her colleagues should recuse himself. She's asking the state supreme court to intervene. The chief judge, a Republican, is running for re-election and refused comment. The dissenting judge, naturally, is a Democrat (this is Texas).

According to her filing, Patterson said she twice requested responses from the defendants regarding the recusal motion and Law refused to obtain a response and instructed the clerk not to seek one.

Patterson then informed her colleagues that she would file a dissent to the ruling on Waldrop's staying in the case. She wrote that Law instructed the court clerk not to file her dissent.

Indeed, the story is ripe with accusations that the judges are acting politically in trying to hamstring the DeLay case and investigation. Given that a significant part of the Texas governmental structure was an apparatus of the DeLay machine, this does not surprise me in the slightest.