Kim Ogg Bashes Rank & File Dems While Resisting Justified Admonishment By Party

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​Harris County Democrats has advanced the resolution to admonish Democratic Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.

At the bottom of this post are details from the resolution. 

(Above is picture I took a few weeks ago of DA Ogg oddly filming her primary opponent a few weeks ago.)     

The vote to advance the resolution came in a Zoom meeting of the Harris County Democratic Party Resolutions Committee. I watched the meeting on Zoom and spoke in favor of admonishing DA Ogg. I am not a member of the committee. The resolution now goes to the Steering Committee of the party. That meeting is Saturday, December 2.  If it passes out of the steering committee, it goes to a December meeting of Harris County Precinct Chairs scheduled for December 12th for a final vote.

Everybody involved in the Resolutions Committee meeting is a volunteer, rank and file member of the party. Committee members and precinct chairs are volunteers. In many cases these are people who have been giving volunteer time to the party for years.

Here is what DA Ogg said after last night's vote:

"A narrow vote of 11 to 9 resolution committee insiders does not represent the Democratic voters of Harris County. A few partisan extremists will never subvert the rights of voters in the upcoming March primary. I trust the people of Harris County to base their vote in the upcoming election on facts, not lies and misinformation propagated by my opponent and his supporters."

About what DA Ogg said-

* The committee members are not "insiders". They are volunteers. None of them signed up to be insulted by an elected official. Volunteers do so much of the work that elects these people. What a cheap shot by the bully Ogg to trash the people who sustain the party. 

* Ms. Ogg uses the term "partisan extremists." Of course the committee members are partisans of a kind. It was a Democratic party meeting. Ms. Ogg goes to Democratic Party meetings. What the members are not is extremist. They were regular rank & file Democrats of varying ideological views across the spectrum of the party.
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* Nobody is working to "subvert the rights of voters." DA Ogg will be on the primary ballot. You can go vote for her if you wish. Ms. Ogg here likens party volunteers to January 6th criminals trying to undo democracy.             
 
* DA Ogg says her Democratic Primary opponent was responsible for the committee vote. Not true. It's a real grassroots effort. Ms. Ogg can't seem to imagine principled conduct by good people. 

Harris County Precinct Chair Rebecca Shulka was quoted regarding the meeting in the Houston Chronicle. Here is what she said:  

"Precinct chairs and other committee members who donate countless hours, dollars, and other resources to help support the party by knocking doors, making phone calls and hosting meetings should be thanked for their hard work, not demonized by their elected officials and their staffers." 
       
The active rank and file sustains the party. It's not the role of elected officials to be anything other than respectful to the people who do the work. With democracy on the line in Texas and the nation, our elected officials must be strengthening relationships with involved citizens committed to democracy rather than calling them names.        

Some details of the resolution to admonish DA Ogg: 

In June 2022, in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Ogg noted that she would prosecute Gov. Greg Abbott’s abortion ban, the most extreme in the nation, “on a case by case basis.”  

Ogg has joined Republican officials in repeatedly making demonstrably false claims that Harris County democrats on Commissioners Court are “defunding law enforcement.” 

Ogg continues to oppose efforts by democrats to reform our broken criminal justice system by working to oppose efforts by democrats to fix the cash-bail system, intimidating public servants working to enact community and gun violence prevention programs, lobbying for republican legislation fueling mass incarceration that disproportionately impacts black and brown communities, and directly attacking elected democratic judges advocating for fairness to our criminal justice system.   

In November of 2022, at the behest of State and local republican Officials, Ogg initiated a partisan criminal investigation against local election workers - an investigation premised on debunked conspiracy theories, lies, and unproven innuendo.  Ogg also pursued a criminal investigation against Hervis Rogers for voting in the March 2020 primary. Rogers is a 64-year old black man who was already arrested and prosecuted by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a politically motivated investigation designed to add credence to “the big lie.”

In August of 2023, Ogg broke a major campaign promise to support decriminalizing low-level drug offenses, which disproportionately impact people of color, by reversing her own policy. 

The Houston Democracy Project works daily to inspire, organize and strengthen pro-democracy coalitions in Houston and Harris County. The Project will continue through 2024 at the least. 

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].​

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