Bay Area Houston

Harris County and the elected officials provide services to about 5 million people.

Harris County is the 3rd largest county in the United States covering nearly 2 million square miles running from the Kingwood area to the Clear Lake area, from Katy to Baytown. Needless to say it’s a big area. The County is divided into 4 precincts represented by Commissioners Rodney Ellis (1), Adrian Garcia (2) Tom Ramsey (3), and Leslie Briones (4). The Bay Area is within Precinct 2. There are 27 elected officials, not including Judicial positions. Of those 27 there are 1 Judge (not a judicial judge) 4 Commissioners, 7 Trustees for the Harris County Department of Education, and 8 Constables. All these are elected positions.

Important positions include:

• County Judge Lina Hidalgo acts as the chief executive officer for the county, presiding over the Commissioners Court to manage the county budget, tax rates, and infrastructure.
• County Attorney Abbie Kamin is the chief legal officer for a county, responsible for representing the state in misdemeanor criminal cases, prosecuting juvenile offenders, and acting as the legal advisor to county and precinct officials.
• District Attorney Sean Teare is an elected prosecutor representing the state in criminal cases, responsible for reviewing police investigations, filing felony and misdemeanor charges, and prosecuting cases at trial.
• District Clerk Marilyn Burgess is an elected official who acts as the custodian of records for district courts, managing court documents (civil, criminal, family), processing lawsuits, collecting fines/fees, and managing jury selection. 
• County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth serves as the principal record-keeper, election official, and clerk to the county governing board, managing public records like deeds and marriage licenses, administering elections, and handling official licensing.
• Tax Assessor Collector Annette Ramirez is an elected official responsible for assessing property values, calculating, and collecting property taxes for local governments, schools, and counties.
• Treasurer Carla L. Wyatt as the chief custodian of county finances, responsible for receiving, depositing, and safeguarding all county funds
• Sheriff Ed Gonzalez is an elected official acting as the chief law enforcement officer for their county, responsible for operating the county jail, providing security for courts, and serving legal papers.

• County Commissioners act as the executive and legislative branch of county government, managing county property, finances, and services. They adopt the annual budget, set property tax rates, approve contracts, and maintain county infrastructure like roads, bridges, and jails.
• County Constables is an elected, licensed peace officer who serves as the chief process server for justice courts and performs law enforcement duties. They execute warrants, civil papers (subpoenas, evictions), act as bailiffs for Justice of the Peace courts, and conduct patrols or criminal investigations.
• Department of Education Trustee is an elected official who sets policies, approves budgets, and provides oversight for the department to support local school districts with educational services. They govern initiatives like Head Start, special schools, and adult education, acting as public stewards for Harris County schools.

These are important positions. So come November go vote.

As I have said in the past, running for office isn’t a damn game especially in Harris County.

Ask the citizens of Hays County. Back in 2020 Avery Anderson won the election for District Clerk. He beat a 3 term incumbent with 32 years of experience in the office. Avery had absolutely no experience besides flipping burgers at a local burger joint. Avery had just graduated….from high school. He was 19 at the time. He raised no money, as in zero dollars. He had no website. He had no social media presence. Voters in Hays County, a county that Democrats worked hard to turn blue, voted for the 19 year old, inexperienced, high school graduate.

Avery resigned 2 years later citing the job of District Clerk was more than he expected. (DUH!) Others in the office resigned with decades of experience. Elected officials called for his resignation since he was unable to do the job. A judge deemed him incompetent to hold the office. It was a disaster.

Here in Harris County we have a similar situation. Alex Maldonado, a 23 year old college student has little if any applicable experience for the office of District Clerk. He is in a runoff with Darell Jordan in the Democratic primary. Jordan has a very impressive resume with experience in the Military, as an attorney, legal counsel for the Texas Legislature, and as a Judge. He has enough experience to give the supporters of Maldonado something to throw rocks at. You can’t throw rocks at Maldonado’s experience because he has none. Why any organization (AFL-CIO, Texan Democrats) would endorse an unqualified candidate over an excellent, experienced Democrat is troubling.

I’m all for young people getting involved in politics but for f*** sakes, come with some applicable experience. Democrats have had other young people run for office with disastrous results. Mike Floyd ran for Pearland ISD Trustee and won. He was still in high school. He was the talk of the town being featured on MSNBC and other news networks. He also resigned after 2 years. Lina Hidalgo was 29 years old with no experience when she took control of the 3rd largest county in the United States. Her time in office needs no further discussion. And recently Democrats elected a young, inexperienced, candidate, who has no Democratic voting record, to lead the Harris County Democratic Party.

The Democrats should do well in Harris County since the republicans have become as popular as herpes at a hot tub party but for f*** sakes we have a candidate who is young with excellent, applicable, experience on the ballot. Electing a young inexperienced, unqualified candidate as the nominee of the Democratic Party would give the Republican Party yet another target along side of Lina Hidalgo. According to the Houston Chronicle the office needs help and proven leadership.

Another lawyer we spoke with described the clerk’s office as a “disaster” with an added expletive thrown in. Nobody we spoke with blames the front-line clerks. They are underpaid and can’t on their own clear the blockages between various fiefdoms run by the district attorney, sheriff and judges.

Running for office is not a g**damn game.

Finally, although 8 years too late. I won’t defend Judge Hidalgo’s rodeo dust up but….

In 2018 Ed Emmitt lost his seat to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo for a couple of reasons. One he didn’t campaign. He thought he had it in the bag and quite frankly he had a point. He was a very successful Judge. He did the job. There was no drama. He also used the term “hunker down” very well. He lost by about 1000 votes to a 29 year old with no political experience.

The second reason he lost was his support for Donald Trump. Emmitt was quiet as a mouse while Trump began his chaos campaign across the country. That didn’t help, neither did straight ticket voting. Voters were pissed and voted the Democratic straight ticket.

8 years later Ed has popped his head up to criticize Lina Hidalgo’ rodeo dust up while again being quiet like a fuckin mouse about his political lord and savior Trump. In an interview with Texas Monthly Ed said:

He said Hidalgo’s behavior was troubling. “We live in a time of a lot of politicians doing really bizarre things,” he said. “This may top the list.”

Really? Fuckin really? Are you a fuckin idiot Ed? The “top of the list”? Back in 2018 I wrote how Ed said nothing about Trump’s behavior such as mocking a disabled human being. Or his daily lies, or separating children from their parents and more but today there are so many other “Top of the list” candidates that Ed could put over a rodeo dust up such as:

• Being Accused of molesting children in the Epstein files
• Organizing a riot on the US Capitol
• Porking a porn star, paying her off, and being convicted on 35 felonies
• Stealing classified documents
• Daily lies
• Tariffs
• Racism

And the list goes on and on. I wonder if Ed would have spoken up if Trump had porked a sheep at the rodeo. Probably not. Ed should do us all a favor and shut his ***damn pie hole.

NOTE: I am supporting Annise Parker for Harris County Judge.

There is a runoff in both parties for Harris County Judge. Orlando Sanchez and Warren Howell will be running for the Republican Party nomination. Annise Parker and Letitia Plummer are running for the Democratic Party nomination. All have submitted the required campaign finance reports. Plummer was late on filing the 30 day out and the 8 day out. Howell has not filed an 8 day out report.

Democrats:
Annise Parker has outraised her opponent without the need of loans. She has always been a strong fundraiser in the past. Plummer has historically had trouble with raising funds as well as filing on time. She has a $7,000 personal loan and only $407 cash on hand.

Republicans:
Orlando Sanchez has a large personal loan of $219,513 listed in his January report but it was not listed in his 8 day or 30 day out report. He has only $1,600 cash on hand. Howell is spending his own money on his race with a $272,650 personal loan. He raised only $15,000 for the race. Howell has not filed an 8 day out report.

Notes:
The republican nominee will not need to raise any money. Greg Abbott and various PACs will be pouring millions into this race with the hope of securing the Harris County Judge position. Unfortunately their hand picked candidate, Marty Lancton the Houston Fire Department Union President, came in 4th place in the primary. The billionaires in North Texas will most probably put millions into this race.

Case in point the brochure funded by the Latino Labor Leadership Political Action Committee.

The LLL PAC was created in 2006 with a couple of thousands in donation. In 2025 donations of over $131,000 was received mainly from non Latinos such as $10,000 from the law firm Pusch and Wynn. In total since 2006 they raised over $290,000. Most of their donations came from non Latinos. $36,000 was donated by Amir Mireskandari a consultant for Kim Ogg and a fundraiser for her. Very few of the total donors are Latino.

This group raised enough money to publish a “Voters guide” which looks very similar to another voters guide published in 2022. Neither were from Harris County or the Harris County Democratic Party. From a previous post concerning dirty tricks in elections:

In the Democratic primary of 2020 and organization call Fort Bend United run by Shapnick Khan distributed an endorsement brochure titled “Harris County Democratic Voters Guide” (see below). Harris County had nothing to do with this voters guide, by law. Harris County Democratic Party had nothing to do with this, by bylaws. But it sure did look nice, and well written. Their endorsements included absolutely horrible candidates running against Commissioner Adrian Garcia and Judge Lina Hidalgo. Fort Bend United has since filed a campaign finance report showing a $0 COH. The Treasurer, Shapnick Khan also created a PAC called Texas Progressive Executive Council in 2021. He raised no money and it is now listed as “Inactive”

I have not seen the endorsements in this brochure. Do yourself a favor and throw it away.

NOTE: I have been very critical about Traci Gibson’s run for Chair. I have attempted to talk with her about why she is running and she refused.

The new chair will take control of the Party in June, right smack dab in the middle of our coordinated campaign. To change our leadership midstream is just plain stupid. You can watch the entire forum here.

I took one for the team and watched the 90 minutes forum between the Harris County Democratic Party Chair Mike Doyle and his challenger Traci Gibson. Beside being an incredible stupid idea to change leadership mid stream the forum can be summarized easily. Mike Doyle has long, successful, political experience while Gibson has ideas for political experience. Mike knows what he is doing. He has an approved budget of $3.5 Million. He has raised money. He has brought the Party out of a huge deficit. He has reached out to clubs, organizations, and groups. He isn’t perfect but he has good experience. I trust hm. Can he do better? Sure. Maybe the Party should tell clubs like the Bay Area Democratic Movement on how effective texting is or how effective writing postcards are at getting people to vote. That might be something the HCDP could work on.

Gibson on the other hand has little experience and I believe she has exaggerated her few political accomplishments such as working her precinct. Her precinct has 2277 voters and only 51 (not 51%) turned out in 2025. That’s not working your precinct. I do not believe she registered voters as she claims but that can be found out via open records and I could be incorrect. Her lack of a Democratic voting record is troubling and her justification to this issue was more troubling. Not voting in your Party’s 2024, 2022, or 2020 primary is NOT an advantage as she claims. Her claims of working for the party is not believable. She claims to have worked robo calls. I’m not sure how you “work” robo calls and, by the way, robo calls are statistically worthless. It makes me think she didn’t work anything.

Traci also thinks she will take control in March but it is June, right in the middle of our campaign. Traci is good at being Miss obvious with simple minded comments like “we need to work together” and “We have to reach out to the youth” and “We have to win in 2026” and “We need work together” (Did I say that twice?”). It makes me think AND/OR DUH! Her endorsements are also bothering with only two organizations endorsing her, the Harris County Black American Democrats, and Area 5 which is puzzling. Why? She claims the City Controller, Chris Hollins has endorsed her. I have not seen any proof of that, and if that is actually true it is very disturbing.

We have an opportunity to win back the House and hold this damn administration accountable. Changing effective leadership is not the way to do it. Traci should work her precinct during this election and maybe run again after November. The HCDP has agreed to hire a fundraiser. Maybe if Traci loses she should ask to use her fundraising skills for this position, learn the workings of the party, get some experience, and then run.

What the living f***?

Alex Mealer, formerly known as Alexandria Del Moral Mealer, is running for Texas Congressional District 9. She is pictured here dressed up like a cartel member. Like a tough guy. Macho. This pic is from her TV ad. She is running against State Representative “Little Baby” Briscoe Cain. Both of them are gun nuts. Both have little regard for those killed by gun violence including the 19 children killed in Uvalde. It is sickening but this is the republican shoot first, forget later, party.

Mealer ran against Lina Hidalgo back in 2022 and lost by a slim margin. Mattress MAGAt Mac spent millions trying to get her elected. After losing, as many republicans did she whined and sued. And lost. So now she is going to run as a cartel member. There are better candidates to vote for. Go do your own research.

Stupid. Petty.

Gdamnit. We have a must needed win coming up in November. It’s not an option. We have an out of control dictator wannabe and a republican Congress who lost their balls and won/t hold him accountable. We have to right the ship, take over the House, and keep this god awful mistake of a human being from doing more damage to the country yet the Harris County Democrats are wasting their time and energy on a petty resolution against Mayor Whitmire.

Now far be it from me to defend Whitmire. He has been a huge failure as Mayor. Many expected him to use his 50 years of influence to fix our budget and get our gdamn trash picked up on time. He has failed but I am not going to waste my time fighting over a resolution in the Party to guarantee he will never be endorsed by the very party that doesn’t endorse candidates. It was nothing more than a complete waste of time and we might have lost more than expected.

A small minority of the Precinct Chairs passed a resolution to stop the Party from endorsing Whitmire in future elections. FYI Whitmire’s performance and his age has guaranteed that will never happen. What the Chairs didn’t realize is the harm they might have done to us in November. All we got was a flood of bad press making us look like the Petty Party of Politics. Governor Hot Wheels Abbott is going to spend 20 million to take over Harris County. We need every gdamn vote we can get to get a new County Judge, Commissioners, and Congressional leaders.

To pass a petty resolution by the far left of the party may turn off those voters who are looking for adult leadership. Independent voters are the biggest idiots on the planet and will look to the tinniest, most insignificant, petty, excuse to vote for someone else, like “I just don’t like her” or “emails”. The last thing they will vote for is another Lina Hidalgo spewing pettiness and driving off even members of her own party. Voters have had enough of the cowardliness of the Republican Party and the pettiness of the Democrats.

They want grown ups to lead. As I have said in the past Hidalgo and Whitmire both need to grow up at least for the next year. Do us a huge favor and do your damn job, shut the hell up, and don’t give voters yet another reason to stay home.

Or pass another worthless resolution to strip me of my political power. That I don’t have.

Why are you running? Is a question Democrats are asking and getting no answers.

I mentioned earlier that a relatively newcomer to the Harris County Democratic Party has thrown her name into the hat for Chair. “Newcomer” is a bit generous. Traci Gibson is a young, educated, attorney but her lack of any other qualifications for the job is troubling. Troubling enough for a couple of precinct chairs to send out emails warning others about signing her petition to get on the ballot.

Gibson was recently appointed to be a precinct chair. She has no on the ground experience working her precinct except for getting the title. She has no experience working with the party or advocating for the party or candidates. She has a very troubling voting record, that is, she has none. She hasn’t voted in the last 3 Democratic primaries. She also has a tendency to snap at individuals who ask a very simple question “Why are you running?”. I should know. I was one she snapped at.

But don’t take it from me. Here are some comments from emails sent by various precinct chairs:

Gibson says she has the “strategies and skills” to make Democrats dominate the next HC election. Seriously, from someone who has zero documented experience in politics, recently changed her voter registration to Harris County and just became a precinct chair at the last CEC?

Ms. Gibson did not vote in the 2024 Democratic primary, OR the 2022 primary OR the 2020 primary. Please stop and think about that for a moment — while we Precinct Chairs were out there sweating and block-walking, making phone calls, handing out literature, holding candidate rallies and manning the polls, during three of the most important and stressful primaries in recent history, Ms. Gibson made a conscious decision not to vote as a Democrat.

We should also ask ourselves: Why is she running? {But please don’t ask her why she’s running. She’s blown up on a few people for simply asking this simple question} [told you!] And more importantly — who is behind her?  The speed and style of her campaign suggest that she has powerful backers. Some have speculated about outside influences. Regardless of who’s funding or guiding her, it’s clear that her run is highly coordinated. Her lack of disclosure about her true intentions during meetings with Precinct Chairs — many of whom were invited under the impression that the meetings were not campaign-related — is especially troubling.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand this is excessive.

Harris County Constables are asking for a pay raise from $178,000/year to $293,000, a 65% increase. It is almost double their salary from 2004. This is excessive for a number of reasons.

• There are 8 Constables each responsible for only 1/8 of the County
• The Sheriff who is responsible for the entire County earns $223,000
• The Constable is an administrator job. Even though they carry a gun, law enforcement is not in their job description. They don’t patrol. They don’t confront bad guys. They sit at a desk.
• The County is trying to balance their budget which has a $200 Million shortfall
• No one except for CEOs of insurance companies, gets a 65% increase in pay. Not you. Not me.

Every Constable including our own Phil Sandlin requested the raise. If you don’t know who Phil Sandlin is you are in good company. For $178,000 a year citizens in the community should at least know who you are and what you look like. County Commissioners agreed to the increase by a vote of 3-2. I’m not in favor of this. I think it is excessive and not deserving especially when we are running a deficit. The Houston Chronicle has details.

“The eight constables should take what the sheriff makes and divide it by eight,” said Murray Newman, a criminal defense attorney who’s voiced concerns surrounding the constables previously. “That’s what they deserve to be making. They are supplemental law enforcement, not the marquee players.”

Just an FYI. I have reached out to Traci and have not received a response.

According to the Texas Ethics Commission Traci Gibson has filed an appointment of treasurer for her run for Harris County Democratic Party chair. At a time when unity is needed anyone running for Chair has be questioned. I would like to know why she is running but she has refused to respond.

The current Chair has been in office for just a short time and there is absolutely no reason to challenge him especially by someone with little or no experience for the job. Mike Doyle, the current Chair, has served the party very well. According to an email circulating with the precinct chairs she is a new precinct chair with no voting record in the 2020, 2022, or 2024 Democratic primary and yet she now wants to lead the party. She hasn’t been in the field. She hasn’t been involved with county politics. With these qualifications she is not qualified to run.

I’m waiting for a response from her as well as finding out who is financially supporting and encouraging her to run.