Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

DA Kim Ogg on defunding law enforcement in Harris County

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kim ogg
Kim Ogg

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Harris County Commissioners Court, District Attorney Kim Ogg forcefully demanded that newly created management office stop defunding law enforcement in Harris County.

Sounds odd, right? I mean after all Judge Hidalgo and Commissioners Ellis and Garcia have stated in press releases that they have increased funding for law enforcement. DA Ogg shreds these press releases by pointing out that at the same time the Court was claiming to have increased funding the newly created management office was decreasing it and moving funds to other areas.

This is a must watch video for anyone interested in why crime is out of control in Harris County. Take the 12 minutes needed to listen to Ogg shred the new management office and the Commissioners Court. And then spread Ogg’s message far and wide.

The out of control crime in Harris County must stop.

Lawsuits filed about gross incompetence in Harris County primary election

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Because it is no longer possible to trust elections in Harris County, two lawsuits were filed today against Isabel Longoria in her official capacity as Harris County Elections Administrator. Where to start?

The Lawsuits

As noted, two lawsuits were filed this morning. The first was filed by the Harris County Republican Party as cause number 202213752 in District Court 133. Click to read. The second was a bipartisan filing by Democratic candidate for County Commissioner Pct 2 George Risner, Republican candidate for County Commissioner Richard Vega, and Republican candidate for Texas Senate District 11 Bianca Gracia as cause number 202213773. Click to read.

The lawsuits are very different in nature. The HCRP lawsuit lists six specific errors in addition to other complaints. Here is the introduction and the six specific cited errors.

This action arises out of the worst election fiasco in Texas history. On March 1, 2022, the Republican and Democratic parties of Harris County held a Primary Election. Both parties contracted with, and relied on, Defendant to perform administrative and planning functions for that Primary Election. Among other things, Defendant was responsible for obtaining voting machines, delivering voting machines to polling locations, printing correct ballots, ensuring that each polling location received correct ballots, assigning election judges to polling locations, and a variety of other functions required to hold county-wide elections.

Harris County is one of the largest counties in the United States with millions of registered voters, and primary elections require extensive advance planning and preparation. To prepare properly, Defendant had to start the process months in advance. However, Defendant was appointed by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo – over the strenuous objections of Plaintiff – despite having no experience in election administration. Defendant completely dropped the ball, causing a litany of election disasters that disenfranchised voters, created significant risk of fraud and miscounting, and will likely delay final canvassing.

  • Defendant issued incorrect ballots to certain polling locations, preventing voters from being able to vote for federal and state elected officials. Defendant not only failed to correct these errors after voters complained, but denied that the problem existed and blamed the issue on voter confusion.
  • Defendant provided some ballots on the wrong size paper (8 ½ inch by 11 inch paper instead of 8 ½ inch by 14 inch paper). This mistake resulted in as many as 15-20 races being omitted fromthe ballots.
  • Defendant failed to complete the counting of ballots within twenty-four hours of the polls closing and, despite representing that counting was complete, still has not counted all ElectionDay ballots.
  • Defendant failed to deliver the required number of working voting machines and adequatesupplies such as paper to polling locations. Further, some delivered voting machines did notfunction correctly.
  • Defendant overrode republican appointments, of election judges and provided no notice of these unlawful changes causing confusion and leaving some locations without coverage on electionday.
  • Defendant removed the cameras recording vote counting before the process was complete in violation of Texas law.

The bipartisan lawsuit starts with this (bold added for emphasis):

This case is a bi-partisan petition aimed at addressing the constitutional and statutory violations of the Harris County Elections Administrator (“Administrator”). The Administrator’s unlawful acts include intentionally, willfully, and knowingly failing to adequately allocate equipment, paper ballots that are capable of preserving the voters’ intent, and failing to operate voting centers during the posted hours. These actions have violated and will continue to violate Petitioners statutory right to a safe, accurate, and efficient election, to produce records that allow an accurate audit. Additionally, the Administrator violated Petitioners Texas Constitutional guarantees of equal protection,  purity  of the ballot box, and the right of suffrage.

This suit seeks a permanent injunction to protect Petitioners’ rights and to restore the sanctity of the votes in every political party in Harris County, Texas.

And this section of the bipartisan lawsuit is wild:

28. On or near March 2, 2022, Isabel Longoria hosted a press conference to update the general public on the progress of the election count.3 During this interview the following occurred:

Unknown Reporter= UR
Isabel Longoria= IL
Mario Diaz= MD

Beginning of Excerpt:

“UR: Any idea of how many damage ballots there are
IL: Damage ballots is your words not mine.
UR: But still, that is a word damage ballots…
IL: if you’re asking me damage ballots there’s no damage ballots…
IL: If you are asking me how many ballots are coming in tonight, we’ve got about a hundred and something thousand voters who voted today so we’ll know at the end of election night how many ballots we have.
MD: Are there any issues with Ballots?
IL: Sure. Got paper jams… you got smudges on your ballots… very typical stuff…”

29. Moments later the Administrator went to say the following:

“I’ll be honest election night gets stressful. You’ve got Democrats and Republicans fighting with each other. Again, they are stealing each other’s ballot boxes. They’re playing pranks on each other.”

30. When confronted by reporters about stealing ballot boxes Isabela Longoria shifts and says that the parties were hiding each other’s highlighters and papers.

How bizarre.

I asked HCRP Precinct Chair and Cameron County GOP Legal Counsel Mark McCaig for comment on these lawsuits.

These lawsuits are an important step in holding Isabel Longoria and her office accountable for the shambles of an election she conducted. The multitude and severity of problems described in these lawsuits sounds like something you would expect to see in a developing nation, not Harris County. The bi-partisan condemnation of Longoria’s handling of this election demonstrates the magnitude of incompetence, if not malfeasance, that occurred. I applaud Chairwoman Siegel and her team for taking swift and aggressive legal action to try to remedy these issues and prevent them from occurring again in the future. – Mark McCaig

You should read the lawsuits in full.

Harris County Republican Party Press Conference

The HCRP held a press conference today at 2:00 pm to discuss their lawsuit. 

Harris County Republican Party

HCRP Cindy Siegel is demanding that the courts appoint an independent overseer for the next three elections in Harris County, May 1st, May 26th, and the November General Election. Attorney Steve Mitby focused on the late night news dump that 10,000 ballots were not included in the official count, charged that Isabel Longoria misrepresented her office’s ability to the original court on March 2nd, and that Republicans do not believe that the Democrats that run the county are going to be transparent and open the books to all parties in an effort to find out what happened. He also stated that County Judge Lina Hidalgo would have to answer questions under oath about hiring Ms. Longoria.

I don’t remember ever seeing Sen. Paul Bettencourt as livid as he was during the press conference. He was really ticked about the 10:30 pm Saturday night news release that 10,000 ballots had been “found” and said that neither party had been notified of this before the press release. He stated that no one can argue that Isabel Longoria is competent to run an election and that the commissioners court needs to hire someone competent. Someone that doesn’t come out late on a Saturday evening and say, “oops!”. He also said that the only reason they found out about the missing ballots was because of a provision in the new voting integrity bill, SB1, that requires ballots issued to votes tabulated to match. You know the one, the ‘racist’ GOP voter suppression law.

Probably the best line came from HCRP’s Ballot Security Chair Alan Vera. Mr. Vera asked “At what point does election incompetence become the perfect camoflage for election malfeasance?”

You can watch the press conference on Facebook.

Thoughts

I’m already at the point that Mr. Vera mentioned. I can’t ever remember feeling like this about an election. Not even after the November 2020 fiasco in a few of the states around the country. Perhaps that is because I saw it first hand. It took me 1 1/2 hours to vote on Tuesday, standing in line with a hundred others in the cold. There were very few Democrats voting at the La Porte poll location and yet they had the same amount of equipment as the Republicans. There weren’t enough workers inside. My ballot jammed and wouldn’t print. Once I got someone to come over and fix it the ballot I had jammed in the ballot counter. Who knows if my votes were tabulated. And this happened all over the city. Everyone should read the boots on the ground account of the election written by Felicia Cravens.

I happen to be one of the few Republicans that respect County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioner Adrian Garcia. I truly don’t believe that they are intentionally trying to steal elections. As the evidence mounts it is becoming increasingly difficult to hold this position. I feel so strongly about this that I personally asked them to fire Isabel Longoria, a very unusual step for me. I cannot shake this feeling that the partisan leadership of the county is betraying the voters. And that makes me very sad indeed. 

Fire Isabel Longoria and her entire executive staff now.

Alexandra del Moral Mealer for Harris County Judge

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One of the benefits of skipping early voting and waiting until Election Day to vote is that you have more time to learn about the candidates and, hopefully, make the best choices for your philosophy. As I noted last Wednesday I was undecided for whom to vote for in the race for Harris County Judge.

Also as noted I was leaning towards Vidal Martinez with Alexandra del Moral Mealer on deck. After hearing from many conservatives and speaking with Mrs. Mealer, or Alex as she prefers, she has my enthusiastic vote. Why? Glad you asked.

First off, I like to vote FOR someone if I can and not vote for a candidate simply because they aren’t the ‘other guy’. And I can easily do that with Alex for numerous reasons but these are the three that moved me out of the Vidal camp.

  • Strong endorsements from grassroots activists
  • Detailed knowledge and understanding of the Harris County Budget and the ability to articulate the problems with the current path we are on
  • The self-awareness to know that she is not an expert on all things in public policy and the willingness to reach out and collaborate with people knowledgeable in areas that are not her expertise

Strong grassroots endorsements

If you look at the Alexandra del Moral Mealer website endorsement page, I think she has it ass backwards. I’m happy that Mattress Mac endorsed her but don’t care about it. That page is laid out in a typical political style, with celebrities, former and current elected officials, law enforcement and political organizations before you get to the grassroots activists that make or break campaigns. If it were my endorsement page, I’d put the SREC reps and precinct chairs first up. I mean, seriously, look at the number of precinct chairs she has supporting her.

And the fact that many of them took the time to reach out to me after I said that I was undecided is a show of enthusiasm that is rarely seen in the HCRP. And it is very much welcome. If anything swayed my vote it was that. One of them urged me to call her and get to understand why her leadership skills would translate into the public policy arena. I did and here we are.

Knowledge of the Harris County budget

The Harris County budget is a monster that is presented in a way that taxpayers cannot understand it. It is that way for a reason, and that reason is that both political parties don’t want you to know the specifics. I’ve spent years trying to get a grasp on it and still haven’t fully mastered it.

When speaking with Alex, it was clear that she has put her West Point and Harvard degrees to good use and has studied the budget in-depth and understands it very well. I had read her opinion piece on it a while back and was impressed but in speaking with her I knew that the op-ed wasn’t written in collaboration with someone or ghost written, which is what usually happens. No, she is the one with the knowledge and I was really impressed with her understanding and her path to fix the looming problems.

Self-awareness

Those of us with large egos tend to think that we are the be-all and end-all of everything. To temper that, we have to become aware that we aren’t the be-all and end-all and learn to collaborate with others in areas of weakness. Now don’t misunderstand me: I am not saying that Alex has my problem. But since it is my problem, I look at others through that lens. Because of that I was concerned that her military experience would not translate into the type of collaborative leadership that is required in the political realm.

After speaking with her, I am no longer concerned about that. She has been out of the military for 10 years and has risen in the ranks of the oil & gas industry in her field of finance. Which, other than being on a rig risking your life, is one of the hardest jobs in that industry. There are a lot of geologists that can help point where to drill and hopefully be rewarded but there are very few people who understand the complexities of today’s financial instruments and can convince a skeptical board to invest the company’s finances her way. By all accounts she has been able to do that.

The other candidates

Like I said earlier, I like to find candidates to vote FOR not against. And if Vidal wins the primary, I could vote FOR him in November. One of the things that I overlooked in my initial lean towards him was his history of financial contributions. I knew that he had contributed to several Democratic candidates in 2019, including current County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Note that his contribution to Judge Hidalgo came after she defeated Ed Emmett, meaning that Vidal’s contribution didn’t help her in that race.

What I missed was two contributions that he made to ActBlue Texas, also in 2019. That is a non-starter for any Republican. I’d love to hear why he contributed to an organization that has been trying to turn Texas blue for years. That is their stated goal, to defeat every Republican. That was a huge mistake on his part and he deserves any flak he gets for it.

As for the other ‘front-runner’, Martina Lemond Dixon, that’s a hard no for me. Very few school board members can make the transition from spending money at will to being a watchdog for wasteful tax spending. I noticed that Dan Huberty endorsed her, that should tell you something right there.

But worse, she is the type of politician that people sucking at the teet of government love. She was recruited to run for the job by the downtown financiers, pledging and delivering hundreds of thousands to her campaign. I remember getting an invite early in her campaign for a fundraiser and I could buy a table for $50,000. Yeah, sure. And I noticed that Dan ‘Red Flag Law’ Crenshaw gave her $5,000 from his campaign.

She is now saying that while she was on the Humble ISD board, she reduced taxes by 15% since 2016. Now, any sane person knows that is not accurate. Let’s take a look at Humble ISD’s audited finances from 2016-2020.

Fiscal YearEnrollmentRevenueExpenditures
2016           40,549  $ 458,471,201  $  447,320,670 
2017           41,224  $ 462,214,586  $  524,231,500 
2018           42,391  $ 490,275,697  $  587,618,063 
2019           43,553  $ 546,731,529  $  539,908,951 
2020           45,078  $ 556,746,306  $  620,160,739 
% Increase11.2%21.4%38.6%

A 21.4% increase in revenue, a 38.6% increase in expenditures with a student enrollment increase of only 11.2%. Does that look like a 15% decrease to you? What about per student spending?

Fiscal YearCost per Student
2016 $        11,704 
2017 $        13,614 
2018 $        14,902 
2019 $        13,294 
2020 $        14,729 
% Increase25.8%

A 25.8% increase in the cost to educate a student in five years? Did your wages go up 25.8% for those five years? Now that is a candidate that I would vote against.

But fortunately I don’t have to worry about that because I found a candidate that I can vote FOR, Alexandra del Moral Mealer. I hope you consider doing the same.

Paxton attacks Guzman – why?

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I received an interesting email from the Ken Paxton campaign this morning. It’s the first one that I have received that has him attacking Eva Guzman in his quest to remain the Texas Attorney General. Why?

It’s easy at first glance to think that she is gaining on him in the polls. I doubt that. Sure, she may have gained a few points in polling with her television advertising blitz but she isn’t playing to be the front runner, she’s trying to get into a runoff. So why would Paxton start attacking her?

First, here is a body of Paxton’s email:

Theme of the Day: Eva Guzman Is Too Woke for Texas 

Eva Guzman was “woke” before many progressives even caught on to the popular trend.

~ In 2016, Eva Guzman led the planning efforts for a taxpayer-funded “woke” gathering called Beyond the Bench: Law, Justice, and Communities Summit, an event particularly focused on “racial” and “implicit” bias in the criminal justice system and promoting the principles best known now as “Critical Race Theory.”

~ The conference attendees and hosts developed a list of controversial “Big Ideas” to “spur action,” ideas that come from the woke ideology that is now pervasive, such as mandating training on the cognitive and implicit bias from “all stakeholders in the criminal justice system.”

~ While parents worry that their children will be subjected to divisive “Critical Race Theory” programs that seek to divide us further on racial lines, Eva Guzman’s conference suggested as one of their top five “Big Ideas” developing an app geared towards children to recognize bias at “a really young age.”

~ Another highly ranked suggestion outlined by the conference Guzman hosted was to require every institution “to have a racial and bias audit that is public for accountability.”

Here’s the bottom line: Texans can’t trust Eva Guzman to defend our conservative values because Eva Guzman simply doesn’t share our values at all. Her “woke” agenda has no place in Texas.

Here’s where Team Paxton needs your help. We need you to share Eva Guzman’s woke record with your friends and followers on social media. Share the suggested post above on your social media accounts and make sure this critical update makes it across the Lone Star State. We need to make sure conservatives across Texas know the truth about Eva Guzman before the upcoming primary on Tuesday.

Pol. Adv. Paid for by the Ken Paxton Campaign

His campaign also produced a Facebook video on Guzman’s wokeness.

Okay, so Guzman is woke. Or maybe she’s just a Latina that was trying to prove that she was not the typical Republican. Who knows?

The more interesting thing to me is how campaigns work in the final days of an election cycle. The email above is based on an “article” on Townhall.com titled Republican Primary Challenger to Texas AG Helped Organize Summit Promoting CRT Ideas on ‘Implicit Bias’ by Rebecca Downs which clearly comes from oppo research handed to Ms. Downs by the Paxton campaign. Once again a campaign is using Townhall.com to push their talking points. Why does Townhall continue to do that? Content, what else?

And back to the question, why? In talking to several ‘insiders’ (not from the Paxton campaign) the latest polling is showing that Paxton isn’t going to make the 50% plus 1 vote to avoid a runoff.

The polling also shows that Guzman is sneaking up on George P. Bush for second place and that Gohmert remains at the back of the pack.

If those polls are accurate, it’s pretty clear that Paxton would rather face Pee Bush in the runoff. Pee is so far removed from the grassroots level of Texas politics that if he does squeak into a runoff with Paxton, he’ll get blown back to Florida where he belongs.

On the other hand, Guzman might well have a shot at Paxton in a runoff. Paxton’s ethical problems are clearly on the minds of Texas Republicans if he does get dragged into a runoff. Traditionally, the most conservative person in a statewide Republican primary usually wins (see Cruz, Patrick). But between those ethical problems and Guzman’s ability to get funding from the more liberal/moderate contributors in the Republican Party, she might be able to put a scare into him or in a longshot actually win the runoff in an upset.

I wouldn’t bank on her winning but it is plausible. It’s also plausible that by attacking Guzman now he can pull a few votes away from her and avoid a runoff altogether. I don’t see that one happing but again, who knows?

Filling out my ballot in the Republican Primary

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I like to wait to vote on Election Day because it gives me more time to get to know the candidates. This year I haven’t spent much time doing that, mostly observing from the outside via the various social media platforms, the candidate websites, the campaign finance reports and the reports in the mainstream media outlets. I’m close to finalizing my choices and this is how my ballot looks thus far, starting from top to bottom for contested races.

Governor – Don Huffines

While I don’t think that Gov. Abbott has been as bad as some R’s think, I do believe that he is a reactive politician and I don’t much like that. I have no doubt that he will win the primary and I’ll vote for him in November but for now I’ll do a “protest” vote and hope that Abbott chooses to use his next four years wisely.

As for Huffines himself, it’s basically a process of elimination for me. I’m not going to vote for Florida Man (Allen West) or for the comedian (Chad Prather), so Huffines it is. Although it’d be fun to vote for Rick Perry.

Lt. Governor – Dan Patrick

This really isn’t a contested race but it’s on my ballot, so there you go. Dan has done far better than I thought he would when he first ran, so it’s an enthusiastic vote.

Attorney General – Ken Paxton

This one was a bit harder than it should have been. If it weren’t for Paxton’s ethical problems it’d be a slam dunk because he has been a good conservative AG. And I’d probably vote for Eva Guzman if it weren’t for the sources of her campaign cash. Ain’t no way in Hades I’m voting for P Bush and Gohmert is too far out there for me.

Comptroller – Glenn Hegar

Another one that’s not really contested but on my ballot. Hegar has run the office with efficiency and proficiency and this is an enthusiastic vote.

Commissioner of the General Land Office – Ben Armenta

In a crowded field there are some good choices and any of them will be an improvement over P Bush. Mr. Armenta gets my vote because of a clear vision and an ability to communicate it. On my ballot he barely edges out Dr. Jon Spiers. I assume that Dawn Buckingham will be in the runoff but she’s a professional politician at this point and to top it off, she hired a guy in Houston that works for Democrats to defeat Harris County Republicans.

Commissioner of Agriculture – Sid Miller

Truth is, I just like Sid Miller. He’s personable, affable and very conservative. Another enthusiastic vote. James White has become just another politician, spending his time attacking Miller instead of telling us why he has better ideas and policies.

Railroad Commissioner – undecided

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 9 – David J. Schenck

Seems like a good judge with lots of experience. The incumbent was appointed by Abbott for reasons other than being a good judge and if you get a chance, take a look at his campaign finance reports (filer id 00086069). No thanks.

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5 – Clint Morgan

The guy has gotten every endorsement that matters to me and the incumbent was elected solely on the basis of his name.

State Senator, District 11 – Mayes Middleton

Mayes is young, got a good conservative head on his shoulders, has a stellar record as a State Representative and is a leader. Dr. Armstrong is also a good candidate but doesn’t have the record Mayes has. And Bob Mitchell lost me completely with the way he highlighted the Houston Chronicle’s endorsement of him. No Republican in their right mind would do that.

Family District Judge, 308th Judicial District – undecided

Family District Judge, 311th Judicial District – undecided

Family District Judge, 313th Judicial District – undecided

County Judge – undecided Alexandra del Moral Mealer (click here to find out why)

Leaning towards Vidal Martinez but could go with Alexandra del Moral Mealer. Ruled out Martina Dixon based on her school board experience and campaign finance reports. Like Randy Kubosh but this isn’t the job for him.

County Treasurer – Kyle Scott

An enthusiastic vote because Kyle is a solid conservative. Eric Dick is a joke, he basically single-handedly turned the Harris County Department of Education into a Democratic controlled, Critical Race Theory pushing liberal institution. At this point it appears that he is using political campaigns to pick up clients that want to sue insurance companies. Just for fun ask him if he is going to close or suspend his law practice if he is elected. He’ll probably win based upon spending and name recognition and if he does, I’ll skip the box in November.

County Commissioner, Precinct 2 – Jack Morman

Another enthusiastic vote. Jack did great in his previous terms as commissioner and would be even better now that he has a different perspective.

And there you have it, as it stands today. Another good thing about waiting until Election Day is that you continue to get mailers from candidates and see them getting shriller and shriller every day. Dixon is now claiming that she cut school taxes 15% in Humble. Just ludicrous.

Texas Republicans are protecting your vote

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In the last session of the Texas Legislature, a Senate Bill 1 was passed regarding election integrity and ballot protection. One of the aspects of the bill was to change the identification requirements for voting by mail. We have long assumed that there were many counts of fraud in the system but we had no way to verify it. Now we do.

And Democrats are whining about it.

Harris County is asking the Department of Justice to intervene after thousands of mail-in ballots and applications were rejected in the wake of a strict new voting law passed in the Texas Legislature.

In a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, county leaders pointed to an “alarmingly high number” of rejections based on new rules enacted in Senate Bill 1, which went into effect Dec. 2 and created new voter ID rules that elections administrators across the state say have tripped up voters as they seek to use mail-in ballots.

The letter — signed by Harris County judge Lina Hidalgo, County Attorney Christian Menefee and Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria — asks the DOJ to step in and investigate.

from Houston Public Media

And yet they are the ones that are having to enforce the law. And guess what? They are!

Of 33,270 mail-in ballot applications received by Harris County, 4,598 — or 14% — were flagged for rejection due to the new voter ID requirements, and 13,736 — or 41% — were “flagged for rejection for any reason.”

Just 4,227 applications were flagged for rejection during the same period in March 2018, the last midterm election, the letter says — 6.6% of all applications received.

On top of that, 35.5% of mail-in ballots themselves were flagged as of Tuesday due to new ID requirements, the letter says — 3,491 of the 9,809 ballots received in Harris County.

from Houston Public Media

In case you weren’t aware, Democrats run Harris County, so they are the ones that have to enforce the law. The fact that they are doing it is surprising but appreciated!

Oh, and thank you to the Republicans for passing a law that confirms what we already knew but couldn’t prove.

Keep up the good work!