Over two million dollars in legal fees later, former Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has finally been exonerated from what many believe was a politically motivated criminal prosecution. The prosecution arose out of a threat Perry made to veto $7.5 million in funding for the Travis County District Attorney’s public integrity unit, unless DA Rosemary Lehmberg resigned over her notorious drinking and driving incident.

After being arrested with a bottle of vodka on her car seat in 2013, she was captured on video threatening to pull rank by calling the sheriff and bringing legal retaliation against the law enforcement officers who arrested her, saying, “Y’all are gonna be in jail, not me.” She kept telling the police that she was the district attorney and complained repeatedly that they had ruined her political career.

When Lehmberg wouldn’t resign, Perry pulled the funding, and her office responded by bringing charges against him in 2014. “Americans and Texans who have seen this agree with me that that is not an individual who is heading up an office that we can afford to fund,” he said. Legal experts consulted by the Austin American-Statesman thought the charges would be very difficult to sustain. One author of a handbook on Texas criminal law pointed out the problem of determining “at what point does a governmental official, with discretion about how the government operates and spends its money, cross the line into criminal conduct.”

Perry’s case wound its way up to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which ruled last week in a 52-page, 6–2 decision that he had not abused his official capacity nor coerced a public servant. The court said at issue was the constitutional separation of powers, and that under the Texas Constitution governors have a right to veto items of appropriation. To veto an appropriation because of concerns about the agency to which the money will go is not a crime that can be prosecuted.

Additionally, the court ruled that applying the coercion statute to Perry was overly broad and trampled on his free speech. Judge P.J. Keller, writing for the majority, said, “Public servants have a First Amendment right to engage in expression, even threats, regarding their official duties,” such as “a threat by the governor to veto a bill unless it is amended.”

Prosecutors can appeal the decision, but considering how soundly the appeals court threw out the charges, it would likely be considered a waste of taxpayer dollars.

After she was arrested for a DWI, Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg was caught on camera pointing her finger like a gun at law enforcement.

“Reminiscent of the Old Soviet Union”

When Perry was indicted two years ago, even Democratic commentators David Axelrod, Jonathan Prince, Matthew Yglesias, and Jonathan Chait said the charges were weak or unwarranted. Left-leaning Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said during an interview with Newsmax TV, “The two statutes under which Gov. Perry was indicted are reminiscent of the old Soviet Union — you know, abuse of authority.” He rejected the basis for the indictment:

The idea of indicting him because he threatened to veto spending unless a district attorney who was caught drinking and driving resigned, that’s not anything for a criminal indictment. That’s a political issue. It’s so important to put a stop to it now, to say the criminal law is reserved for real crimes, not for political differences where a party in power or out of power gets revenge against the other party. That’s just not the way to use the criminal justice [system].

Even the big progressive newspapers — including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today — denounced the prosecution.

Tom DeLay underwent a similarly long and costly prosecution at the hands of former Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle, which sparked concerns that DA’s office was politically targeting Republicans. Twelve million dollars and 18 years later, he was finally cleared of all charges by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature finally passed legislation to stop politically motivated prosecutions by requiring prosecutions of certain elected officials to occur in their home county, with prosecutorial discretion resting with the home county DA rather than Travis County. (It also removed funding for the Travis County public integrity unit.)

This appeal court’s exoneration of Gov. Perry may be the beginning of a trend — a backlash against the criminalization of politics. However, it remains to be seen if the trend will reach the national level. The Department of Justice has become more politicized under Obama.

A backlash is needed. Sometimes politicians do things some people don’t like. That’s politics. For politicians to live under the threat of criminal indictment for doing what they were elected to do undermines the people’s right to choose their representatives and damages the political system. Honest political disagreements are meant to be settled at the ballot box, not by politically-motivated attorneys.

Follow Rachel on Twitter at @Rach_IC.