Heading for the homestead

Three days after Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff at the White House, announced he will resign at the end of August, an attorney filed a suit in the 53rd District Court in Travis County, alleging that she was fired from the Texas Office of the Secretary of State for making comments to a reporter that embarrassed Rove and other Republicans. Elizabeth Reyes filed Reyes v. Williams, et al. on Aug. 16. In her original petition, Reyes contends that the alleged reason for her termination in September 2005 was violating the Office of the Secretary of State’s policy and procedures manual on press calls when she spoke to a Washington Post reporter about the homestead exemption in Texas. But Reyes alleges that she was fired because the statements attributed to her in the Post article — concerning Rove’s claim of a homestead exemption on rental cottages he owns in Kerr County, although Rove was living in Washington, D.C., at the time — caused political embarrassment for defendants Roger Williams, the former secretary of state, and H.S. “Buddy” Garcia, the former deputy secretary of state. Among other things, Reyes alleges that Williams and Garcia violated her rights to free speech and association under the First and 14th Amendments. Reyes also names Phil Wilson, the current secretary of state, as a defendant in the suit. In addition to seeking damages against Williams and Garcia, Reyes seeks an injunction to require Wilson to purge any references to the termination from her employment record at the secretary of state’s office.
-- Mary Alice Robbins