The Houston Chronicle Shocker Endorses Alexandra Mealer Over Lina Hidalgo

 

Our gravest concerns, though, involve Hidalgo’s failure to respond with urgency to Harris County’s crime wave. In a county where more than two-thirds of likely voters list public safety as the most important issue in this race, it weighed heavily on our decision.

Even for those of us whose neighborhoods aren’t aglow in flashing police lights, the seemingly infinite ticker tape of suspect mug shots on the 10 o’clock news has us looking over our shoulders and praying that the next road rage incident won’t target our families.

While Harris County is far from the most dangerous place in the country, as Republican hyperbole would have it, it has seen a surge in violent crime and particularly in homicides, which totaled 632 last year. The county jail is in crisis, overflowing with more than 10,000 inmates, with frequent spasms of violence, reported deaths, rapes and other assaults leaving inmates and jail staff alike fearing for their lives.

Mercifully, violent crime is currently declining and even at its peak, criminologists ranked Houston’s murder rate in the middle of the pack among major cities. Last year’s rate in unincorporated Harris County stayed flat at about 5 killings per 100,000 people.

Statistics, of course, mean little to those such as Paul Castro, a middle school principal who was thrust into the spotlight and into the role of criminal justice watchdog after his son David, a 17-year-old National Merit Scholar and Altuve devotee, was gunned down by a repeat violent offender during a road rage incident on their way home from an Astros game.

Castro, who calls himself a “cast-in-the-wool Democrat,” says he made the tough decision to split his ticket this year, voting against Republicans on the state level and against Hidalgo locally, largely due to her insufficient action on crime.

“We need solutions, not platitudes right now. I don’t see Hidalgo working with the community to resolve that problem,” Castro told the editorial board this week. “I don’t think she’s a bad person. I just don’t think she deserves to be a leader in this position in 2022.”

He says Mealer invited him for coffee before the primary and she seemed earnest but his decision to endorse her came only recently, when Hidalgo and her staff failed to follow-up as promised after an in-person meeting more than a month ago.

“People took notes, wrote things down in their fancy notebooks, but no one ever followed up. Not an email, not a phone call. Nothing,” he said. “I think part of it is they don’t have an answer.”

We concur with Castro’s biggest criticism of Hidalgo’s record on crime: she hasn’t prioritized clearing the courthouse backlog dating back to Harvey, which is the single biggest threat to public safety because it delays trials — and justice — sometimes for years in thousands of cases, including those involving repeat violent offenders, who often remain free while their cases slog through the system. Even strong cases become harder to prosecute as evidence ages and memories fade.

Hidalgo didn’t cause the backlog, which was exacerbated by the pandemic. Her title is “judge” but she has no control over courtroom decisions on bail that have made headlines. She certainly isn’t to blame for the provision in the Texas Constitution that guarantees virtually every defendant, even those with violent criminal records, an initial right to bail. This board believes pre-trial detention decisions should be based on a defendant’s risk to the community, not on ability to pay cash bail, but only state lawmakers could initiate that kind of reform — not Hidalgo. As the county’s executive, her power rests in her control of county purse strings.

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Commentary-  The Houston Chronicle may be seeing the handwriting on the wall and is trying to salvage what is left of its tattered reputation.  The Houston Chronicle deserves much "credit" or blame for the debacle that has unfolded in Harris County, Texas.  Never forget that.