This summer, a report in the Austin American-Statesman noted that a significant portion of Mrs. Perry’s salary at TAASA comes indirectly from the governor’s “political donors, state contractors, and companies that do business with the state or have issues before the legislature.” Indeed, of 37 major donors to the organization, the paper reported, only three have “no ties to the governor or state business.”
As TAASA sees it, the article in the Statesman was much ado about nothing. “We hired Anita Perry to be a development specialist and fundraiser and she has done exactly that,” Camp tells The Daily Beast. “In my opinion, there would be more of a story if she hadn’t raised $1.5 million and we’d continued to contract her for work. That would be a story.”
Still, if Perry’s campaign picks up steam again, his wife, 59, could find herself vulnerable. As she herself noted while campaigning in Iowa a few weeks back, “We know that every little nook and cranny is going to be examined.”