Here’swhywe still endorse candidates
These are trying times for all Americans. How this country proceeds on local, state and national levels will be determined by only one group of people: the voters who cast their ballots this fall.
Starting Tuesday, when early voting begins statewide, Texans who take the time to fulfill their civic duty will face tough decisions — this time, without the straight-ticket option. We on the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board are here to help busy voters make informed choices in races up and down the ballot.
For weeks, our team of experienced opinion journalists has been doing our homework on the candidates, researching their records, conducting background checks and asking them the hard questions that test challengers and hold incumbents accountable.
Our picks, and our process, always prompt questions. A few words about our philosophy and our approach this election season:
If newspapers are objective, why do you recommend candidates? Newspapers don’t endorse candidates. Editorial boards do. The editorial board is separate from the newsroom. It is made up of opinion journalists with wide-ranging expertise whose consensus opinions and recommendations represent the voice of the institution — defined as the board members, their editor and the publisher. We do it as a service to our readers and to our democracy, which cannot flourish without an informed citizenry. For many busy people, researching each candidate isn’t possible. Rather than turn to partisan slates, some with pay-to-play motivations, we offer an alternative: informed candidate recommendations from nonpartisan journalists informed by facts.
Which races are included in our recommendations? Every contested statewide race, from chief justice and other top benches to railroad commissioner. Every state House and Senate race that will appear on a ballot in Harris County. On the federal level, president and U.S. Senate, and in every congressional district that includes part of Harris County. Locally, we’ll cover Harris County sheriff, district attorney, county commissioner, tax-assessor collector, county attorney and our local seat on the state board of education. In addition to nearly 20 state district judge races, we’ll also recommend candidates for Harris County Community College district.
Any races we’re skipping? Yes. To protect quality, we’ve had to reduce quantity — but only a little. We won’t recommend candidates for county courts of law or justices of the peace. As a rule, we don’t endorse in uncontested races or those without viable challengers.
What’s our process? General elections always involve hundreds of hours of screening, writing and editing to ensure trustworthy recommendations that readers can access readily and even take to the polls. The pandemic has forced a few changes. For congressional and local top races, we conducted Zoom interviews with all who accepted our invitations. For many other races, we’ve conducted one- on- one interviews. In most races, lead writers for each research, conduct outside interviews and background candidates before making recommendations to the full board, which reaches a consensus.
Consensus isn’t always easy, especially when parties have failed to draw qualified candidates. Still, voters must vote, so we feel we must decide. When recommending someone we have reservations about, we’ll explain why to readers.
Sometimes, an extra level of focus and expertise is needed to make the right call. As in past years, we’ve enlisted the help of retired longtime journalists in the 20 local judicial races. Mary Flood and Jeff Franks research and do background on candidates and then make recommendations for the board to consider.
Do we endorse only candidates who agree with us? No. While we look favorably upon candidates whose values mirror our basic commitments to responsible spending, economic growth, strong public schools, improving health and protecting the environment, we often endorse candidates who don’t share our opinions on more contentious issues. To better serve voters in a diverse array of districts, we prioritize broader expectations of elected leaders: experience, willingness to work across the aisle, knowledge of issues, strong sense of ethics, fit with the district and general viability of the candidacy. For judges, fairness, competence and temperament are also strong considerations and, at times, the ideological diversity of the court as a whole. We give weight to incumbency, especially if it means seniority benefiting constituents, but we also scrutinize incumbents’ records.
Whether readers agree with our ultimate choices or not, we hope the facts, observations and analysis in each written editorial recommendation serves as a helpful tool in voters’ own research and decisionmaking.
As always, feel free to tell us when you think we get it right — and wrong! — with a letter: https://houstonchronicle.com/
opinion/submit/