Their second endorsement for primary season.
Abbie Kamin
Now Democratic primary voters must decide who can best build on Menefee’s legacy.
Luckily, they have two formidable candidates to choose from: Audrie Lawton-Evans, a civil litigation attorney and civil court at law judge, and Abbie Kamin, a civil rights attorney and Houston City Council member. The question for voters isn’t who is qualified – both clearly are – but rather, what kind of leadership does this specific moment demand?
We’re living in an era where the very right to local governance is under siege. We are seeing state and federal entities double down on targeted attacks against Democratic strongholds, attempting to strip Harris County of its ability to protect its own people. Getting the job done isn’t enough.
We believe Abbie Kamin, 38, is better suited for the challenges facing our county. She’s a civil attorney, with experience advocating for voting rights in court. She’s also a policy wonk who views the law as a lever for systemic change. Her six-year tenure representing District C on Houston City Council persuades us she can deliver on those lofty promises.
Even working within Houston’s strong-mayor system, Kamin has a proven track record of getting big things done for her constituents. As the first woman to be pregnant while serving on City Council, she spearheaded the city’s first paid parental leave policy and created the Houston Women’s Commission, focusing on health and economic disparity data.
Managing the County Attorney’s Office – a massive 300-employee operation – requires more than just legal knowledge; it requires executive skill. Although Kamin’s managerial experience is lacking, her office is one of the busiest, handling 2,400 calls and 58,000 emails in a single six-month span from constituents in the Heights, Meyerland and Montrose. She is tirelessly communicative, with her finger on the pulse of her district and beyond. And she doesn’t wait to act.
Kamin described how, when the Watson Grinding plant exploded in 2020 just two months after she took office, she worked across the aisle with Council Member Amy Peck and the fire marshal to expand hazmat response and push for air quality monitoring.
When she saw gaps in public safety, she secured $300,000 in federal and district funds to build one of the nation’s first firearm injury dashboards and created the Office of Policing Reform and Accountability. She also added a domestic violence branch to the Mayor’s Office on Human Trafficking and was unafraid to stand up to the mayor to defend federal funding for the Durham and Shepherd reconstruction project when it was in jeopardy.
Lawton-Evans, 48, has two decades of civil litigation experience, including a stint at the Texas Attorney General’s Office and more than 50 jury trials under her belt. In 2021, when a judicial seat was vacated amid scandal, Commissioners Court turned to her to restore integrity to Civil Court at Law No. 1. Her peers later elected her as administrative judge over all four civil courts at law, a role that required her to provide judicial leadership and guidance across the county’s civil court system. In private practice, Lawton-Evans was also responsible for overseeing a team of nearly 50 attorneys and support staff.
She fondly remembers her grandmother keeping the attorney general’s phone number taped to her landline to report anything fishy. She wants the County Attorney’s Office to be that same direct line of defense – a “mini AG office,” she said.
She’s particularly focused on launching a voter protection coalition to combat the state’s fearmongering – a fight she knows well, having been one of nearly two dozen winning candidates sued by the GOP based on election misinformation. We were impressed by her forward-thinking focus on the environmental strain on our grid caused by the influx of AI data centers, and her commitment to stopping price gougers who prey on residents after natural disasters.
If you’re looking for a seasoned practitioner and a steady hand, Lawton-Evans would undeniably get the job done.
But we were disappointed by her inability to point to concrete examples of spearheading and implementing a major project.
“The issue is me being a judge,” she countered, adding that ethical rules prevented her from being outspoken.
We’re not just looking for someone who can be outspoken. We’re looking for someone nimble enough to handle day-to-day legal counsel, with the imagination and persistence to win fights for Harris County – even working within significant constraints.
My interview with Abbie Kamin is here and my interview with Audrie Lawton Evans is here. I thought they both made strong cases for themselves and I encourage you to listen to both if you haven’t already. Kamin was given three and a half stars by the Chron and Lawton Evans received three. I’m not sure how fair the criticism of her for not “spearheading and implementing a major project” is, mostly because I don’t know how realistic that would be for a civil court judge. But that’s where they landed.
One more thing:
To meet the current threat of indiscriminate deportations, Kamin also plans to launch a county-level portal – an idea she credited this editorial board for championing – to track and document civil rights abuses by federal immigration enforcement. She recognizes that Harris County is the epicenter of the fight for due process and she isn’t afraid to stand up to a bully, “whether it’s the schoolyard, whether it’s at City Hall, whether it’s the state or Donald Trump,” she said.
Let me offer my full-throated support for that plan, which could easily begin under the current County Attorney as well. There are now some models to follow, such as this portal to report misconduct by federal agents to the California Attorney General, and the newly-launched Project FAFO, which is the brainchild of multiple urban county District Attorneys, including now the ones in Travis and Dallas Counties. Sean Teare, please have a look at this, too.
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This entry was posted in Election 2026 and tagged Abbie Kamin, Audrie Lawton, California, Christian Menefee, Democratic primary, Donald Trump, Election 2026, endorsements, Harris County, Harris County Attorney, ICE, immigration, Jonathan Fombonne, Project FAFO, Rob Bonta, Texas. Bookmark the permalink.
