Brown looking to defend controller position
It has attracted far less attention than the rowdy mayoral race, but the contest for the city’s second-highest office has intensified in recent weeks as Controller Chris Brown — the independently elected financial watchdog — finds himself battling to keep his seat against a familiar name on the ballot.
Orlando Sanchez, a former city councilman, mayoral candidate and Harris County treasurer, filed to challenge Brown in August with an hour to spare before the Aug. 19 deadline. He has pledged to conduct more audits and make the controller’s office more transparent. And, Sanchez alleges, Brown is too closely aligned with Mayor Sylvester Turner to serve as a check on his power.
“While it’s nice to have a cordial relationship with the mayor, I don’t think you need to act as an employee of the mayor,” said Sanchez, 61. “You are independently and in a sovereignly elected position that should answer all and any questions that the community has — the business community, the mayor’s office, the City Council.”
Brown, who served as deputy controller before his election in 2015, scoffed at Sanchez’s critiques. The controller’s office has conducted 39 audits during his
tenure and prizes large-scale audits instead of smaller, more frequent ones, Brown said, adding that he has striven to distance himself from Turner on such issues as the mayor’s push to sidestep the voter-imposed revenue cap after Hurricane Harvey and his changing cost estimates for Proposition B, the voter-approved measure to link firefighters’ pay to that of similarly ranked police officers.
“I work for the taxpayer,” said Brown, 44. “If you look at my record over the last four years, whether that’s auditing, whether that’s going to the mat when the administration tried to raise taxes on taxpayers after Harvey, I went to the mat, I fought for the taxpayer and I won. From that standpoint, it’s vitally important for the controller to be independent.”
Though the Houston controller lacks policymaking power, the office’s role includes managing the city’s investments and debt, and conducting audits and performance reviews of city departments.
The position traditionally has served as a springboard for higher office and at times even a bully pulpit for the controller to criticize the mayor’s policies. Brown has established a less antagonistic relationship with Turner than some prior controllers, due in part to the city’s landmark pension reforms passed in 2017, which Brown said required collaboration between his office and the administration.
“If we are going to solve largescale financial problems and challenges at the city of Houston, it’s going to take everyone,” Brown said. “I think the best example of that is the Houston pension solution. … Everyone got together and collaboratively worked to push an agenda that’s vitally important. I do think it’s important to have good relations because you have to sometimes move these large-scale reform packages, and you cannot do it in a vacuum, you cannot do it alone.”
Threatening to upend the race is the recent revelation that Brown did not disclose to City Council his 25 percent ownership stake in a piece of property in East Downtown purchased by a developer, who used a low-interest loan approved by the council last year. The loan item was partly supported by a city affordable
housing fund audited by the controller’s office in 2017.
Though Brown did not tell City Council about his stake in the property, which is being used for an affordable housing community, the controller did obtain an opinion from the legal department, which concluded that Brown did not have inside information about the housing department’s decision-making process or “exercise any discretion in the City’s decision to award federal grant funds” for the project.
Brown also filed an affidavit with the Harris County Clerk’s Office shortly before the council vote stating his interest in the property.
Still, Sanchez said, Brown should have informed council members about the deal, which first was reported by Fox 26. Earlier this week, Sanchez also called for a charter amendment to make the city attorney an elected position in light of the legal department’s opinion.
“It is clear that the people need an attorney down at City Hall working in their best interest, not the mayor’s and city controller’s,” Sanchez said in a statement. “To get a rubber-stamp approval from administration insiders only adds to the distrust voters have in our leaders.”
Brown said he was charged with selling the property as the executor for his father, who held the majority interest in the property before he died in 2017.
“I appreciate his attempt to try and disparage me about this,” Brown said of Sanchez. “But I can assure you I filed all of the proper disclosures.”
With the start of early voting looming, the land deal issue is the starkest example of what has become an increasingly bitter race. During a recent meeting with the Chronicle editorial board, Brown noted that Sanchez has received multiple campaign finance violations from the Texas Ethics Commission and that he recently filed a city report that showed him with more campaign spending and cash on hand than the amount of money he raised.
Asked about the apparent disparity, Sanchez’s campaign said he transferred a portion of leftover funds from his county treasurer’s campaign account.
The race also has broken down along sharply partisan lines, despite both candidates’ insistence that the office should remain nonpartisan. Conservative support has coalesced behind Sanchez, a Republican who has raised about $45,000, with contributions from Republican congressional candidate
Kathaleen Wall and state Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston. Democratic officials — including former city controllers Sylvia Garcia and Annise Parker — are lining up behind Brown, who last month endorsed Julián Castro for president. He had $274,000 cash on hand at last count, compared to Sanchez’s $24,000 war chest.
Sanchez could receive an electoral boost because people know his name from prior runs and because of his Latino roots, said Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University. Sanchez’s familiarity also could work against him, however, because people generally know he is a Republican and the Houston electorate has become solidly Democratic, Stein said.
Also, Stein said, Sanchez’s fundraising deficit creates an uphill climb against Brown, who began campaigning months before Sanchez got into the race.
Stein speculated Brown hit the campaign trail early because he wanted to fend off future mayoral hopefuls who would want to deny Brown the controller’s seat if he appeared vulnerable. If Brown wins re-election this year, Stein posited, he will be well-positioned to run for mayor in 2023.
Brown said he is focused for now on winning re-election.
“Once I do that, I tell everyone, ‘If I stay in politics, you have to ask my wife,’ ” he said. “I don’t know if she’s supportive at this point. I very much enjoy being in the controller’s office. We’ll see what the future holds.”
“If you look at my record over the last four years, whether that’s auditing, whether that’s going to the mat when the administration tried to raise taxes on taxpayers after Harvey, I went to the mat, I fought for the taxpayer and I won.”
Chris Brown, incumbent controller
“It is clear that the people need an attorney down at City Hall working in their best interest, not the mayor’s and city controller’s. To get a rubber-stamp approval from administration insiders only adds to the distrust voters have in our leaders.”
Orlando Sanchez, challenger