The scene at the Capitol is disgraceful.
The scene at the Capitol should not be a surprise to anyone.
politics in Harris County and Texas
The scene at the Capitol is disgraceful.
The scene at the Capitol should not be a surprise to anyone.
The chatter of what attributes will make a good chair show that the party is as divided as ever locally. Tonight’s HCRP vote for a new chair leaves the county party at a distinct crossroads. Regardless of who prevails tonight the party has to make a decision on how to proceed.
County Voting Blocks and Pathways Forward
The pathways forward all, to some degree, involve how to build coalitions within the major voting blocks that exist in the nonpartisan municipal elections. Those blocks are white democrats, black democrats, conservatives, and Hispanics. While others exist they are more fragmented and/or too low in population to build from.
Out of the blocks the Hispanics are the least influential as was shown in the last municipal election. Districts J and F were drawn to have a Hispanic win office, but Councilmembers Pollard and Thomas won respectively. Councilman Pollard won over a formidable Hispanic in the runoff further reinforcing the weaker nature of the Hispanic block.
The chatter regarding what’s important in the new chair shows the divide in strategy on how the party should proceed. Some insist that pushing our economic message is the best way forward in that if people are prosperous they will vote for us, or various iterations of this message. Others say that expanding the base is the way forward, that the County has become light blue, and we must flip voters in the County to have a chance to prevail in the future. Still others say that we have to focus on social issues more than fiscal issues in order to have success. All the other chatter has been either inside party grudges/mechanics, or a variation of the three basic arguments.
2022, 2023, and 2024 are very different cycles
While 2022 is important in that it is the next election the cycle is also important because some of the bond to murder judges are up for reelection. Judge Hidalgo is also up for reelection and winning that race would flip Commissioner’s Court back to Republican control. However, that’s only half the picture.
If the democrats have a clean sweep there’s no reason for any voting block to want to engage with the conservative voting block on the next municipal elections. With vulnerable criminal judges up for reelection if we can’t take at least one bench we show that we aren’t enough of a voting presence to matter in the municipal elections. 2022 isn’t just about that cycle it’s also about having a seat at the table when it comes to the 2023 municipal elections.
The County Power Divide is Deepening
Although I believe Kevin Fulton is the best choice for chair of the 5 announced candidates that’s not a negative on Cindy Siegel. She has many strengths she could bring as party chair. Her run for Commissioner is a good race to use to show how the party has shifted in the county. Both she and Commissioner elect Ramsey come from republican areas in the county. With Covid dampening the ability to campaign the race was more of a testament to where the republican power in the precinct lies.
The results show that Bellaire, while still an important republican area in the county, is not enough to win the precinct. The republican power in the county has shifted, by and large, to outside the beltway. This thesis is further supported by the two state house seats flipping., Sarah Davis’ district is now blue showing that the area inside the beltway is trending light blue. Again, this isn’t a knock against Cindy Siegel. This is solely used for illustrative purposes.
Whipping Up Outside the City Votes
With the City versus County political affiliation becoming more divided the potential pathways forward countywide are to whip up turnout outside the city or try and convert voters inside the city. Both pathways have arguable chances for success. With Trump not at the top of the ticket in 2022, and no US Senate race at the top of the ticket we are unlikely to see as much democratic turnout. Cruz didn’t effectively blunt Betomania in Harris County, and Trump was enough to ensure mass democrat turnout last month.
Without a top of the ticket force to drive democrats to the ballot there should be some degree of decline in the democrat turnout. If the outside the city voters can be whipped up to come out in numbers similar to the last two cycles the gap will narrow. With crime already showing up in the voting, and the very judges who are making the crime problem worse up for reelection, it’s not unreasonable to think at least those seats can be flipped in the next cycle with strong republican turnout outside the city. The additional benefit of this pathway is it will help to counteract some of the discontent with Abbott and make undervoteing in that race less likely.
Expanding the Base Within the City
The other pathway forward is to expand the voting base within the city. This tactic has the obvious advantage of having a double impact. Each voter you can switch is one less vote for the democrats and one more vote for the republicans. This tactic also has the added benefit of possible carryover into the municipal elections in 2023. The long term benefits of this tactic are far in excess of the other pathway forward, but there is greater risk in this pathway.
The republican version of economic messaging isn’t likely to resonate well with the voting blocks that do not vote with us. Fiscal responsibility is important, but it is not popular. The image below is a 2016 voter plot (national level) where voters identified on social and fiscal scales. A distinct majority of the population is not fiscally conservative.
To try and use economic messaging to expand the voting base means to preach a different economic message that will resonate with the target audience. That message is economic impact zones. It’s making capital available for economic prosperity. That message is making education affordable and forgiving debt to make life easier. It’s not traditional republican messaging. However, Trump out performing among minority voters shows that messaging works. It’s a message we could use and enact, but it will come at cost to the traditional fiscal conservative message which creates division in the party.
Social issues have also shown to be effective in building alliances. The bathroom bill is one example, but right to life issues also resonate strongly in the Hispanic and Filipino populations. Attempting to rebuild the social issue coalition along with beating the tough on crime drum has a good chance of getting ticket splitting on the bottom of the ballot with the vulnerable judges up for reelection and can expand the base. But it comes at a price with the existing economy first message republicans outside the city.
Which Path is Better?
The pathways forward are not mutually exclusive, but it will be difficult to try and achieve both at the same time before the 2022 election. The short time frame raises the question of which path is the better way forward? Some of that answer lies in how well will HCRP cooperate under the new chair. From everything that has transpired in this relatively opaque process of choosing a new chair it doesn’t look promising for HCRP to have a peaceful coexistence within the short term.
The likelihood of more fighting makes it difficult to believe that continuing the current trends of relying on ground game and message continuation is the better pathway ahead. If we could put our differences aside for the sake of getting rid of the vulnerable judges and gaining a seat at the table for 2023 that would be the less risky path forward, and it would have a chance of success.
With the likelihood of intraparty fighting continuing trying to build for the future seems a more promising route to go. Hopefully everyone sees defeating the vulnerable judges as the easiest pathway to stem the blue wipe outs that have been occurring. Focusing on that task leads more naturally to connecting with voters who don’t normally vote with us. Establishing those relationships along with economic and social messaging that’s more likely to resonate with the respective voting blocks is a natural way to expand the base.
Will it cost us some votes with traditional economic messaging adherents? Doubtless yes. However, the ability to split the ticket at the local level and have better relationships going into 2023 seems to be the wiser course of action, especially with much of the conservative voting strength residing outside of Houston proper. This engage and expand the base is the pathway that’s more likely to have benefits in 2023 and is a better pathway forward.
Kevin Fulton was kind enough to be interviewed regarding his announcement he was seeking the Harris County Republican Party chair position in the wake of Keith Nelson’s resignation. The biggest challenge we face as a county party is to stop the infighting, and he has as good a chance as anyone to end the fighting as anyone. Additionally he has a well thought out plan to steer the county party back to viability. With vulnerable bond-to-murder criminal court judges up for reelection in 2022 the party has an opportunity to break the cycle of wipe outs and need someone who can put the pieces together for both 2022 and the long term picture. Kevin’s plan has a chance to meet both the short term opportunity as well as the long term needs of the party.
Why Run
Kevin mentioned that he was seeking the County Party chair because he grew up in an inner city environment and conservative values were what helped him progress from the inner city to where he is today. He wants to bring the same opportunity he received to others in the inner city, and believes that in doing so it will expand the conservative message to voters we otherwise would not reach. This not only expands our voting base, but also expands economic prosperity to those who currently are struggling which in turn helps move the overall mentality more towards a conservative mindset.
His Vision
Kevin was very open and transparent, and believes that is an important aspect of how the party needs to act going forward. He intends to have Kathaleen Wall as his vice chair and let her focus on her strong points of election integrity, technology, and the fundraising aspects for the County Party while he focuses on creating a party infrastructure for messaging and expanding the base. Ms. Wall is a somewhat controversial figure, and when I asked if he was certain he wanted this information added into the article he said yes, that transparency is important even if the decision making may cause controversy. That’s the kind of commitment to transparency we need to win the trust of the general public.
The bifurcation of fundraising and message/base expansion is a good initial use of talent. Rather than try to control all processes he is trying to surround himself with capable individuals and let them work from their strengths. He already has established vehicles to help spread conservative principles and economic prosperity to areas we don’t normally reach. Focusing on the areas where he already has success while leaving fundraising to individuals who have that skill set is a good short term strategy to get the County Party headed in a better direction.
Building the Party
Outside of the immediate need of finances versus ground game Kevin believes it’s important to have local control of data. The party used Voter Vault when I was a precinct chair. Now, Nation Builder is a popular vehicle to use for data purposes. However, these are all third party sources of data and the County Party has to constantly purchase updated data each election. In fact, as the information is used it is updated with the third party vendor, and the County Party has no system in place to store and maintain their own data outside of the third party vendors. Kevin wants to create an application where the County Party obtains the information, and as it is updated through the course of campaigning the info goes back to the County Party rather than to third party vendors. Having a good, locally generated, dataset will help with future elections.
Kevin also wants to make sure the County Party recruits and supports candidates for nonpartisan races. This is an avenue to reach out and build goodwill among people who have overlapping ideas even though they may not vote with us. The cooperation on nonpartisan campaigns also is a good way to bring more conservative individuals to power. The formula worked to defeat Mayor Parker’s bathroom imitative. The formula can work to bring more conservatives into nonpartisan race offices. Plus if the candidate is accepting our support behind the scenes we will get some data to use in continuing to build and update the party maintained dataset.
Stopping the Infighting and PACs
The last area we covered was how to stop the intraparty fighting and address the influence PACs have in local races. Kevin is as well situated as anyone to address the infighting. He told me that Simpson asked him to be his vice chair, and then he was Nelson’s vice chair. Kevin accepted the vice chair spot under Keith when he saw that the party was in trouble and faced claims of racism by the media that could hurt Republican candidates on the ballot. He is at least respected by both factions, and therefore has a chance to keep everyone from open warfare even if it continues to some degree behind the scenes. Moving the strife out of the light to behind closed doors presents a picture of a more unified party.
The PACs are a different issue than the infighting. The GOP is a big tent party, or at least we should be. This leaves PACs well received in some parts of the party and despised by some parts of the party. That problem is going to continue, but Kevin indicated that the path forward to minimize conflict is to get the PACs out of local party issues, and simply engage with them in a manner of cooperation where the vision is shared, and to politely not engage when the PAC vision and the local party vision does not overlap.
Kevin is the best person for Chair.
The party, obviously, is in a dire situation. Kevin seems both well situated and to have a well developed plan to address our immediate needs as well as to take advantage of the short and long term opportunities. Simpson left the party with a cash crisis and Keith wasn’t able to fundraise effectively. Turning the fundraising operation over to Wall is smart as it should result in some incoming from fundraising. It also frees Kevin up to address messaging and any issues that arise, which are more of his strong points.
The next Chair has to be ready and able to help candidates who are going to oppose the weak on crime judges that are up for election in 2022. Looking at the splits between Dana for Sherriff, Huffman for District Attorney, and the Civil versus Criminal County Courts at Law this past cycle shows that crime is showing up in the election. Sadly, Dana fell by 15 points. Huffman lost by 7.5. The criminal court races average was 6.5 points, which was 4.5 points closer than the civil court race.
Opportunity exists in 2022. Kevin is well situated to expand our message to a portion of the electorate that is most likely to flip on crime issues and at least split their ticket on crime. Winning begets winning. Once the cycle of blue wipe outs has been stemmed we are better positioned to see more success follow.
Mary Nan Huffman was kind enough to take time to talk about her race for District Attorney. It is imperative that she be elected. We are in the midst of crime ramping up in Harris County, and we have a District Attorney who does not prosecute crime. After spending time with Ms. Huffman it is clear that the District Attorney’s office is complicit with the bond to murder spree and that we are all suffering because of the way the office has been run. This is somewhat unexpected since Ogg’s father was a conservative state senator, but the way she has acted shows she does not align with those values. We should treat Ogg the same way we treated Devon Anderson four years ago. Hold her accountable for her current actions despite the political past and lineage.
This interview was a little different than the ones with Ramsey, Danna, and Heap in that this piece focuses more on the problems with the District Attorney’s office and how she will correct the problems if elected. Mary Nan Huffman has the experience to be district attorney. She was a prosecutor in Montgomery County, and as will be discussed later they have a different philosophy than Harris County when it comes to working crimes. She also is well situated to mend fences with law enforcement agencies since she is presently an attorney with the Houston Police Union.
What Happens on Her Watch is Her Responsibility
Four years ago Ogg ran ads against Anderson regarding jailing a rape victim. The reasoning was Anderson is responsible for what happens under her watch even if she isn’t directly involved. The same standard should be applied to Ogg. The Ogg camp has been saying that issues are present, but she shouldn’t be held responsible because she wasn’t directly involved. That’s inconsistent with what she alleged when she was the challenger. She was right then, and Huffman is right now. The elected District Attorney is responsible for what happens under her watch. The list of problems that the county faces is large, but let’s look at some of the specific problems that are solely relatable to Ogg, and how Huffman would act differently.
The Arkema prosecution is a great example of politically motivated prosecution. The federal government was already investigating, but Ogg made a political decision to become involved. What was the result? The court found two instances of prosecutorial misconduct, and after each side presented their case the judge ended the case by way of a directed verdict. Huffman indicated she would prosecute cases by focusing on facts and evidence rather than other considerations.
Ogg’s office was also embroiled in other internal operations issues. She had the whole fiasco where her office sent an email “suggesting” volunteering for her campaign. She initially claimed that her account was used, but that she didn’t actually send the emails. Huffman noted that later an open records request showed that she actually was aware of the email going out and approved the message. Then she also had the whole fiasco regarding the whole Covid death chart fiasco, where she continued to demand personal cell phones after the culprit was identified. The end result is that morale at the office is low, and there’s been a greater than 40% turnover from when she was elected. This in turn has lead to a backlog in prosecution, with the pending murder/capital murder cases has risen from 988 to over 1,300.
Bail Reform/Bond to Murder
One of the biggest issues is bail reform and the bond to murder spree. Ogg has tried to say that the problem lies with the judges not with her. However, Huffman was able to give me documentation, shown below, where the district attorney’s office agreed to a PR bond that ended up in a bond to murder situation. On May 16th, 2020, Rosalee Cook was murdered. The offender had a 67 prior arrest history. On April 20, 2020 he was granted a PR bond that was an agreed bond by all parties. The document below is the agreement. The red circle shows where Ogg’s office agreed to the PR bond, and the blue/purple circle oval notes the April 2020 date. This not only was Ogg’s office agreeing to the PR bond, but it was done this year. Ogg can’t say that the judges are the fault when her office is agreeing to the PR bonds.
Civil Unrest and Officer Morale
The county faces two opposing opinions in civil unrest and law enforcement morale. On one hand some segments say they face unjust prosecution and law enforcement violence directed towards him. On the other, Ogg gave mass releases to the protestors. This appeared to be a political consideration. In order to prosecute for violence the officers would have to be able to be able to identify who and when they threw an object or engaged in violence towards property. To get around this problem, but still hold those who were engaged in such behavior accountable lesser charges were alleged. The district Ogg’s office accepted the charges and then dismissed the vast majority. This isn’t to say that no instances of law enforcement misconduct occur, but it is not reason to allow mass unrest like we saw with Floyd.
How Huffman Would Address These Issues
Huffman is well positioned to address the challenges above because of the difference the way Montgomery County and Harris County DA offices investigate crime. In Montgomery County, where Huffman was a prosecutor, they practiced vertical prosecution. That’s where the assistant district attorney is involved with the case directly from the beginning of the case through disposition. The assistant district attorney would go to the crime scene and be present at the evidence gathering.
The transition to vertical prosecution is going to address the backlog of cases because the cases will be more developed at the beginning of the process. This direct involvement in case development led to quicker plea bargains in Montgomery County, and that is likely to translate to Harris County. This will also lead to closer ties between the DA office and the various law enforcement agencies.
The bail reform issue is one where Huffman said she would implement a test of not wanting to keep people behind bars because they are poor balanced against public safety. Huffman said she would keep programs Ogg was running, such as the second chance program, but that the program functioning would be examined to make sure the program was working as expected and not being misused. This allows people who can be reformed and stay a productive member of society to remain in society but at the same time not be used as a vehicle for a 15th chance. Huffman also indicated she would keep the program allowing civil attorneys to prosecute minor crimes intact, but rather than limit the participation to certain firms she would open the process to any attorney who wanted to apply to participate. Since some attorneys feel a sense of duty to contribute back to society the potential volunteer pool is larger than the preselected firms that currently participate.
This is a guest post by Stan Burton, a Republican Alternate judge working the current election.
My name is Stan Burton, I am the Republican Alternate Judge at early voting location SRD141B. Felicia Cravens, the AJ at Tracy Gee contacted me today and asked me to check something for her. She and her Presiding Judge had been doing an audit of provisional ballots to verify that she had all the ballots the system said she did to make sure they had all been entered and had discovered something disturbing, but first some explanation is in order. When you search for a voter in the e-pollbooks software on the Apple iPads, if the voter record is found four things will show up typically, either: red “Mail in ballot requested”, “Mail in ballot sent”, “Voted early”, or there will be a green “select” button indicating no impediment to vote.
What Felicia found was a large number of voters not showing “voted early” but instead still indicating “mail in ballot requested” or “mail in ballot sent”, and some showing green as if they had not voted at all. So she called me and asked me to check to see if this was a systemic problem or was an isolated problem for her location only.
I didn’t find any green voters, but HALF were still indicating that they had not voted early. So I contacted Mike Palmquist to ask him to check his provisional ballots. The very first one he picked up was green. He had JUST VOTED THIS VOTER A FEW MINUTES EARLIER. Mind you all of these are mail in ballots that had not been surrendered in order to vote early. Those mail in ballots may still be in play as well. We only have the voters word that they have been destroyed.
Houston, we have a problem.
If it does not say “voted early” these voters can go elsewhere and vote provisionally again. And in the case of the green voters, they don’t even have to vote provisionally, their votes go straight into the count. Felicia and I have both tried to report this to Chris Hollins’ office and have received no reply to our calls. All three of these instances have been reported to Alan Vera.
The judicial and district attorney soft on crime aspects in Harris County has received significant coverage, but one aspect that hasn’t been covered is the effort by democrat elected officials to weaken law enforcement in Harris County. While the effort’s pieces were all in the open, the cumulative effect didn’t sink in until reflecting on the information learned when Joe Danna and Ted Heap were kind enough to come in for an interview. When viewing the current elected Democrats’ behavior through the lens of information learned in those interviews the picture seems much more ominous.
Extent of the crime problem
While various entities may report on the crime rate this number is skewed by the district attorney’s office willingness to accept a case. A different metric to use to judge the amount of reported crime is the crime incidence number. It is a measurement of the number of times a person has called to report a crime and a law enforcement response followed. This metric does not consider if the district attorney’s office accepts the charge or the number of counts involved.
Houston Police Department has published this metric for January – August 2020, and for comparison purposes the same month range for 2019 is given in the chart below. What’s striking in the chart is every month in 2020 shows a year over year increase from 2019. While the official crime statistics may show a decline in criminal activity if we look at the incident report we see that crime reports are consistently up. This shows that the public is reporting more crime and that the lower crime statistics are the result of cases not being referred to or accepted by the district attorney’s office. A better way to say this is to say criminal prosecution is down, but criminal activity has increased.
The effort to weaken law enforcement
The democrats appear to be actively involved with an effort to weaken law enforcement. Whether or not this is a coordinated effort is immaterial – the effort is pervasive and will result in a further escalation of criminal activity. Here are a few highlights, and the next section will explain why these efforts are detrimental to combating crime.
Right now Harris County Sherriff’s Office has funding and approval for an additional 101 positions. Ed Gonzalez could have filled these positions at any time, but has made a deliberate decision not to fill the positions. Adrian Garcia suggested an effort to end the constable contract program in favor of the sheriff contract program. Rodney Ellis has called bringing attention to the consequences of the weak on crime criminal judges and bail issues fear mongering.
Consequences of Democrat Elected Officials Plans
The consequences of the three examples given above are/would be devastating for curtailing crime in Harris County. Ed Gonzalez’ refusal to fill 101 positions is self evident in how it is criminal friendly and prevents law enforcement intervention in criminal matters. Not facially evident is the effect from the other two examples.
It is the constables rather than Houston Police Department that investigate property crime. With the constables reporting statistics to HPD and HCSO their involvement is not readily apparent as it appears commingled with HPD and HCSO statistical reports. If the constable contract program is ended in favor of the sheriff contract program it will end the already established community ties that have developed between the community and the constables. Even if every contract were successfully migrated to HCSO this would create reporting issues since the constables report, as appropriate, to HPD and HSCO.
The switching from constable to HCSO contracts would create the false appearance of a drop in crime in Houston because of the technical aspects of the way the reporting is compiled. Plus, the transition from constable to HCSO has the inherent risk of inability to service the contracts and risk of contract nonrenewal since it is a new entity that is performing the duties of the contract program. In short, less law enforcement investigation would occur, especially with property crime, and criminals would have even less reason to fear committing these crimes.
More sinister is Rodney Ellis’ comments that exposing the problems associated with bail reform is fear mongering. Right now the suit that Commissioner’s Court is involved with settling is misdemeanor bail reform. Felony bail reform will be addressed next, and a reasonable inference from Ellis’ comments is that he will be actively advocating for criminal friendly bail provisions in the settlement for the felony bail reform. Remember, if this is the result of litigation and an agreed judgment then we are stuck with the consequences. A future Commissioner’s Court would not be able to change operating procedures since there will be a legal judgment in place.
We have a stark choice in the election
The election is a stark choice between reigning in crime and the continued slide into lawlessness in Harris County. It’s imperative that Ramsey win election for Commissioner’s Court so we have an active voice to combat Ellis and Garcia and expose the process to sunlight. It’s also extremely important that Joe Danna be elected as Sheriff so that the office can be fully staffed and be actively involved in combating crime. That’s not enough to protect the public. It’s also important Mary Nan Huffman be elected so that we have a district attorney who will actually prosecute crimes. Voting republican for Commissioner’s Court, Sheriff and District Attorney are necessary to start the process of reigning in criminal behavior in Harris County.