UPDATE: In case you missed it, today is April 1st. April Fools’!
Wow! In a hastily scheduled news conference this morning, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett announced that he was resigning to take a position with the proposed high-speed rail company, Texas Central Railroad. He issued a brief statement:
Good morning and thank you all for coming out on this rainy morning. I was offered, and have accepted, a position with a private company. This position will allow me to combine my expertise in transportation and politics, fulfilling my lifelong dream of creating a transportation system that will benefit all Texans. The offer was simply one I could not refuse.
I realize that this is an election year and that I could do what my predecessor, Robert Eckels, did and go ahead and win the job at the polls and then resign, securing the position for the Republican party. That is not something that I can do, I simply have too much integrity for that. Resigning now will enable the Harris County Republican Party to place someone else’s name on the ballot and let the citizens of Harris County decide in November.
I want to thank all of the citizens of Harris County for their support throughout my time as County Judge.
I’m not sure which part is most shocking, his resignation or the fact that he didn’t wait until after the November election to do it. I tried to reach Mr. Eckels but was unable to, so I turned to former Harris County Tax Assessor and current Texas Senate District 7 nominee Paul Bettencourt for a comment.
That’s just Ed being Ed, always trying to one-up everyone. He should have done what is best for the party and waited until after the election to resign. I did it and no one held it against me when I ran this time, winning with almost 90{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the vote!
By resigning now, Emmett has no input into the decision of who to replace him on the ballot. The current advisory board to outgoing HCRP Chair Jared Woodfill will make that decision. I reached out to Woodfill and was surprised by his response:
Well, I’m not surprised at all by this announcement. We knew that something was up when he drained his campaign account to defeat me. I heard rumors last night that he was going to make this announcement today and started calling the members of my advisory board. At this point, I have a lot of support from them and I hope that they make the right decision.
I asked him what that meant and he said just wait and see. What if the advisory board puts Woodfill’s name on the ballot? Wow, again. Talk about the ultimate irony!
I’ll have the latest on this story tonight at Cafe Adobe! See you there.