Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been indicted on two felony charges - abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public official - by the Travis Country grand jury, and could be booked next week. The case stemmed from his withholding of funds for the county's public corruption unit, as he handled the case of the district attorney who was involved in a drunk-driving case last year.

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The first charge is a first degree felony and is punishable by five to 99 years in jail, while the second count is a third degree felony, in which jail time could be from two to 10 years.

The Travis County grand jury, led by special prosecutor Mike McCrum, have been deliberating whether Perry violated the law when he threatened to veto funding for the Travis County district attorney's public corruption division, if District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg would not resign.

About that time, Lehmberg was the subject of a messy drunken-driving arrest, after she was found with an open bottle of vodka in her car in Austin one night in April last year. Perry carried through on the veto threat when Lehmberg stayed on the job. His office had said the veto was made in accordance with his constitutional power.

The Austin-based watchdog Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with prosecutors over Perry's threat, contending that Perry violated laws against coercion of a public servant, abuse of official capacity, official oppression and, potentially, bribery.

Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, said the legal system worked.

""The grand jury decided his bullying was actually lawbreaking, just as [we] thought it was," McDonald said. "These were exactly the acts we believed were illegal, so the grand jury believed our complaint had merit -- and now the legal system can work. The governor will have to defend his actions in court."

The criminal investigation could taint Perry's legacy as the longest-serving governor in Texas history. He leaves office in January, and is considering a second run for the presidency in 2016, four years after his first campaign for the Republican nomination fell apart.

Perry's indictment would make him the state's first indicted governor in nearly a century. In 1917, Gov. James Edward "Pa" Ferguson was indicted on charges including misapplication of public funds, embezzlement and diversion of a special fund, according to the Handbook of Texas online. He later was impeached.

TagsRick Perry, Texas, ROSEMARY LEHMBERG