Judge Lina Hidalgo
(Note: The following is a guest post that was submitted to me. I occasionally solicit guest posts, and also occasionally accept them from people I trust.)
A couple of weeks ago the Chronicle Editorial Board endorsed Judge Hidalgo’s opponent in a schizophrenic editorial that any objective reader who read it without seeing the headline first would have thought was an endorsement for reelecting Judge Hidalgo. Harris County voters should take it substantively as one.
The editorial praised Judge Hidalgo, in many ways, e.g.:
-appreciating her “dynamic mix of wonkishness and progressive optimism” and her being an ‘inspiration to many”
-saying “if given the choice, we’d rather live in Hidalgo’s vision of Harris County, where government is inclusive, transparent and ethical, policy isn’t tainted by politics, the air is cleaner, the streets are safer, more children can attend pre-K, and climate change is treated with the urgency it deserves”
-“Hidalgo has made good on her promises, including fairness in distributing Harvey funding on a ‘worst-first’ basis and investments in badly needed air monitors in polluted neighborhoods and early childhood education”
– acknowledging, but unduly faintly in only one sentence, her courageous, tenacious, yet gracious leadership in fighting COVID in a way that probably saved thousands, if not more than ten thousand lives of local citizens;
– her handling of disasters, including Winter Storm Uri with “poise and a clear head”
– “it’s true that [Hidalgo] boasts a proposed budget that that would have increased funding for law enforcement… she never tried to ‘defund’ police… her plan would boost law enforcement funding $97 million more than the previous fiscal year, including pay raises for some ‘frontline deputies.”
So what did they see that was so wonderful about her opponent that swayed their opinion when they said this about her:
– She “can come off as combative, talking over others” and interrupting them;
– The board initially backed someone else in the Republican primary, “citing her lack of experience in governing”
– Asking whether “voters should trust an un-tested first-time candidate” without even mentioning that she was recruited to run by Ted Cruz and his wife;
– Her primary promise of “hiring 1,000 new law enforcement officers…is simplistic at this point” acknowledging how dubious such a promise is in light of the tight County budget;
– Her position in the primary opposing the reform of the misdemeanor bail system and incorrectly blaming that reform for the supposed “spike in violent crime” … “would be a deal-breaker for [the Board]” but they will now rely on her saying that she has changed her position, (will you?);
– “her understanding of the system may be incomplete and in some cases even flawed”
– She admitted that prosecuting polluters is “not first and foremost to her” and she does not think the County should address climate change, which the Board characterized as “grating in a low-lying coastal community baking in industrial emissions.”
The editorial claims that the Board was swayed by Judge Hidalgo’s supposed “failure to respond with urgency to Harris County’s crime wave,” citing as the critical factor the backlog in the Courts, while simultaneously acknowledging that Judge Hidalgo “didn’t cause the backlog … has no control over courtroom decisions on bail … [and] isn’t to blame for the provision in the Texas Constitution that guarantees virtually every defendant, even those with violent criminal records, an initial right to bail.”
The editorial went on to acknowledge that:
– “Harris County is far from the most dangerous place in the country, as Republican hyperbole would have it;
– “Mercifully, violent crime is currently declining and even at its peak, criminologists ranked Houston’s murder rate in the middle of the pack among major cities. Last year’s rate in unincorporated Harris County stayed flat….”
– The “felony backlog is down 23% since January.”
So why would the Board’s ultimate conclusion be in such stark contrast to most of its arguments?
The disconnect smacks of a lack of journalistic integrity. Did the Chronicle’s management override the independence of the Editorial Board, strong-arming the Board into backing down from its true position? The fact that the “News” department ran three front page stories about Judge Hidalgo’s opponent immediately after the endorsement evidences support for the conclusion that the lines between departments were blurred, an unforgiveable breach in journalistic ethics.
The Republicans hatched a plan for the midterms to over-hype an increase in crime coming out of two tough years under pandemic lockdowns and layoffs. Even though the Chronicle admits that violent crime has leveled off or dropped some this year, the Republicans needed something to scare people into voting Republican. This became more important once the decision overturning Roe v. Wade this summer kicked off a surge of renewed enthusiasm by
supporters of reproductive rights to register and drive supporters to the polls. Right-wing multi-millionaires and billionaires opposed to the County’s efforts to prevent flooding and pollution, some contributing as much as $350,000 to $400,000 each, began showering Judge Hidalgo’s opponent with millions of dollars of contributions to pay for deceitful attack ads against Judge Hidalgo. They knew that she could not match the millions flowing in, because Judge Hidalgo pledged in 2018 not to accept any contributions from the County’s vendors. In other words, she lived up to her campaign promise to do what all campaigns should do, but none other do, end “Pay-for-Play” politics. The Republican contributors knew that and knew, if County Judge Hidalgo were reelected with the 10 point lead she had earned over the last 3 1⁄2 years, it would mean the Republican state leaders that have carried so much water for them, and have been so bad for the majority of working people of Texas, could be in trouble. So they had to deliver the hits on Judge Hidalgo’s deserved popularity by funding a massive barrage of misleading arguments in favor of a flawed opponent.
The myriad issues confronting Harris County right now require keeping Judge Hidalgo’s steady hands on the wheel. It would be truly unconscionable for the Chronicle’s flawed endorsement and the millions of dollars in deceitful attack ads to wrest her hands away merely to turn it over to an inexperienced right-winger beholden to Trump, Cruz, and the multimillionaire and billionaire classes. Our democracy and our Constitutional rights are at stake. Embrace the wisdom expressed in the editorial while rejecting its inconsistent conclusion by voting to re-elect County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
Larry R. Veselka is a Houston lawyer and former County Chair for the Democratic Party who has been active in politics for 50 years.
NOTE FROM CHARLES: I’m just going to put this here:
A question that maybe the Chron editorial board should have asked themselves.
