Last People To Listen To On Judicial Endorsements Are Police Unions

Here are Houston Democracy Project Blog Notes & Observations for October 23rd. Election Day is in 13 days on November 5th & Early Voting is ongoing and ends November 1st.

* The Harris County Deputies Organization hosted a press conference today endorsing Republican candidates for the 1st and 14th Appellate judicial seats. The 1st and 14th Appellate Courts are a big deal covering a 10 county area including Harris County.  Here is an account of what these courts do.  

From The Texan: (The Texan is a right wing news source. Most of the article is behind a paywall.)  

"Several elected law enforcement officials and representatives from area unions gathered at a press conference Tuesday to draw attention to a slew of down-ballot judicial races they say have an outsized impact on public safety and criminal justice. ....“This is an unprecedented endorsement from our organizations for these benches, but we are in unprecedented times,” said Jose Lopez, President of the Harris County Deputies Organization..."

A good way know how to vote is to choose the opposite of what law enforcement "unions" suggest.  (Police unions are not labor unions.) 

Police unions have been fine with supporting candidates promising authoritarianism and mass deportations. With democracy on the line, police unions have been on the wrong side of that line. 

Here are the Democrats running for the 1st and 14th appellate courts. There are ten total.   ​

And don't forget the Houston firefighters union had a role in making sure the international firefighters did not endorse Vice President Harris. ​

Public safety unions are political organizations first of all. So long as they have a conception of public safety that does not include democracy, the last thing you should listen to them on is any matter justice or the law.  
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* The Houston Chronicle reports that Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett has not swiped her access card to work at the county since 2020.

From The Chronicle:

​"The elected official in charge of Harris County’s voter registration and tax collection appears to have been absent from her office for years, last swiping her ID to enter the county building in late 2020, county records show....First sworn into office in 2017, Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett is tasked with a wide array of duties that affect nearly every Harris County resident, from collecting billions of dollars in property taxes to processing millions of vehicle registrations and title transfers every year. As the county’s voter registrar, she also oversees voter registration and maintains records for over 2.5 million voters."

It's just difficult to understand why nobody said anything. I hope Ms. Bennett is well. But she signed up to serve as the head of voter registration for this giant county as democracy is under attack. Other Democratic elected officials knew. They should have spoken up.      
 
* I'll be on the Egberto Willies Politics Done Right Show tomorrow, 10/24. I'm on the show with Egberto each Thursday from 6 AM to 7 AM for the Houston Democracy Project segment. You can hear the show on the radio, stream it on KPFT or watch later on Egberto's YouTube channel.​​

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