Texas Digest: Perry mum on approval of UT president; Santorum convention speech off limits to press

COMPILED FROM WIRE REPORTS

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

Perry mum on approval for Powers

Gov. Rick Perry remained mum Tuesday on whether he is content with the University of Texas at Austin president whose supporters are rallying for him amid speculation that his job leading the flagship campus is in jeopardy.

"That's for the Board of Regents to make that decision," Perry said. "I've got a state to oversee. I don't spend all my time focused on one institution of higher learning."

While sidestepping a direct question about whether he was satisfied with Bill Powers, Perry made it clear that he backed regents who denied the UT president's request for a tuition hike. Powers this month publicly criticized the board's decision to largely freeze tuition at the 51,000-student campus for the next two years.

UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa has denied reports, first reported by Texas Monthly, that Chairman Gene Powell ordered him to fire Powers.

Perry said rejecting the tuition hike sent a "good message" that the state will not ignore economic realities facing families by raising that cost of college. His comments came at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, where Perry was on hand to praise the fledging campus for offering a $10,000 bachelor's degree.

POLITICS

Santorum speech closed to press

Texas Republican officials said Tuesday that former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's speech during the state convention next month will be off-limits to the media because it will occur at a private fundraiser.

"There has never been media availability at the state party's premiere banquet," party spokesman Chris Elam told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Elam said party officials are talking to Santorum about a media availability they would like to have. But when shown a copy of a newspaper article from four years ago that indicated media was allowed into the banquet that featured Mitt Romney, speaking on behalf of the 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, GOP officials said they didn't have an answer about that.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, told the Star-Telegram, "It is unusual to act like you are embarrassed by your keynote speaker and therefore don't want media records of his comments."

OBITUARIES

Ex-Farm Bureau chief dies in tractor wreck

PLAINVIEW ? Prominent West Texas farmer S.M. True, who served as Texas Farm Bureau president for 11 years in the 1980s and early '90s, died in a tractor incident on his South Plains farm Tuesday. He was 88.

A Farm Bureau statement says True died Tuesday. Hale County sheriff's Deputy John Phillips tells the Plainview Herald that True was working on the tractor at his farm "when a large part of the tractor fell on him, striking him around his neck."

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