Harris County Constables Well-Placed To Carry Out Trump's 2nd Term Agenda

The Houston Chronicle is running an important four-part series about the role of Constables in Harris County. 

The story is behind a paywall-journalists need to be paid-but here is some of what it says:

All together, the eight independently elected constables added deputies at twice the rate of the sheriff over the last decade, growing their budgets by 70%. They now deploy nearly 850 contract deputies, plus dozens of general patrol deputies, and collect $236 million a year in funding. The sheriff’s crime-fighting division gets $293 million. Constables’ contract patrols alone bring in roughly $74 million a year in neighborhood fees, plus $24 million more in county subsidies....But deputy constables rarely fight serious crime, a Chronicle analysis of data produced by 7 of the 8 agencies shows; Precinct 6 Constable Silvia Trevino and her staff have yet to release data requested by the Chronicle under the Texas Public Information five months ago.Over the past five years, the constables handled 70% fewer calls related to major violent and property crimes such as assault, domestic violence, theft and burglary than the sheriff.....Violent crimes like murder, assault, domestic violence and shootings made up one percent or less of each of the eight constable precincts’ calls over the last fiscal year. Meanwhile, each precinct logged thousands of check-in and “meet the citizen” visits with residents and local businesses. The precincts spent 80 to 85 percent of their time dealing with non-criminal calls like those and making traffic stops.

I encourage folks to read the series. One thing that occurs to me is that these Constables are ready-made to execute Trump's planned migrant round-ups and migrant camps & also to implement Trump's use of the Insurrection Act and other openly-planned attacks on civil liberties.

The attacks on our freedom will require a large local infrastructure to carry out. Three of the eight elected Constables are Republicans. I've not heard any of them dispute Trump's talk of immigrants as "vermin" or his talk of "bloodbaths." We also know that local law enforcement unions often support election-deniers and insurrectionists. And there is no reason to trust that elected Democratic Constables will stand up to anybody. 

There is no reason for anyone to not understand the goals of the political right at this point. Over-resourced, under-tasked and unaccountable, Harris County Constables are perfect partners for Trump and crew.     
​    
Please sign the Houston Democracy Project petition to make the pledge to show up for freedom in 2024 no matter what.

The Houston Democracy Project works daily to inspire, organize and strengthen pro-democracy coalitions in Houston and Harris County.  

Please share word of the Houston Democracy Project and support the effort with your contribution. If you have a question about the Project or a suggestion, please send an e-mail to [email protected] ​

please CONTRIBUTE