...and Perry's Robert Black, Sounds like ya'll are "The Pot calling the Kettle Black" !

Strayhorn stops payments, sues Williams Perry team says comptroller playing politics.
By Tara Copp, Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 25, 2006

Early Friday afternoon, Carole Keeton Strayhorn the gubernatorial candidate sued the state's top elections officer, saying the Gov. Rick Perry-appointee was making it too hard for her to get on the ballot.
Late Friday afternoon, Carole Keeton Strayhorn the comptroller stopped state payments to a second controversial Washington lobbying firm whose hiring was approved by the Perry administration.
Robert Black, a Perry campaign spokesman, said Strayhorn was playing politics.
Strayhorn filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Roger Williams to speed up her effort to get on the November ballot as an independent candidate. She is trying to collect 45,540 signatures by May 11 to make an independent run — a hurdle she is expected to clear.
Williams, who is responsible for verifying an independent candidate's signatures, has estimated that it will take up to two months to check them.
Strayhorn's lawsuit asks the court to force Williams to review the signatures more quickly by using statistical sampling, which it claims that state law allows.
The campaign also wants to turn in signatures as they come in, instead of waiting until May 11.
"This guy has gone overboard in throwing up partisan roadblocks," said Brad McClellan, Strayhorn's son and campaign manager.
Williams' office plans to individually review the signatures.
"Given the fact there are multiple individuals vying for a spot on the ballot as an independent, verifying every signature is the surest way to protect the integrity of our elections and confirm the validity of a candidate's name on the ballot," Williams spokesman Scott Haywood said.
Writer and musician Kinky Friedman also is gathering signatures to run as an independent.
Friedman campaign officials will review the lawsuit and then announce whether Friedman will join her as a plaintiff.
Also Friday, the Perry and Strayhorn camps sniped back and forth over private Washington lobbying firms hired by the state.
Earlier this week, Strayhorn, whose office oversees state payments, stopped payments to Cas- sidy & Associates. By Thursday, Strayhorn also said she was stopping payments to another firm, the Federalist Group.
Both the Federalist Group and Cassidy & Associates are paid $15,000 a month to lobby Congress, federal agencies and the White House for Texas, even though the state has seven full-time employees in Washington to do the same thing.
The private firms have come under fire because of ties to indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
On Friday, Strayhorn's office said it had discovered that the Federalist Group last fall had directed that payment for some of its 2005 work go to Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide instead. Strayhorn challenged the arrangement, saying that Ogilvy "does not have a contract" with the state, although she acknowledged that the Federalist Group had been acquired by Ogilvy in September 2005.
Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Strayhorn's statements suggested a lack of understanding of the issues.
Walt also questioned whether Strayhorn had actually stopped payments, saying the Federalist Group was paid $10,000 on Thursday. "Her work is so shoddy and incompetent, she didn't even know how to track payments," Walt said.
Will Holford, a spokesman for Strayhorn, fired back, saying flatly, "That is wrong."
"Comptroller Strayhorn stopped that payment March 24 before it was directly deposited into Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide's account," he said.
The day's events drew fire from the Perry camp. "It is clear that Carole Strayhorn has absolutely nothing positive to offer the voters of Texas," Black said.

tcopp@statesman.com; 202-887-8329;
jembry@statesman.com; 445-3654
source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/25strayhorn.html