Election reflections

Evaluating Emmett

Regarding “Hidalgo earned the privilege to serve as Harris County judge” (City/State page, Sunday): I continue to marvel at your paper’s sycophancy to Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. It is especially ironic to hear about his “leadership” on flood control.

He was a total zero on flood control for the first 10 years of his tenure (despite all the floods during that time) until Hurricane Harvey, and then became a latestage convert masquerading as a farsighted leader.

Second, instead of working on flood control, he worked much harder to overturn the referendum decision not to spend money on an Astrodome renovation and proposed a stealth plan projected to cost a minimum of $105 million just to add parking places there.

Finally, and this is important, he continued to resist United States District Judge Lee Rosenthal’s rulings that Harris County’s bail system violated people’s constitutional rights.

It’s a system that benefited only the bondsmen and the recipients of their political contributions.

If Lee Rosenthal says it’s unconstitutional, then guess what? It’s unconstitutional, but Emmett and three other Republicans on Commissioners Court kept wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money on appeals. Hopefully, with a 3-2 Democratic majority on the court , we’ll see a change.

Emmett may have lost for the wrong reasons, but he deserved to be relieved of office. Lee L. Kaplan, Houston