Perry Jr.'s job: coincidence or politics?

This whole selling the lottery idea is turning out to be harder than Gov. Rick Perry might have thought. First there were the lawmakers wondering if selling state assets was the right thing to do, then there were the questions about the economics of the deal, and now there's concern over a couple of potential cases of conflict of interest with hires by UBS, the investment firm consulting the state on the proposal to sell the lotto to a private company. We'd be tempted to say Perry was having the political equivalent of a series of bad hair days, but that's just ridiculous — we all know Perry is incapable of having any kind of bad hair day.

Seriously, though: A few days ago Perry had to deal with the news that friend and former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm is part of UBS's consulting team, and now comes word that UBS has also hired Griffin Perry, the governor's 23-year-old son. Griffin Perry, fresh out of Vanderbilt University, will rotate through different areas of the company as part of an entry-level program, and UBS said his being the governor's son had nothing to do with his hire. "We have a vigorous interview and application process. He would have been subjected to the same criteria that would have applied to any other young person applying for the associate program," UBS spokeswoman Karina Byrne told the AP. Robert Black, a spokesman for the governor, seconded that: "The two are in no way connected. To try to connect them is a myth."

At issue here is the fact that, if the estimated $14 billion lottery sale goes through, UBS stands to make millions of dollars — easily as much as $100 million, one observer told the Chronicle — so people's more cynical sides are bound to wonder if Griffin Perry's hire wasn't meant to, y'know, grease the wheels of government just a little. It's not to say that the younger Perry should have turned down a good job offer, but given the circumstances, it seems like it might have been a case of unfortunate timing: "It could be a coincidence but it doesn't look good," Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, told the Chronicle. "This raises the question: Is this good public policy or is this just a business deal?"