Abbie Kamin
Harris County Commissioners Court voted 3-2 Thursday to appoint Houston City Council Member Abbie Kamin as county attorney.
Kamin will be the third county attorney to lead the office in less than a year. U.S. Rep Christian Menefee, D-Houston, vacated the office to run for Congress. Commissioners then appointed his deputy, Jonathan Fombonne, to the position; Fombonne is not seeking elected office.
Kamin’s appointment takes effect June 15, meaning she will continue to represent Houston’s District C until after the May 16 runoff.
The move grants Kamin an advantage in the November election, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.
“This isn’t a situation where they’re taking the selection out of the hands of the voters,” he said. “That said, there’s clearly an advantage for her to be in office before the election, because she can speak very clearly about the kind of goals that she’s been pursuing and how aggressively she’s been fighting.”
Although Rottinghaus said commissioners were effectively “putting their finger on the scale” of the November election by appointing Kamin, he said partisan appointments are common on both sides of the aisle. He pointed to the recent appointment of Daniel Wong, the Republican nominee for Fort Bend County judge, to that position. His predecessor KP George was removed from office by a judge after allegations of misconduct.
Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey and Judge Lina Hidalgo voted against Kamin’s appointment. Hidalgo said she did not feel comfortable appointing someone actively running for the position, as was done in Fort Bend County.
“Part of me thinks: ‘Well, this is this gives an unfair advantage to the candidate of one party.’ It happens to be the Democratic Party. The other way to look at it is, well, if the Republican Party does it and the Democrats don’t do it, then we’re sort of chumps,” Hidalgo said. “I was just so appalled when I read the news about Fort Bend, and it doesn’t feel right for me to do the same thing that so appalled me.”
The first thing to note is that this confirms that the runoff date for the District C special election will be May 16. I was pretty sure of that already, but it could have been the 9th. Now we know.
I said similar things about the installation of Daniel Wong as Fort Bend County Judge, which was done via a judicial ruling rather than a Commissioners Court appointment. I don’t know what motivated this appointment when Jonathan Fombonne was already there; who knows, maybe Fombonne wanted to go back to being a litigator instead of the manager. I’m obviously happy to have Kamin in the office and I’m sure she’ll be great at it. Congratulations to Abbie Kamin. Now get ready to hit the ground running.