In case you haven’t heard, the Harris County District Attorney, Pat Lykos, is being challenged in the Republican primary by Mike Anderson. One of Mr. Anderson’s claims is that the DA’s office is losing Assistant District Attorneys at an alarming rate. A second part of the same claim is that the losses represent a loss of experience such that the county hasn’t seen before. The campaign website for DA Lykos refuted the first part of that charge with a matrix of data that claims to show that attrition in the office is normal. Although I trust campaigns to put forth correct data, I decided to use the Ronald Reagan philosophy of trust but verify. So I filed a PIA with the DA’s office asking for the same data that the Lykos campaign proffered but adding a request for average experience. And to prevent further claims that I’m involved in some sort of conspiracy with the DA’s office, I copied a blogger that accused me of that, the campaign consultant for Mr. Anderson, and several other people. Ask them – if they tell you otherwise, you’ll know that you can’t trust them.
In terms of timing for PIA requests, I received this one relatively fast – I filed it on Thursday, 2/9 and received a response today, Wednesday, 2/15. Not bad. It pretty much matches the Lykos website, plus one here, minus one there. I have forwarded the raw data to all those copied – again, if they tell you otherwise, you’ll know that you can’t trust them.
Here is my summary of the raw data:
And a chart of the same:
Obviously Mr. Anderson is incorrect on the first part of his charge, especially when you consider that the DA’s office has grown through the years: i.e., losing 40 ADA’s in 1994 had a much greater impact than losing 40 ADA’s in 2011. So let’s just toss that claim into the garbage bin with most other campaign charges.
But that second part, the part about experience, looks to be true. Do not consider 2008 – remember, DA Lykos did not take office until 2009. A lot of long term ADA’s quit or were asked to leave both before and after DA Lykos won the election in November 2008 but before she took office. Regardless of what you think about her, she can’t be blamed for people leaving the office before she started. Yes, I know that some folks were terminated in anticipation of her taking the helm, but the issue is people leaving the office because of her management style, not because they opposed her in the election.
The data shows that the ADAs that left the office in 2009 and 2010, under DA Lykos’ management, did have more experience than the historical average. In 2009, about 52{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} more than the historical average, in 2010, about 40{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} more. The data shows that 2011 returned to “average” in that the experience was roughly at the average.
So there you go. Does Anderson have a real issue here? Perhaps. As you can see from the chart, there have been spikes like this in the past. So this could be a real issue but you’ll have to decide that.
At any rate, if I were running one of those “Politifact” sites, I’d give Mr. Anderson’s charge in this one a “half-true” rating.
UPDATED 2/18/12 9:30 PM: As you can tell by the comments, some people think that total years of experience lost is important. After thinking about that, they are probably correct. So, I added that information to the stats and charted it. Here is the revised table and chart:
This look at the data shows that in her three years at the helm (2009-11), there has been an unusually large exodus of experience. Again, I discount 2008 because the issue is supposed to be about DA Lykos’ management style and if she wasn’t there, how could she be held accountable for that?
Well, you can’t leave out 2008. Many, many das left before Lykos could get at them, and as you said, some were asked to leave by her in 2008 before she took office. How is that not attributable to her management style? It’s a direct reflection of both her reputation and practice, and everyone who left knew what was coming.
As a 3 year average, more have left under Lykos than has been the norm. Additionally, a large number of support staff (investigators, secretaries, etc.) have been forced to leave as well, and their institutional knowledge is often as important as that of a da. Even more telling could be what percentage of das left–it would be interesting to know how many das were hired in the previous years as opposed to during pat’s tenure.
Trust me, numbers alone don’t tell the story. Ask anyone who’s left.
Pope is right about 2008. At least 6 people (including myself [the first time]) were told we weren’t going to be needed after the end of the year. Those totals should be moved to the 2009 category. Additionally, you have Ken Magidson and Bert Graham, who were not fired, but had no place in the new Administration, either.
Additionally, Pope brings up a good point about looking at years of service. There are several of prosecutors listed on the spreadsheet provided that who were hired AND left under Lykos. One apparently didn’t even last a month. When you average their number of years of service with someone like, say Hawkins’ years of service, it certainly depreciates the average, doesn’t it? I’m not good with spreadsheets, but don’t you think the total years of service would be more telling (as opposed to an average)?
I appreciate you copying me on the spreadsheet. The list of names brought back a lot of memories. One thing that isn’t quantifiable, however, is how many of these prosecutors left because they had other job opportunities versus those who left because they were miserable.
The Red, White, and Blue should be real interesting with the topic of the 185th Grand Jury. Sometimes when you ask for something you just might get it, although, it may not have been what you wanted. David Mitcham is one of Rachel Palmer’s attorney’s and if I were Ted and Brian I would be paying real close attention, this goes double for Mamie.