And he said he would be foolish not to.

“I would suggest to you that it’s rather inappropriate if you’ve earned something if you don’t take it and take care of your family,” Mr. Perry said. “This was put into place by the Legislature, and if your point is it’s not appropriate, then the Legislature will change it.”

There has not exactly been a rush to eliminate the provision, which many politicians, past and present, say they were not aware of until Mr. Perry ran for president.

Among them is a former state senator, Bob Glasgow, Democrat of Stephenville, who carried the pension revision in the Senate in 1991. He said he did not know he had sponsored a new perk — or that it was of particular interest to Bob Bullock, then the lieutenant governor.

Mr. Bullock, who ran state government like a ward boss when Democrats ruled Texas, was adept at passing laws with minimal or no public attention. Mr. Glasgow said he first learned that Mr. Bullock had used the law to pad the tiny part-time salary given to legislators and lieutenant governors — $7,200 a year — after Mr. Perry disclosed that he had used the same law.

Mr. Bullock, who died in 1999, voluntarily disclosed in 1992 that he was collecting a pension, but it became a hot topic only when reporters began digging into the circumstances of Mr. Perry’s retirement. Mr. Glasgow said he would not have favored the pension perk then and does not now.

“That’s just got the tenor of double dipping,” he said.

The legislation’s House sponsor, Nolan Robnett, Republican of Lubbock, said he was vaguely aware that Mr. Bullock wanted the retirement language but did not know Mr. Bullock had used it until the bill had become law.

The 1991 provision, revised from a weaker incarnation, says that all nonjudicial state elected officials, in either the Legislature or in statewide office, can retire under two different systems — the elected class and the employee class. They can transfer credit between the two both before and after retirement, and are allowed to accrue benefits in the elected class after retiring from the employee class.