Marilyn Burgess
Marilyn Burgess, the elected Harris County district clerk, is not running for a third term in 2026, she said in a statement days after voting for her own pay increase amid a salary grievance.
Burgess, the Democratic clerk tasked with assembling jurors and housing civil and criminal court records, said she would not run for any other political office, either. She took office in 2018. Her political plans capped a lengthy statement in an email from her office Monday. The same email took exception to salaries for elected officials lagging behind appointed leaders in Harris County.
She makes more than $179,000 a year as district clerk, an amount she believes is too low.
Her grievance comes as elected constables are poised to receive a pay increase to $260,000 after similarly pursuing a challenge to their salaries. Burgess asked for a similar amount in her grievance, saying in a statement Monday that she has a “bigger staff to manage and more responsibilities to fulfill as District Clerk than several of our constables do.”
The grievance did not garner her desired outcome.
Last week, Burgess asked the grievance committee, which she is a voting member of, for the raise and went as far to motion for a $81,000 pay bump. Burgess and other members voted for the increase, but Commissioners Court took no action on the raise Thursday on their recommendation. Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who outlined Burgess’ steps to get the raise, challenged her on whether she believed her participation in the vote was a conflict, but county attorneys said the appearance of a conflict is not a legal conflict.
“So it looks bad,” Garcia said. “It may not necessarily be illegal, but it’s horrible on the face of it.”
In a statement, Burgess said her grievance was not about her salary alone. She said clerks in her office are underpaid as well.
“It was about fairness, transparency, and accountability,” Burgess said. “It was about highlighting the bloated, inequitable pay of appointed department heads during a supposed budget crisis.”
I did hear some rumblings about this last week, related to the grievance, but I didn’t have much detail and had forgotten about it by the time I saw this headline. I kind of agree about the Constables’ salary – it’s my understanding this was a result of the HPD raises, which forced similar increases in other law enforcement agencies so they wouldn’t lose people to higher-paying places like HPD, and this in turn meant that some subordinates in these offices would now make more than their elected bosses – but that doesn’t mean that the District Clerk position was underpaid. I don’t know enough to say one way or the other, but I’m going to guess that her complaint is not likely to generate a lot of public support. The public generally does not like when elected officials get raises, whatever the merits of those raises are.
So we will have a new District Clerk in 2027. I’m not aware yet of any candidates for the office, but I’m sure we will start hearing names soon. Filing season for the primary is always sooner than you think. Campos has more.