Runoff foes in At-Large 3 are opposites in persona

Note: This is the 10th in a series of stories about Houston City Council runoff elections.

In the race for the third of Houston’s five citywide council seats, voters have a choice between candidates opposite in age, temperament, and, often, policy positions.

At-Large 3 incumbent Michael Kubosh is a bombastic 68-year-old bail bondsman. Seeking to deny him a third term is Janaeya Carmouche, 37, an even-keeled former nonprofit and government employee who most recently worked for Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis.

Kubosh relishes being a contrarian voice on the council, deploying thundering speeches, parliamentary delays or “no” votes when he sees fit.

“It’s not in my DNA to go along to get along,” Kubosh said. “You need me on council so I’ll speak up when I see wrong. If everybody just votes with the mayor, then why in the hell do we have a council?”

Carmouche is a self-proclaimed introvert with a “wonkish” bent who says community service works best out of the spotlight. She chose to challenge Kubosh

rather than seek an open seat partly because she said he grandstands but produces little for Houstonians.

“He’s great at marketing, and I think we’ve given him a lot of credit for being politically savvy,” Carmouche said. “He is the Wizard of Oz: Pull back that curtain and it’s just a guy pulling knobs. We need to have sensible, thoughtful and critical-thinking folks around the table. This is a job of service.”

Kubosh said his top accomplishment on council has been securing $360,000 in city funds to help Harris County remove

an estimated 70 submerged cars from area bayous in 2016 and 2017.

Kubosh said he also has urged Mayor Sylvester Turner to help solar companies put panels on polluted tracts of land and said he shares Turner’s goal of bringing an amusement park to Houston. He acknowledged Houston’s strong-mayor system does not empower him to complete these plans solo, but said, “we can encourage the mayor to push those things and not vote against it when it comes up.”

Carmouche said her priorities include increasing wages for the lowest-paid city employees, expanding early education programs through grants or other revenues, combating human trafficking and reducing homelessness. She also wants to ensure the success of the METRONext transit plan voters adopted earlier this month to ease traffic congestion and says contruction contract should be split into smaller segments to let more small and minority-owned firms become prime contractors.

Carmouche said her work in three city council offices from 2006 through 2010 taught her that Houston’s tight budget requires creativity. “We have to find new ways to approach this work,” she said.

Equal rights ordinance

Carmouche also said the council should pass an equal rights ordinance to replace the nondiscrimination measure voters overturned four years ago.

The issue has been a flashpoint in the campaign, given that Kubosh voted against the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance before voters rejected it, and has

The At-Large 3 City Council runoff contest has developed a partisan split.

criticized the Drag Queen Storytime program — drag queens reading books to children at city libraries — as “adult entertainment.” The program stopped last spring after a participant was found to be a registered sex offender.

The Houston GLBT Political caucus, which backs Carmouche, has launched a website attacking Kubosh for being “beholden to bigots.” The ordinance’s opponents seized on its provision allowing people to use the restroom in keeping with their gender identity, making “No men in women’s restrooms” their campaign slogan.

Carmouche accuses Kubosh of “conflating predatory behavior with the transgender community” and — citing an incident in which an armed protester was arrested at a storytime event — says he “incited violence” by stirring controversy over Drag Queen Storytime.

Kubosh said he was concerned not about transgender residents but about whether predatory men would feel emboldened to enter women’s restrooms as a result of HERO. The measure’s supporters noted that sexual assault would remain illegal and that there was no evidence such attacks increased in any jurisdiction that adopted a similar ordinance.

As for the idea his rhetoric stoked protests at Drag Queen Storytime, Kubosh said he “never orchestrated any of that, never attended it, never went.”

“I’ve got the far left hating me calling me a homophobe, and I’ve got the far right hating me because I won’t reject the Log Cabin Republicans endorsement,” Kubosh said, referring to a conservative group that supports LGBTQ rights. “So maybe I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

Carmouche also says Kubosh has made his living in the bail bonds industry by profiting off people committing “survival crimes.”

Kubosh said bondsmen play a necessary role in getting defendants out of jail and said caricatures of bejeweled bondsmen with big cars doesn’t fit him: “People who know me know that I’m not that guy.”

Split along party lines

The race has developed a partisan split: Kubosh is endorsed by conservative groups such as the county GOP and the C Club, while Carmouche is backed by the county Democratic Party, Texas Organizing Project and other progressive groups and politicians.

Kubosh said he rejects party labels, noting he hasn’t voted in a primary election since joining the council. In eight of the nine elections in which he chose a party ballot between 2004 and 2012, however, he voted Republican; the exception was his Democratic campaign for state Senate against Dan Patrick in 2006, the same year he invested in a Dallas radio station Patrick owned.

As of late October, Kubosh held a clear fundraising edge, having raised $99,160 this year to Carmouche’s $26,500. He criticized Carmouche for failing to post her latest campaign finance report on time.

“If she can’t keep up with something as basic as filing her campaign finance reports I don’t see how she could possibly serve as a council member, with all the duties we have,” Kubosh said.

Carmouche said a campaign staffer believed the report had uploaded correctly at the time it was due in late October. The report posted this week after a reporter’s inquiry.