Perry praised by GOP lawmaker for Texas effort to ban TSA pat-downs

With the entry of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) into the GOP presidential contest over the weekend, the Republican governor's support for banning Transportation Security Administration pat-downs is back in the spotlight, earning the approval of at least one influential lawmaker in Washington.

State legislators in Texas ultimately let a bill that would have made it a misdemeanor for TSA agents to touch a person's genital areas during pat-downs of travelers die this spring. But about two months before he launched his bid for the Republican nomination to challenge President Obama's 2012 bid for reelection, Perry included the bill in a special session of the Texas Legislature after it had failed to pass in the chamber's regular session.

A newspaper in Perry's home state reported that House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said during a speech at a transportation summit in Texas that the attempt was a worthwhile effort.

"He's right on target," Mica, who has been harshly critically of the TSA, the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Mica said during his speech. "I did patdown tests and they're a complete failure. The way they do it, on everyone, is unnecessary."

Mica, who authored the original legislation to create the TSA, did not say if he supported Perry's nascent bid for the White House.

But Mica, who has pushed in recent years to privatize airport security, said he would continue to push for TSA reforms.

"The TSA misapplies the patdown," Mica said, according to the paper.

"In Israel, they have a thinking system," he added, referring to behavior recognition systems used in that country. "Our system doesn't have any brains."

TSA announced this summer it would test a "known-traveler" program where passengers' identities and backgrounds will factor into how they are screened.

Despite Mica's praise for Perry's effort to pass the pat-down ban, however, some conservative activists criticized Perry for not pushing more forcefully for its passage after he allowed it to be considered.

The sponsor of the bill, state Rep. David Simpson (R), quoted Perry's book Fed Up! in a letter to the governor encouraging him to do more for the legislation. Separately, a video surfaced this summer on YouTube of an exchange between Perry and a voter at a book signing where Perry said "there's not enough time left in the session" for the TSA bill to be debated.

"They don't have the votes on either side. That's what I told them. I said, 'Bring me in a multitude in votes,' " Perry said in the video, which was placed on YouTube by supporters of the pat-down ban.   

When the ban was first introduced, the Department of Justice said that it could result in flights to Texas being canceled. TSA argued that the ban would be unconstitutional because the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution allows federal law to trump state law.