The 2022 Election: Overview - Part One of Three

Definitely, my least favorite part of this blog has become the expectation that I do a write-up on the candidates when election time comes around.  Y'all have no idea how much it stresses me out!  The reason it stresses me out is that in the vast majority of the races, I have two friends running against each other.  Usually, those friends are great people and usually, those friends are both very qualified for the office that they seek.  That's a no-win situation for me to write about and that is usually compounded when I don't make a clear choice and get called out for wimping out.  To paraphrase the late, great Ben Parker, with great blogging comes great responsibility, unfortunately.

While I will reluctantly acknowledge that I sometimes "wimp out" on making a clear choice between two people that I consider to be friends that are qualified for the Bench, I do want to make it clear that I am completely honest about a person's ability to be an elected official even if they are a friend.  That situation hasn't come up often in the fourteen years that I've been running this blog, but it has happened.  On more than one occasion, I've lost a friend for being honest about my thoughts on him or her as a candidate.

I've also been clear when I've supported who I thought was the better candidate, even though I knew they didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning.  Over the years, I've been treated with varying degrees of warmth by the candidates who ultimately prevailed despite my endorsement of their opponents.   

I write all of this to say to my critics who get mad when they feel that I didn't say enough about one race or the other:  it isn't always pleasant, and I will be more than happy to give you a free tutorial on running your own blog if you would like to share a different message than mine.  If Don Hooper can do it, so can you!

So, moving on . . . 

I broke these write-ups into three parts.  This overview, the District Court Races (and District Clerk), and the County Court Races.  Otherwise, it would be too damn long.

I wanted to do an overview this year because I wanted to point out (yet again) how much misinformation there has been this year about the Criminal Justice System, and how much it bothers me.  I have watched some very honest, brave, and good judges get blasted time and again in the media for doing the jobs that they were sworn to do.  I've seen insanely irresponsible reporting lead to death threats against judges for following the law.  I've seen them take more blame for murders than the people who actually committed them.  The vilification has been off the charts, and completely and totally undeserved.

I recently did something unusual by having a sit-down lunch with someone I had been arguing with on Twitter about these issues.  It was a strange set of circumstances that led up to the lunch.  A blowhard who calls himself "Common Sense Bob" on Twitter had initiated the idea by threatening to show up at my office with some "friends," and I countered by telling him I would provide food.  Unsurprisingly, the Bob didn't show up, but one of the other people did and we had lunch to discuss the criminal justice system.

I think it is a testament to what a toxic environment Twitter is because I actually enjoyed the lunch quite a bit.  We fought like children on Twitter but had a great talk in person.  We talked for about thirty minutes about things we had in common before we moved on to criminal justice.  We listened politely to each other's thoughts on the system.  Her experiences as a victim of crime understandably influenced her thoughts in a way that made perfect sense.  She agreed with me that I thought the judges were getting all the blame while the District Attorney's Office wasn't being held accountable for their part in the rise of crime.   We disagreed on bond reform, but the conversation was cordial and I know that I was glad we had had it.  I don't know that it changed my position on anything, but it added to my perspective on many things (including how double-parking as a public official should be considered political suicide).

So here are some of the takeaways that I wanted to point out before talking about the judges themselves:

1.  The Relationship between County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Criminal Court Judges ends at Party Affiliation.  Love her or hate her, Lina Hidalgo's title of judge does not affiliate her with actual presiding judges in criminal courtrooms.  They are all Democrats and that's where the similarities end.

I've got no problem with Judge Hidalgo and as someone with inside knowledge about her staff being indicted, I can tell you that those charges are utter horsecrap.  There is a difference between doing something that is bad optics and something that is illegal.  Hidalgo may have stepped in some crap on optics, but she didn't break the law.  Neither did her staffers, and it turns my stomach to see them being paraded around on political commercials as evidence of corruption.  

That being said, I'm nowhere near as invested in the Hidalgo/Mealer contest as I am in the Criminal Court Judges race.  If you want to hate on Hidalgo, knock yourself out, but that shouldn't reflect on your choices for the other judges.  They have completely unrelated jobs.  If you think that Hidalgo is "defunding the police" as brainiacs like Kim Ogg and Mark Herman would have you believe, you are wrong, but even if you were right, that shouldn't reflect on the Criminal Court Judges.  That association would be like deciding you hate Whataburger because you once got food poisoning at McDonald's.  

2.  The Rise in Violent Crime is a Nationwide Trend and Houston is no different than other major cities around the country.  It would be comical if it weren't so sad that so many people tend to think that Houston is the only city in the country or world experiencing a rise in violent crime.  The pandemic has led to joblessness, poverty, housing crisis for low-income families, depression, and desperation. These are the pillars of a rise in crime - violent and non-violent alike.  The Republican Party of Harris County has done a spectacular job of somehow juxtaposing a worldwide epidemic with the local Democrats when it comes to blameshifting.  Really, the job they have done has been quite stunning.  I'm sure that you have all seen the signs in front yards that say "Tired of Crime?  Vote Republican."  As if there was no crime in the decades when Harris County was a solidly Republican county.

3.  Misdemeanor charges are not usually predictors of future violence.  One of the most eye-rolling things that I see on the news is when there is a murder arrest and they point out that the accused perpetrator was out on multiple misdemeanor (or even non-violent felony) bonds, as if the misdemeanor judges should have some Nostradamus-like wisdom about what a person with a theft charge is going to do if released upon society.  I do acknowledge that misdemeanor Assault-Family Violence cases are an exception to this, but they are still misdemeanors.  They can have all kinds of conditions that prohibit the Defendant from contacting the Complainant, but they aren't going to be held at No Bond.  If Republican judges do end up sweeping, don't expect that to change.

4.  Judges are not supposed to be an arm of the Prosecution.  I have plenty of friends running for judge as Republicans this go-round and they all seem to have jumped on this bandwagon idea that the Republican Party is selling about judges being responsible for stopping crime.   That makes for a strong and effective campaign message and all, but it is absolutely contrary to what a judge is supposed to do in his or her job description.  Judges are there to call balls and strikes like an umpire in a baseball game.  They aren't there to try to help push one side over the other.  Any judicial candidate that is embracing the idea that it is their job to "stop crime" is basically casting aside their neutrality in advance, and that's troubling to those who like our judges fair and neutral.

5.  The Republican Crime Message has absolutely been Effective.  Although I absolutely disagree and detest the message being sent out that a rise in crime is somehow the fault of Democratic judges, there is no denying that the message has been an effective one.  Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg (who is noticeably not on the ballot this term) has spent thousands and thousands of dollars pumping money into CrimeStoppers so that her friend Andy Kahan could get out the message that a rise in crime isn't the fault of a weak D.A.'s Office, but the fault of judges.   I mean, gosh, if even a Democrat like Kim Ogg is saying that other Democrats are not safe for Harris County, then it must be true, right?  Mattress Mack is helping pay for commercials during every Astros playoff game and those commercials alternate between talking about how CrimeStopppers needs more money because Harris County is so unsafe and then accusing Lina Hidalgo of being a criminal. 

The Republican message is out there loudly and effectively and the local Democratic Party's response has paled in comparison.  The non-Presidential election years have historically been good for Republicans (with the exception of 2018 when the Beto vs. Cruz race brought the Dems to the polls in droves), and I expect that the margins will be far tighter this year.  I honestly have no prediction on how this year will turn out.  Nothing would surprise me.

Whatever your preferences are this election season, please make sure to vote.  Make sure to tell your friends and family your thoughts on the Criminal Justice System and the candidates on the ballot.  Tell them to get out there and vote, too.