Emmett fears blue wave could sweep in bold newcomer
Latina says she will bring more effective leadership, new ideas
First-time candidate Lina Hidalgo hopes Harris County voters frustrated with what she says is poor leadership on flood control and criminal justice reform will help her defeat longtime County Judge Ed Emmett.
Hidalgo, 27, is the Democratic nominee for the county’s top executive position. She is one of a record number of Hispanic candidates in Harris County this year, and would be the first woman and Latina county judge. Democrats are betting high turnout among their voters, which helped defeat a Republican sheriff and district attorney in 2016, will overcome Emmett’s broad popularity with residents.
“What I have is the moral compass to ensure we are putting the community’s interests ahead of the next election,” Hidalgo said in an interview at her Galleria campaign headquarters.
Even in a year where Democrats are motivated by
a viable Senate candidate and united in anger against an unpopular president, Hidalgo faces a tough task. She is running against possibly the most popular local figure who did not win the World Series last year. Though Emmett has more experience, is far more well known and has raised more money than Hidalgo, election researchers say she has a path to victory if too many Democrats forget to vote for him.
Hidalgo’s background is similar to those of the one-quarter of Harris County residents who are immigrants. She was born in Colombia in 1991, during that country’s war with drug cartels, and moved with her parents and younger brother first to Mexico, and then to Houston in 2005. She graduated from Seven Lakes High School in Katy ISD in 2009, and earned a political science degree from Stanford University four years later.
She enrolled in 2015 in a joint master’s program at Harvard University and law program at New York University. As part of her studies she has interned with the public defender’s office in New Orleans and an inmate mental health project in New York City. Back in Houston, she spent two summers at Ben Taub Hospital translating for Spanish-speaking patients.
‘This incredible force’
Putsata Reang, her supervisor during a research project in Thailand studying free speech rights in Southeast Asian countries, described her as a hard worker eager to take initiative.
“She’s like this incredible force where we were getting 10 employees out of one because of the sheer workload she could handle,” Reang said.
Hidalgo said she has witnessed the toll ineffective or corrupt governments inflict on their citizens, from Colombia’s battles with organized crime and leftist guerillas, Mexico under one-party rule during her childhood and Egypt during the Arab Spring, where she spent time as an undergraduate. Pursuing a career advocating for often-underserved communities, whom she describes as people “on the losing side of the system,” would give her an opportunity to apply what she learned.
Hidalgo said she had planned to use her front-line experience working in health care and criminal justice to improve local government from the outside. The election of Donald Trump as president two years ago changed her mind. Suddenly, she saw access to health care under siege and hardline immigration policies gaining momentum. The response of Harris County officials, she said, was inadequate.
“I saw local government of such a powerful county, of such a powerful state, failing to stand up to policies I knew were dangerous,” Hidalgo said. “So, I decided this is what I needed to do.”
She put her graduate studies on hold and returned from Massachusetts to Texas last summer, in search of the right office to seek. Hidalgo decided on county judge, in part because she was dismayed by what she describes as the county’s timid approach to flood control. She recalled huddling in her family’s home during Hurricane Ike in 2008. In the nine years between that storm and Harvey in 2017, which included the Memorial Day Flood in 2015 and Tax Day Flood the following year, she wondered why the flood control district had not done more to protect residents.
Her criticisms on this issue and others — including criminal justice reform, access to mental health care and public transit — orbit a central theme: Harris County needs a bold leader willing to pursue new ideas, she argues, and Ed Emmett is not that leader.
“We saw what 40 years of politics does,” she said of her opponent. “(We have) someone who couldn’t figure out we needed flood control until it became an international crisis.”
She calls the incumbent a leader who “only shows up when there’s a flood,” whom residents cannot count on. Hidalgo supported the county’s $2.5 billion flood bond proposal but accused Emmett of scheduling the low-turnout election in August to buoy his re-election campaign by boosting his name ID. The only reason county officials had a series of public meetings ahead of the bond vote, she said, was because Harvey had a body count.
Hidalgo said she would be more effective securing funding for flood projects from the state and federal governments. So far, Gov. Greg Abbott and the Legislature have resisted Emmett’s calls to tap the state’s rainy day fund for Harvey recovery. Hidalgo said she would be a tougher negotiator with Austin than Emmett, a former state legislator.
“What we have is someone who has not been successful, so we know what his track record is,” she said.
Echoing Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, the lone Democrat on Commissioners Court, Hidalgo said the county already should have settled a lawsuit brought by poor defendants who argue the county’s cash bail system is unconstitutional. Federal judges have agreed. Emmett says he supports settling the case, which Harris County has spent more than $6 million defending, but the two sides have yet to negotiate an agreement.
Tough campaigner
Hidalgo is an engaging campaigner. At a September candidate forum in Near Northside, she articulated how the county has much room to improve on flood control, criminal justice and public transportation, drawing applause from some in the audience. She is a fresh face who surely could upset the dynamics of the all-male Commissioners Court, whose biweekly morning meetings on the ninth floor of the downtown county administration building strike some residents as too chummy.
Harris County Democratic Party Chairwoman Lillie Schecter said voters should select Hidalgo so she can smash the “good old boys” system she said dominates county government.
“It’s incredibly exciting to have a young Latina who has real life experience,” Schecter said.
The Democrats also are asking voters to look past Hidalgo’s flaws: They have nominated to run the third-largest county in the United States a candidate who lacks management experience, who has lived here sporadically as an adult and who never before sought public office or even attended a meeting of Commissioners Court, the body she assures voters she is ready to lead.
Hidalgo held her own against Emmett when the pair sparred for more than an hour during a meeting with the Chronicle editorial board in September — a feat in itself, considering Hidalgo was in the room in part because more experienced Democrats were uninterested in running.
Emmett sought from the start to expose the limits of Hidalgo’s knowledge of county government. He challenged her to name the county auditor (she couldn’t). She said the flood control district should have online maps where residents can see if they live in a flood plain (it does).
With financial support from her family, Hidalgo has been able to devote herself full time to the campaign. She hired Juany Torres, a San Antonio native and her roommate at Stanford, as campaign manager. Together, the pair have pitched donors and organized volunteer events, including the alliteratively titled Monday phone bank Lunes del Latinas para Lina.
Hidalgo said Hispanic families see her as a source of inspiration in a county where they are underrepresented at nearly all levels of government.
“They want me to meet their children,” Hidalgo said. “They say, ‘I want them to see that this is possible.’ ”
Through the first six months of this year, Hidalgo raised $183,000, less than a third of Emmett’s haul. Fifty-eight percent of her donations came from out of state, including big checks from actors she met at a Los Angeles fundraiser in May. Reese Witherspoon gave $2,700; Charlize Theron, $1,333; and Jennifer Garner, $1,000.
Far from being a liability in the eyes of Harris County voters, Hidalgo said the out-of-state donations show that Americans across the country recognize the Houston area as a large metropolis and economic hub.
“We’re putting Harris County as a national area,” Hidalgo said, adding she hopes to increase the county’s profile while in office.